I did my best to provide an environment that stimulated the "inner artist" wiithin my students. My goal was to encourage students to take risks and take pride in their work. I found that displaying student work was a great way of accomplishing the latter. The former was more difficult. It is my belief that this does not happen overnight but is the result of the teacher's attitude and disposition towards art. I feel that if teachers model a positive attitude towards art, then it will be more likely that a similar disposition is instilled in their students which will enhance self-efficacy. For my students, this was extremely important. Many of their previous teachers had labelled them as a "problem class". Creating art was one way that I was able to make in-roads to this self-fulfilling prophecy and instill feelings of success.
I was astonished by the depth that fine arts could be incorporated into classroom management. I used music as a way to keep students on-task and working cooperatively. I had students bring in some of their favourite music and played it during seat work and group work (previewed by myself of course). The results were great. Students worked more quietly and were more effective in group work. Another way I incorporated music into my practicum was to play classical music at the beginning of the day while students entered the classroom and began their daily edit. Although some students initially complained, the results were beneficial in creating a positive environment to start the day. Student performance at the daily edit also increased which supports what our text says about music increasing academic achievement. I believe that the results could be even more profound at the primary age.
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2 comments:
Isn't it interesting how you can reach out to so many people through art? I think it's great that you found so many opportunities to play music in your classroom!
When I played music during art time for my last Practicum, the students were definitely more focused. Did you play music while the students were completing other work (besides art)? If that worked well, I think I'll give it a try for my next Practicum.
Thanks for the comment and question Janine. Yes, I did play music while students completed work besides art. I played music when they were working on writing assignments or during "catch-up" time. I would highly recommend it for two reasons: 1) I found that the background noise reduced the noise level and 2)I found that it was a good tool for classroom management. Students were well-behaved. They did not want to lose their listening to music priveleges.
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