Extra Assignment for my students

So my mentor is letting me introduce my own second learning activity to her two classes for history so I can use their finished products for decorations for my 2 hour presentation.
I am planing on having them draw a small poster that represents something they learned along with a paragraph at least 5 sentences describing why they drew what they did and what they liked about it. So I will be posting more on that over the next few days.

Blog 25: Mentorship

    Literal

Linkto log....

Mentor: Heidi Clauss htcme1@gmail.com (only allowed to post her email on the internet)

    Interpretive

This experience as given me an in depth look at what it takes to educate today's children. I have been able to help students gain a better understanding of the different core subjects they need to know and in a way they truly enjoy. Because of all this I have gained a better understanding of my senior topic and have found an answer for my essential question. This is important to me because, it has been a great help in answering my essential question and in my future job occupation. (Opening my own career camp to help students starting from middle school going to high school take what they like and find careers where they can either integrate or use what they like to make a living in their future. )

   Applied

My essential question is “What is the best way to use art as a teaching tool in middle school?” By working in a middle school setting I was able to see all the different factors that could change the effectiveness of art integrated activities giving me the ability to better answer my essential question.

EXTRA UNDERSTANDING POST

Hey, so this post is for extra understanding of my answers. I put it under a new label called understanding. Enjoy
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10ncIbFpMZJDa1TA0Ck3BF9kMNFjXHajH_LfYgArd4Vk/edit

Blog 24: Exit Interview Questions

Exit Interview break down

1. What is your essential question?  What is the best answer to your question and why?
   

EQ: “What is the best way to use art as a teaching tool in middle school?”

Best Answer: #4 The best way to use art as a teaching tool in middle school is to create art integrated activities using a basic understanding of art integration, each individual classes, pedagogy, and what you are teaching.

I chose this for my answer because it takes into account multiple things that my research said was important for a student's learning ability.

-A Mind at a Time by ….Melvin Levine (Back round on how to teach and the differences between students.)

-ARTSEDGE: What Is Arts Integration? …. Kennedy Center (Great back round and information on what art integration is)

2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
   

In order to arrive to at this final answer, I went through 3 different answers:

Answer 1; The best way to use art as a teaching tool in a middle school class is to improve the first and/or second learning experiences by creating fun interactive learning experiences.

While this answer is important and considers the timing of when you introduce the art integrated activities you still need the basic knowledge to create the activities.

-Heidi Clauss/ “Picture This”article by Hilary Oswald

Answer 2; The best way to use art as a teaching tool in middle school is to use art integrated activities in a stable, encouraging, sanitary, and creative learning environment.

If a child feels unsafe they are going to not want to participate in the different activities no matter how interesting. But while this is an important answer to consider, when compared to my best answer I noticed that my best answer was better tailored to my essential question leaving this answer more suited to by my extra note

-Classroom Environment | Classroom Quality Standards.... NC State University & the book “A Mind at a Time” Some of the chapters go into what happens when a child is put down or puts themselves down

Answer 3: The best way to use art as a teaching tool in middle school is to have a balance of art and content.

When looking at this answer compared to my best answer I realized that an educator will be unable create a balance between the art and content in their activities if they don't have that basic understanding that my best answer gives

-Heidi Clauss

3. What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?
   

Some problems I faced during this project are as followed:

-Trying to find a good place to mentor at till I was old enough to work with my mentors at Las Palmas middle school.

To resolve this problem I had to contact different schools and teachers in the San Dimas school district. Luckily I had a neighbor who was in the district who was able to get me in touch with Mr. Jacobs a teacher at Lone Hill, giving me a place where I could work n a classroom environment and see the dynamics of a different environment other that the ones at Las Palmas.

Another major problem I faced was during the time I was reading my print sources like Cognitive Psychology and Instruction. There were a lot of things that were difficult to understand. And with the chapters all being extremely long it was difficult to say focused and understand what they were saying. Luckily since these were books my mentor had given me and books she had already read she understood much of what the chapters were saying. That plus many of the more difficult books had summaries at the end of each chapter or even a glossary at the end of the book I was able to understand much of what each chapter was talking about.

EX: Lexical Network a memory network in which the names of concepts are stored

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
   

The Two most significant sources are....

-ARTSEDGE: What Is Arts Integration? From the Kennedy Center, because it gave me a more in depth definition into what art integration is and it lead me to different sources that I could use. It also played an important role in backing up my best answer

-“A Mind at a time” written by Melvin Levine because it gave me a great look into how a student learns, making it so I could see where I could use art integration to improve a child's learning.

5. What is your product and why?
   

My product for my senior project is that I have gained a better understanding of how to integrate things that a person may not usually enjoy with things they would. I will be able to use this in the future when I build my career camp. I will be able to take the things a student likes and show them how to integrate it with the future careers.

I mostly learned this from my mentor-ship with Heidi Clauss and my other two best sources

Title: 2014 Interview

1.  Who did you interview and what house are they in?

Garrett Holmes, South House

2.  What ideas do you have for your senior project and why?

Garrett is planing on doing something in the medical field of nursing, he already has a contact who may be able to help him out. I made sure to inform him that if he really wishes to work in this field for his project then he should start looking for other options now because his contact may fall through and if he does it takes a long time to get into that field from what I have heard.

3.  What do you plan to do for your summer 10 hour mentorship experience?
Garrett is going to see if he can assist or shadow a doctor over the summer for his 10 hours of mentorship.

4.  What do you hope to see or expect to see in watching the 2013 2-hour presentations?
Garrett hopes to see seniors that don't just surround their project on their power points for their senior project, he also hopes to see some interesting activities that will engage him.

5.  What questions do you have that I can answer about senior year or senior project (or what additional information did you tell them about senior year or senior project)?

Garrett had questions on what kind of smaller project will he have to complete for senior year other than the two hour presentation, so I enforced him on all the other projects like the science component and the I-search paper.

Blog 22: 3-Column Chart

Okay, here is the link to my 3-Column Chart. If there are any problems let me know. : )