BellaHendry_ eportfolio - Community and Connection Building

Community and Connection Building

Standard #3: Learning Environments

Standard #7: Planning for Instruction

Standard #8: Instructional Strategies

Standard #10: Collaboration

Building connections and cultivating communities that produce an inviting, collaborative, constructive environment for all learners and educators.

Standard #3: Learning Environments

"The teacher works with learners to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, encouraging positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation."

Class Saddle Bound Printed Books - Biddeford High School

This project was a large and involved undertaking for my Introduction to Drawing and Color 1 classes. Each student produced two practice linocuts and a final summative block focusing on either a bird, bug, or imagery of their choice. They then each created 20 prints which were divied out to every student to create their own bound book comprised of every students work to celebrate each students work and individual artistry.

Setting Expectations Through Class Conversations - Biddeford High School

Students worked together to organize printed out examples of work from exceeding expectations to not meeting expectations. After organizing, students participated in a gallery walk and group discussion to talk about why some groups placed pieces in the lineup differently. This helped students gain new perspectives and reinstated the expectations with clear visual examples.

Kind Words from an Inspired Student Biddeford High School

As an artist/educator it is our job to inspire students to feel like they can always achieve their visions. This is cultivated through a learning environment that is focused on self-confidence and support.

Goodbyes from Westbrook Middle School

Creating meaningful relationships with every student is a primary goal in my practice. Students will flourish when they feel seen, supported, and heard. These sweet messages reinforce how powerful these connections can be.

Standard #7: Planning for Instruction

"The teacher draws upon knowledge of content areas, cross-disciplinary skills, learners, the community, and pedagogy to plan instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals."

Maine Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Color Theory Lesson - Mother of Purl in Freeport

For this workshop, I am presenting on color theory. While I am discussing color theory and how colors interact, I also wanted to provide the participants with a physical example of color interactions based on the materials they will be using in the self-directed portion of the day. I made some examples of complimentary color interactions using fabric and embroidery thread. It was also important for me to cover how and why color interacts with the human eye and objects so I presented on the science behind color theory.

Youth Art Month Workshop - Portland Museum of Art

For the YAM workshop, I created this easy-to-follow steps sheet. The goal with this workshop was for any age group to be able to participate and create something pertaining to Ming Smith and selective color in 10 minutes or less. To meet these goals and aid in accessibility for all, we printed out black and white images - to mimic the photographs of Ming Smith - from the PMA archives, the greater Portland area, and some of Smiths work. We prompted participants to focus on how color can alter the mood or feeling of the image and provided them with numerous materials to experiment with. I wanted participants to be able to easily consume this steps sheet and included images of the process.

Scaffolding Anatomical Structures Through Exquisite Corpse - Biddeford High School

To start the Passion Portrait Lesson, students participated in two versions of exquisite corpse. In order to help students understand how to play, we began by doing a regular round with students having artistic liberty to play and create freely by making whacky and strange figures. I then shifted the focus onto the face which was broken down into three sections. Students were still asked to be silly and creative, but they were tasked with structuring the face into: the eyes and up, the nose and ears, and mouth and chin. Every student participated and got up to move around the room, finding a new piece to add on to. Students worked collaboratively to begin the scaffolding process of understanding facial structures.

Standard #8: Instructional Strategies

"The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to access and appropriately apply information."

Pin the Feature on the Head - Biddeford High School

Students worked in teams to compete in a "pin the tail on the donkey"-style game to scaffold an understanding of facial anatomy prior to starting the portrait painting unit. Students were first told to close their eyes and attempt to get it in the right place, this then developed into students being able to see and working on precision and speed. In between each round, we discussed as a group which face represented anatomical structures most successfully and why.

Cultural Foods Brainstorming - Westbrook Middle School

The concept of "cultural foods" is often subjective and can be tricky to wrap your brain around. To provide students with some additional brainstorming for their Pop Art Cultural Foods project, I initiated a mind map. Students were put into pairs and were prompted to discuss together foods that they relate to the categories that we came up with together. Students were able to learn more about each others cultures while thinking about what is prevelant in their own lives.

Standard #10: Collaboration

"The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, and other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the procession."

Community Mural - Biddeford High School

Students worked collaboratively to execute and plan a community mural located in a central hallway in the high school. We collaborated with the multilingual professionals in the school to create a list of the nationalities represented in the Biddeford school community and comprised the mural of textiles and flags connecting to those identities. We conferred with teachers in the school that identified with these nationalities - the flag or Iraq, for example, includes Arabic writing. To ensure that this would be a correct representation of the language, we asked a math teacher to write the words on the flag. This community mural was a large undertaking, through this project, the students were able to gain more knowledge and appreciation for the diversity that is present in their community and represent it through collaborative and creative means.

Jai Santoro - Visiting Artist Talk at Biddeford High School

I collaborated with local Portland muralist and painter Jai Santoro in giving an artist talk for my Painting 2 students prior to starting a school mural. I wanted the students to get an understanding of how to paint a mural from someone who has lots of experience, Jai being a MECA&D graduate meant that I was able to work closely with them throughout the planning process for this artist talk to make sure the students were given the necessary information to start the planning process. Jai stayed with the class throughout the planning stage and gave useful insight into how to best approach a mural that is meant for all community members.

Learning From My Peers

The MAT cohort sports a wide range of skills and specializations. To the left, Hannah B is teaching me how to do a gelli print. This little how-to session led to the inspiration behind my collaborative linocut lesson at Biddeford High School.

To the right, I am co-leading a workshop in weaving with Kaylin. A month prior to this workshop, I had never weaved. Kaylin took the time to teach me the necessary techniques and skills to be able to assist and co-instruct this workshop.

Collaboration with my peers has been vital to my learning process throughout this program. It has provided me with new perspectives, skills, and knowledge which will be invaluable in my future teaching position.