The last time I shared on here, I gave away some of the "secrets" to how I structure lessons in my class using Design Thinking. This was all shared before getting started with teaching this school year. 

Our school decided to start the year in a hybrid model, but it was very much a back and forth for weeks worth of meetings before landing on that option.  

To save myself from the inevitable stress of trying to figure out how to teach half of my students in person and the other half at home, I decided to plan everything like we were learning remotely this year. That way it works no matter what the learning situation is for a student and is stable and predictable for students, parents, and me. 

I took some of the things that worked best during remote teaching and learning this past Spring and added some additional ideas, tools, and other things, too. There were still some problems I had to find solutions for, and for the most part, I think I have. 

So, one BIG hurdle I had to figure out how to clear was organizing ways for students to get a chance to learn a variety of media. Usually, if I wanted to introduce a media or concept to students, we would do a round-robin experience of students getting to use the media (often in partner work). Now we have to do it in a way where we did not share supplies and it was safe. 

The solution was the interactive skill builder you see below. This tool (made with Google Slides) allows students to select from a variety of choices and create work that will help them gain and build skills. 

In addition to picking one from each set, students took notes on all concepts in case they might use them later. This skill builder is a lead-in for our first challenge, which many students create portraits or images of people because of the theme. 

The below images are examples of what students made during this skill builder. It was such a nice variety of works and the choice of what students got to use helped engage all learners. 

After completing our skill builders (which happened to be our last week of hybrid instruction), students returned to start the Digital Art Bootcamp. This again offers some choice and sets of key terms for students to know and understand. Students could select what to make based on their ability and skill level and what they wanted to learn. 

​Below is the board we used to complete this:

As you can see, the portrait was still a main subject because it helped students prepare for what our next activity would be: planning for challenge one. 

Starting last year, I designed planning guides for each unit that used the Design Thinking Process as a way to organize information from the unit. Every Challenge we do has a set of artists that explore a common theme, key questions that focus on the theme, a series of thumbnail sketches students use to help gather ideas/feedback to create their work and a place to track their learning and check for understanding. The guide below and presentation that go with it show how I have adapted these to fit this year's situation. The presentation is much more interactive and allows for students to revisit what they are learning about as they need to throughout the process. Start clicking on it and you will see what I mean. 

The result of this overall, revamping of what I have been implementing into my classroom for almost the last decade to meet the safety needs of today is what you see below. Students making work that is uniquely theirs. Inspired by artists, but not copying, while picking and choosing skills they want to employ to implement to create a wide array of pieces that are connected by being works that look at making art about themselves or others. 

Once this work comes to a close, we cap everything off with a quiz that assess understanding of skills and concepts from what they have learned. People are always a little shocked when they learn we have quizzes in art, but it is a great way to see what is being retained. I always give a review guide for students before so they can organize their notes and understanding in one place. 

It is my 17th year of teaching and I am most definitely not claiming to have it all figured out quite yet and probably never will. What I do know if that I have had the chance to spend the last 17 years teaching the same grade level and subject area so I can get to this place with my students.

I have had to make a lot of adjustments (many I can't wait to be rid of and some I will keep post-pandemic). Even with all of the restrictions and safety protocols and having to cut some things I would normally do with students out, it has been reassuring with this work demonstrating that we never have to cut out the creative voice offered by each individual student and we have managed to maintain a level of quality that I am still amazed at looking back on with what we have done so far this year. 

If you want to see more from my classroom, check out my Instagram and Artsonia galleries. 

As with most things this semester, I have been inspired by other teachers and used past lessons to mash up ideas of what can work for students as we learn together, while a part. Every end of the semester, before saying good-bye to students, I like to offer a multiple-part final reflection/exam that asks them to use digital tools to demonstrate and reflect on what they learned this semester. 

To finish out this semester, we continued that approach with a digital poster and virtual gallery.  

The digital posters ask students to take an artist we studied this semester and select an artist from Scholastic Art Magazine to make a comparison to using either Google Slides or Adobe Spark. In doing so, it gives students the opportunity to look back at what we have learned and then make connections to what they select from the magazine to showcase that learning. 

Here are a few student examples:

For the second part of the final, students are asked to create a virtual gallery of between 3-5 of their favorite works using Google Slides. Students then save the slide as a JPEG image and upload it to Artsonia, so we can put it into our final art show for the school year. 

​Here are some of those results: 

Overall, this end of year activity is bittersweet. 

I am so proud of how well these students have jumped on creating this work, but so sad we cannot be back in the classroom to do it. I will definitely do this again in the future. And introducing the lesson using the published slideshow below was a GREAT way to share it with my students and get them engaged in the lesson.

You can click through the presentation below to see how to make both items! 

As I move forward in this new way of connecting with students, I plan to use this publishing function of Google Slides so that the remote learning lessons are more inviting (rather than just links in a folder). 

I even used it to celebrate our students for the end of year art show, too! 

I hope everyone has a safe and great summer! 

I will be spending some time in the coming weeks, posting work from my classroom this year onto this space. If you find something useful, use it and give me a shout-out.