High School Practicum: Day 3 and 4 (2 hours)

In order to spend more time in the classroom with Mr. R, I began attending his first hour classes on Mondays and Thursdays. In this hour, his advanced 3D students are working on a batik process. I had a wonderful time with this class this week and have enjoyed getting to know each student a little better. In order for a student to take the advanced course, they must complete the beginning 3D course. I was interested to see that the curriculum went right from beginning to advanced, instead of including an intermediate level course as well.

The students were just beginning the batik process, and were either completing sketchbook assignments prior to working on their batiks, or finishing the last assignment. In these two hours, I noticed how many different paces the students are at. Even more than the Friday afternoon hours, this 3D class has every student at a different pace and level of skill.  It was a great first day with the class, I got to know a few names and faces and enjoyed talking to these students about what they were doing for their projects.

The batiks were to be done on T-shirts or sheets of fabric (in order to make a wall hanging). I liked the idea of incorporating 2D and 3D  by thinking two dimensionally and applying it to a three dimensional concept. My favorite part of these two days was reminding the students with T-shirts how they can engage the viewer by having a part of their  design wrap around the shirt in order to make them want to see the front or the back from a staionary view. They enjoyed hearing this concept and I heard a lot of, "I hadn't ever thought of that"'s. Although it was only one hour, I enjoyed this 3D class and look forward to working with them more throughout the semester.

Some things that I asked the students during these days was "What do you draw in your free time?" I got a lot of different answers and loved hearing the interests of the students. I let them know that they can incorporate those ideas into their artwork at school, and many of them thought that was a weird statement. We talked a lot about liking what you do and how it is valuable to be interested in your work in order to make it fun and enjoyable. Although Mr. R doesn't preach this in his classroom, I enjoyed asking the students (as a student myself) about what they enjoy and how I could incorporate those into my own classroom someday.