PME 1 NS

30/11/18 Teaching Styles Given   this large array of intelligences that students are likely to have and respond to, it is important that teachers understand different teaching styles and approaches to learning to harness the strengths and limit the weaknesses of students. In this essay, I am going to focus on six different approaches to learning before answering the question as to the assessment approach I wish to promote: 1) behaviourist, 2) cognitivist, 3) humanist, 4) social & situational, 5) critical/transformative, and 6) self-directed. Behaviourist theorists believe that learning can be conducted when the required behaviour is learnt through a task being repeated by the teacher accompanied with feedback. To discourage mistakes instant correction is made. For example, Ivan Pavlov’s famous study in 192O’s, were he taught dogs to salivate upon hearing a bell which was shortly followed by food. When Pavlov stopped feeding them after the bell they continued to salivate ...

27/09/18 Three pupils in this class Today they are continuing their object drawing from the previous week. Two of the pupil are carrying on with their broken bottles whilst one finishes off the paint brush. This week the two pupils with the broken bottles started to add colour with colouring pencils. The bottles are a dark green which they simplified the ground underneath with yellow paper. This group is the eldest group I observe and there is a very different dynamic in the class. The pupils are quite and attentive and there is zero disruption in the class. Since this was a double the girls had a good stretch of time.

24/09/18 The class is divided into two groups one group is starting life drawing with Ms S and the second group is starting life drawing (they swapped from the previous two weeks). I was not prepared to introduce the class to life so I decided to start them off with gesture drawings , like I did with the second years in the previous class. The pupils were reluctant to start, as they expressed their disinterest of the subject, telling me it was their second and third choice in first year. I started them off with a 30 second drawing and finished with a 15 minute drawing. The pupils eventually got into it and I rotated to models for every second pose so that all could have a chance to experience it. This time unlike the second years I gave them a brief breakdown of how to measure the body (when they did the longer pose). I showed them the monocular way and the measuring off the room. Most of them tired the monocular way but didn’t stick to it. Some of the pupils lost interest and st...

24.09.18 The class is split in two, 10 and 11. So most days Ms S and Ms D have a class each. Eventually on a Monday I will have half the class so when Ms D is out I take that class. Now I had no prep for it and this was their first class of life drawing. I decided to just to gesture drawings as it is only a 40 minute class and they were leaving early for a uniform inspection. All of the pupils were very nervous to start this. As I had just did this myself in a class I thought the experience was great to get me start back to life drawing as I myself find it is very difficult. We did a series of poses starting and 30 seconds and building up to 10 minutes and swapped models every second pose so they all got a feel of the time and what they could achieve. Looking back I should have give them a brief breakdown of the figure and how you approach drawing it but I didn’t. I don't think it totally necessary for gesture drawing but perhaps a bit more knowledge would have been helpful f...

24/09/18 This is the last sampling class they have that I am observing. They got shown so samples of the JC. One being the horse as mentioned before, just highlighting the painting can be done in other mediums (horse done in pastel and colouring pencils). Ms S showed another project (one that was new to me too) it was the second theme of the junior cert which was ‘Look up-Things that fly’, and the pupil chose owls as their concentrated theme. She had a beautiful poster which had amazing use of pastel and pencil to create atmosphere within the painting. They then moved onto their first exercise which is the introduction to lettering and making words into animations that describe the word.    They again where give a list of words to work with and told to divide the page into 4 or 6 and explore different words. Again some people in the got out rulers and measured, some just folded the sheet, and some just went straight in and drew the line freehand. Its very interesting to ...

21/09/18 This is one of the last sampling class of first year. It follows the same format as the last two group I observed. This is a single class so the time is limited once the group of 23 have brought in seats from next door and sat down. They got a breakdown of the Junior Cert. Ms S lets them know that they don’t have to be excellent at art that during the course of the year they will be learning techniques that will help them develop skills that will help them in the JC. However she does stress for them to be careful putting it down as a second chose because this will be a three year commitment. Now I think this is a good and a bad thing. I think highlighting the fact it will not be a dose class but I cant help but feel it may scary people away. But then on the other hand it must be hard to motivate someone in the class who doesn’t want to do this subject, and thus distracting or even taking time away from a pupil who does. Ms S reads through the themes from last year JC a...

21/09/18 This is the classes last week of object drawing. They started off with the paint brush to explore the different textures i.e. metal, wood and hair bit, and now they are being challenged to try a teddy bear. This I think is an excellent challenge as is exploring texture without hard outlines (as a teddy does have a solid outline.). They are still on in the exploration phase so pencil is the chosen medium. But they are all eager to use their new pastel, which was part of their supplies list. Ms S explains that that’s not a suitable medium for such drawings and that they will be introducing colour with colouring pencils. As they set up Ms S runs through the simplifying of the background and ground to highlight the shadows. Ms S shows examples of how you can use different colour card under certain colours (Yellow under a green bottle highlights the light and shade). The whole class struggled with the texture of the teddy and almost all the girls asked for help for the foresh...