Week 6: better late than never..

So week 6 I decided to recap everything that I went through in a short 7 minute demo. What a mouthful. I never made it to ink and values but that was ok because I think that a lot of my students were overwhelmed with the amount of materials available.

It is currently week 7 and I am at UF for my summer studio courses that I need to take to graduate. So before I forget everything that happened, I wanted to reflect on the 6 weeks that I was present.

What worked:

• Choice Based Learning as a whole worked with the occasional student who didn't understand the allotted freedom to create.
• The classroom function and space was marvelous, once we got through two centers it was easier to spread them out. I kept basic drawing materials at each center to make up for some space issues at the beginning.
• The students became really patient during the demos and they knew that  it wouldn't take me long and they could work soon.
• After I added pictures to the stations, the room started to stay cleaner.
• Hiring classroom keepers a week before I left gave them the initiative to clean and show me they deserved to be hired. That was the cleanest I've ever seen the room and the keepers took responsibility. 

What needed to be changed:

• The post it note was too much during clean up and it was wasting paper. I changed it to a chart that gets glued on to their portfolios. This worked better and I could track all 8 weeks in on place. Less work for me. 
• Talk time needed to be more structured and that is a change I will make for the Fall Capstone Project.
• Keeping some students on task was difficult, they would make one thing in 15 minutes and say they were done. I need to find something for them after besides making something else which they wont even care about because they are no longer inspired. Maybe classroom jobs?
• Order more paper for portfolios. Unfortunately some of my paper didn't come in until the 3rd week and by then I had run out of the ones I was using for large portfolios. It was worse than newsprint but the biggest thing we had in the building. Make sure to get more. 
• Get more copy paper!

Overall there was so much I learned from this trial and error experience that I now feel more prepared for the Fall Capstone Projects. I really liked the classroom function as a whole so now I can do more observations on the problem solving aspect which is what I wanted to focus on. Summer is a hectic time at work and the school year brings a different set of kids and skills.

I am really looking forward to it. For now I'm having nightmares about what my classroom will look like when I return. Thankfully I hid most of the really good stuff. We shall see.