Caitlin Lenorud
This semester has changed my outlook as a teacher in several ways.
Not only has life been drastically different considering the pandemic but
college and the way I do my job at the preschool have changed too. I
have learned to give more grace and hope others will extend grace to me
as well. Everything feels more challenging and you never know what
other people including students and my coworkers are going through. I
have also learned to ask for help more freely. It is hard to let others know
when you are struggling but my coworkers and professors have been
more than willing to work with me and accommodate for me when I
communicate with them. This has taught me that I want to be that
person for my students when I am a teacher. I want to teach because I
care and giving leniency and showing understanding once in awhile is a
way to show that you care about someone’s overall well being.
The skills I have learned in this art class will help me in my career as
an elementary teacher. I have learned to use my time wisely when it
comes to bigger projects and planning out lessons. Your feedback has
helped me quite a bit to understand what I could do better for my lesson
planning.I have learned how to incorporate creativity in the classroom. If
you think about a lot of lessons in the different subjects there are ways
to add a creative process that will help students be more engaged and
potentially remember the material better. Another skill that I noticed we
used in your classroom was collaboration. We talked a lot about our
projects that we made, especially during the TAB experiences and the
final lessons we presented to each other. It is so good to work together
and talk. Bringing people together makes learning so much of a more
enjoyable experience.
Without a doubt the most beneficial part of this class for me was the
TAB activities. Letting students have a choice and put stock into their
projects is very new concept to me. I think it is important to let them
choose because there is no limit to what student’s can create when you
tell them they have free creative choice. It is much more fun for students
and the teacher to see what each other come up with. I came into this
class thinking I was not an “artist.” I was wrong. I can create art and
make interesting pieces that I can be proud of. I want to encourage my
students to be proud of everything they do and to do their best while
having fun learning.
The visual literacy lesson is one of the things from this class that
sparked my interest. I spent a lot of time working on my lesson and
was over the moon when I received a good grade on it. I love how it
incorporates the videos, pictures, and vocabulary lessons. From
already having experience in schools I know that there are several
students in each class that can benefit from these extra supports. It is
not too difficult to stories and videos that enhance your lessons.
Going forward as I finish college I will be looking more into video
literacy and how it helps in the classroom. I think there is a lot of
benefits to this style of teaching and I look forward to using it
someday in my own classroom.
