High School Jewelry Design
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In my second year of student teaching at North Pole High School, I felt a lot more confident in my knowledge about jewelry design, and also in my teaching. The class syllabus remained nearly the same as 2012, so it allowed me to better understand the units and teach them again, with the knowledge and experience from last year. The work that came out of the class was amazing and inspiring.
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Visual Art Academy
I have assisted for multiple VAA. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Art Department hosts the Visual Arts Academy every summer to young aspiring artists from grades 6-12. It is a two week intensive program where students have access to many of the same tools and studios as the university students. They have four classes in a day, and may choose to take the same one fore more than one session, or mix and match wherever their interests are. I assisted the metals professor in the Metals and Jewelry class.
One of the best things about an environment like that is that in a lot of ways, I could not tell who were the 6th graders and who were the Juniors in high school. Beginners or advanced, they were a mixed bag of inspiring students with their own creative ideas and processes. This also allowed me to really understand what Differentiation is in a classroom. You have to be aware of all students and what their needs and capabilities are. As an assistant teacher, I saw how Jack challenged students to do more, planting ideas of how to make their pieces more complicated, more interesting, but never telling them exactly how to do it. He was always there to help them when they got frustrated, and reminded students to take a break when things are getting tiring. It was then that I realized that Jack had done that same thing to me all those years in his studio, and I realized that was what made a great teacher. |