September 26, 2013
Allie's Lesson
Overview
Allie did a great job introducing this lesson. It built right off of Rachel’s lesson, and she even reviewed her lesson first. She reintroduced the big idea and linked it straight to the artist she introduced. When describing the style of Loïc’s work, Allie used many references to popular culture. I thought this was a great way to connect to students seeing how tattoos are already a part of popular culture. She also gave the students many opportunities to voice their opinions and interpretations. She asked many open-ended questions that required individual experience to answer the question. She asked multiple people per one question and even asked expanding questions that allowed the students to elaborate and explain further on a concept. She said many times, “What I want you to take away from that is…” This I thought was a great phrase that tells students that what I am saying right now is important and you should be paying attention and taking notes. It’s more of an alert that lets students know they should be asking questions if they do not understand at that point. I think at one point she may have been running behind schedule, however she handled it well. She described a few of the symbols she had put up, yet still allowed students to explain two of them. She did a great job of scaffolding in her lesson. She incorporated Rachel’s concept of line making but added pattern or repetition to it. At the end of her examples, she showed how all of them were used in the works of Loïc, wrapping everything together.
Throughout the lesson, Allie did a great job of organization. By organization, I mean keeping the lesson organized. In the beginning, she briefly outlined the exercise and went into the slideshow. Before the demonstration, she explained step by step what we were going to do and even repeated herself before we went outside. This kept us all in check and made things run very smoothly.
At the beginning of the demonstration, Allie pointed out something that young students might not understand, personal space. It is obvious to adults, but when you get into a classroom full of young children, things are very different. Students at certain age groups will not grasps the most basic concepts because they just simply are not cognitively developed enough. She did a great job in explaining “a couple fingers distance away from them”. She reinforced this rule while she was following it in her demonstration. Again, she stated that the helper’s pose was very unique, linking the project back to the big idea. She then mentioned that if people did not want to lie on the ground, they could trace their shadow. I think it would have been beneficial to mention that before one of the students lay on the ground, but it was still supportive that she mentioned it. I think having a display already set up saved a lot of time since there were only two definite techniques, which she still did a decent job of explaining. She did a great job using the vocabulary words she introduced in the slideshow, and explaining how she used them and what they meant.
The critique was a great way to compare the creations and see how each person used the techniques they learned and what each depiction meant. It really gets students to realize the concept of interpretation. Something like a symbol can be so individualized that almost no one will know what it stands for until a person tells you. I know that many people had trees among their symbols, yet each one had a different meaning.
Throughout the lesson, Allie did a great job of organization. By organization, I mean keeping the lesson organized. In the beginning, she briefly outlined the exercise and went into the slideshow. Before the demonstration, she explained step by step what we were going to do and even repeated herself before we went outside. This kept us all in check and made things run very smoothly.
At the beginning of the demonstration, Allie pointed out something that young students might not understand, personal space. It is obvious to adults, but when you get into a classroom full of young children, things are very different. Students at certain age groups will not grasps the most basic concepts because they just simply are not cognitively developed enough. She did a great job in explaining “a couple fingers distance away from them”. She reinforced this rule while she was following it in her demonstration. Again, she stated that the helper’s pose was very unique, linking the project back to the big idea. She then mentioned that if people did not want to lie on the ground, they could trace their shadow. I think it would have been beneficial to mention that before one of the students lay on the ground, but it was still supportive that she mentioned it. I think having a display already set up saved a lot of time since there were only two definite techniques, which she still did a decent job of explaining. She did a great job using the vocabulary words she introduced in the slideshow, and explaining how she used them and what they meant.
The critique was a great way to compare the creations and see how each person used the techniques they learned and what each depiction meant. It really gets students to realize the concept of interpretation. Something like a symbol can be so individualized that almost no one will know what it stands for until a person tells you. I know that many people had trees among their symbols, yet each one had a different meaning.
Reflections
I thought this activity was a great way for everyone to get to know each other. Students not only got to see how each person utilized the technical skill they were shown, they also got to know more about each other. I thought that this was a very good lesson for teachers to get to know their students. It was mentioned in class that this may have been insensitive to the Jewish culture, which is something I had never thought of. I know that this form of tattooing has a very different, uplifting context behind it, however I cannot say that it would be an ethical lesson for someone with that background. There were not that many things that I would have changed with Allie’s lesson though. She got the class involved as much as possible while still keeping the lesson organized and on schedule, and constantly related back to academic vocabulary words and the big idea