TQS II, ELEMENT C: Teachers engage students as individuals, including those with diverse needs and interest, across a range of ability levels by adapting their teaching for the benefit of all students.

Reflection: The unexpected landscapes lesson I altered to make more accessible to students of varying disabilities in our Specialized Learning Support classroom (SLS). It was important that I created a lesson that could be manipulated in such a way that every student that came into the classroom feels like they can be their most successful selves. Some of the adaptations outside of my curriculum were utilizing adaptive scissors and glue sticks instead of rubber cement. Within the content of the lesson, the artifacts pictured above, and the supporting curriculum documents that I created it is apparent that alterations and adaptations were made. Some of these adaptations were making larger pre-printed collage images to help the SLS (Specialized Learning Support) students utilize the material in a more accessible way that still worked on collage building and the creation of an environment. It was clear throughout the collaging process that my students in the SLS class were engaged and interested in the art they were creating. To further adapt this lesson, I think I could add a larger variety of images, include more environmental examples, and provide my students with construction paper backgrounds. Though this lesson seemed like a relatively engaging topic I do believe there are even more changes that could be made to help improve the experiences that my students are receiving.

TQS III, ELEMENT A: Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their student.

Reflection: Much of my reflection for TQS III, Element A came after my initial teaching of this lesson. After reflecting on this lesson and how these unexpected landscapes turned out after week one, I decided to change some aspects of the lesson to improve the success of the students. Initially students were given papers that were approximately 12x14 inches, students struggled with gaining significant amounts of completion alongside becoming very fatigued with the project. This prompted me to cut the paper in half to help improve some of the difficulties my students were experiencing. Furthermore, I encouraged my students to complete at least some of their details in their unexpected landscape with collage and finish it off by coloring in the remaining sections of their work. There was a great deal of personal reflection in regards to my teaching as well as reflecting on my students and where they were developmentally that led me to make the decisions that I made. The outcome and success rate of the students from week one to week four is apparent in the artifact images above. Going forward with this lesson I will continue taking into account the intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development to ensure my students are receiving the most appropriate instruction.

TQS II, ELEMENT C: Teachers engage students as individuals, including those with diverse needs and interest, across a range of ability levels by adapting their teaching for the benefit of all students

Reflection: The clay pinch pot animal lesson was crafted to reflect the emerging skills of the first graders and kindergartners at the school. Due to my young students still learning much about art and classroom behaviors It was important to continue to build art skills by carefully explaining how to create a pinch pot and work with clay in general. Alongside teaching clay rules and procedures I also made sure to provide alternate methods of forming the pinch pot since many students are still perfecting their fine motor skills. Furthermore, to adapt to varying student interests, it was encouraged that students explore different animals that they would be interested in creating instead of providing a prescribed animal that all students were required to make. With this freedom, students were able to create what they felt passionate about which led to them to not compare their animal pinch pots to one another. Though students had success, one element I would alter going forward is spending more time on different shapes and methods that can be used with clay so that students are able to expand their clay vocabulary and skill set to make even greater progress.

TQS III, ELEMENT A: Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their student

Reflection: One of the most notable reflections for myself as an educator during this lesson was finding ways to teach clay rules and procedures in a way that my younger students would not only grasp but also utilize. I took into account the physical and intellectual aspects of my four, five, and six year old students especially to assure that they too could create art they were proud of. One of the decisions that I made when first teaching this lesson was to break down each day into its own mini lesson. For example, day one was talking about a pinch pot and brainstorming animals that we could make a pinch pot into, day two was making pinch pots, day three was exploring clay and creating spheres, coils and scoring and slipping, and day four and five were days used to create our brainstormed animals. In the artifacts of the clay pinch pot animals it can be seen that students were utilizing these different methods of spheres, coils, pinching and more to create animals and shapes to help portray their pinch pot animal. The choices that were made to split up the clay project into multiple days came as a result of initially trying to incorporate too many elements into one day. After realizing that students were having difficulties with applying all they had learned in one or two days I decided to split it into the mini lessons that I had listed above.