Reflection on my teaching experience

Reflection on my teaching experience
Scope and sequence

“Welcome to visual Art; motto: Creativity and originality” these are the words on a six feet by two feet yellow banner that catches your eyes when you enter my classroom G307 at C.W.Long Middle school The size of my classroom is about 24 feet by60 feet and it is all covered with students quality works and inspirational and instructional poster most of them personally made.
At Long middle school the connection classes which is made up of Visual Art, Band, Orchestra, Chorus, Spanish, Technology, Physical Education and Health works with each homeroom for a eight weeks and the students rotate to another connection class. Each student takes two connection classes every eight weeks. Mondays, Wednesday and every other Fridays are A-Days and Tuesdays, Thursdays and every other Friday are B-Days.
With only eight weeks of class per student for the year, it is very critical that a teacher design instructions that will motivate and at the same time educate them with aesthetic experiences that will in order words empower them to talk intelligent about art and culture. In order to achieve these aesthetic experiences within eight weeks in a year per student, I have designed my scope and sequence that alternate the teaching of the Elements of Art and The Principles of Design infused with studio activities, Art Criticism, meet the artist and recently Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) yearly. The sequence for an eight week session is as follows:

Week 1: Introduction to visual art and pre-test
Week 2: Art Criticism and visit to a museum
Week 3: Make a portfolio and sketchbook journaling
Week 4: Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)
Week 5: Introduction Principles of Design
Week 6: Principle of Unity, Balance and Variety
Week 7: Principles of Rhythm/ pattern, and movement
Week 8: Principles of Emphasis and contrast and Post Test

The alternate year the first four weeks activities above are the same, followed by five weeks of Elements of Art activities such as follows

Week 5: Introduction to Element of Art
Week 6: Dot and line Activities
Week 7: Shape, Form and texture activities
Week 8: Color, value and Space activities and Post -Test
I have followed this scope and sequence for the past five years with the exception of VTS that was introduce this quarter march 2010.With little modification each year it has worked very well for me and the students. It gets better and better each year but there is still more room for improvement. The knowledge of an ongoing action research will help to improve teaching and learning in my classroom. Most of the theme, topic or content of the supplemental work sheets are personally design by me base on things related to their visual culture that they can relate to. The evidence of the workability of this scope and sequence can be seen in the numerous competitions and exhibition my students have participated in each year and the awards and accolade they’ve received over the five years since I have been following this plan. An example of the success of this plan and students achievement is the winning of awards each year at the Invitational Art Educational Fair for APS k-12. In 2007 – 2008 school fair my student won the over all individual best of show award middle school division, In 2008-2009 school year my student won third price in the individual best of show and my school won the overall best of show , middle school division and this year my student won two awards. All the participating students are always given honorable ribbons too. These and many more that time and space will not allow me to mention tell me that the plan is working. Thanks to ArtsAPS for giving me the opportunity to share this experience.