Study Reflection 3.8.2019
My research on Investigating Student Motivation in High School Art Curriculum has changed how I am structuring my curriculum in all of my High School courses. Just this week I sent out a poll to see which lesson my classes would prefer to explore first and why they were interesting in that medium. I'm putting my students interests first over what I think they would enjoy. My awareness of my students' personalities and how that affects my classroom environment and trying out strategies has improved. In a class I had a student who needed to have a quieter space to focus so I arranged my whole class to give him the opportunity to chose a better spot for himself. I also have been pushing my students' voice on being reflective of their work and finding deeper meanings when doing our projects. An area I didn't even think my study would affect includes the course description for my 2D Fundamentals class. It now states that "Students will practice and develop their own style during the course." Another area would be that when I speak about my ideas from experiencing this study in my AIW group (Authentic Intellectual Work) that my group members are very supportive and by talking to them about my experience I have noticed them reaching out to me more about project-based learning in their classrooms.
The major takeaway for me from facilitating and experiencing this study is the enhancements and modifications I have integrated into my own teaching practices. These enhancements and modifications have revived my units/lessons and have produced work that students have found to be personally beneficial, not only from the enjoyment of the project but for their future knowledge of art concepts. The relationships I fostered during the study with my class were another amazing takeaway and I know that this was a class that I will never forget, from our conversations to the unique spin on projects the students implemented.
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If I had a redo on my study I would work on the few verbal complaints my participants did have during the study. One such example to fix would be having a goal checklist so students had a timeline to work from. This would assist in finishing the assignments in a more timely fashion and hopefully alleviate the stress of having multiple projects at once. I would also require students to have fewer images (3 instead of 5) to create their mixed media project so that it didn’t take up so much of the semester. Even though I will not be gathering data next time I teach this course I still plan on doing these modifications to the units and continue to implement strategies to support student's voice in my classrooms.