School Placement Week 2

It was my first Monday teaching in the school and went much better than some of my first classes last week. My first year painting group were very enthusiastic and engaging. The pupils were asking questions and engaging in discussions. The group brain storm on the board about ‘The contents of my cupboards’ went extremely well. Pupils had many ideas and all participated which was a change from last week’s groups.

The PowerPoint used in this lesson seemed to work well in terms of explaining the art element and composition. When some of the pupils who could not grasp negative space in the lesson asked me to re explain I used the PowerPoint again to show. Throughout the lesson I could switch back to slides when asking pupils to remember certain point. I think this worked extremely well and would not have been so successful if I were using visual aids.

I think my Art History lesson could have been much better in terms of enthusiasm and engagement. I created a PowerPoint and included a number of images so there wasn’t much text and I moved around the room when I spoke to make it somewhat more interesting however the pupils were very quiet and did not say much throughout the lesson. I asked them numerous questions to try get discussion started on Bronze Age artefacts and as a class they seemed reluctant to even try or give an opinion. I broke the class up with a practical task on Repousse which the pupils did and seemed to enjoy however their enthusiasm was still low. I am unsure on ways to make the lessons for them more exciting and to still include the amount of content the teacher wants covered.