Student Teaching
During my final semester at Penn State, I spent eight weeks teaching K-5 students at Fulton Elementary School with Abigail Kemble and eight weeks teaching 5th-8th grade students at Falk Laboratory School with Cheryl Capezzuti. My two placements were extremely different and I gained unique teaching experience from student teaching at both Fulton Elementary and Falk Laboratory School.
Fulton Elementary
I learned a great deal and grew as a teacher during my eight weeks student teaching K-5 art at a Title 1 public school, Fulton Elementary. This school did not have a designated art classroom so I had the unique experience of teaching “art on a cart.” The schools art teacher and French teacher shared a large closet-like space as their office. We gathered materials on a cart and traveled from classroom to classroom throughout the day to teach art. Often times I would need to get to school early and place materials in various places throughout the school that I would need during the day.
I learned invaluable planning skills teaching at a school with “art on a cart.” I had to be prepared for my entire day of teaching prior to 8 am because there was no designated art room and everything I needed for the day had to fit on the cart. In addition to not having an art room, Fulton had an extremely low art budget with less than $1 per student allocated for the entire school year. This student teaching experience shed light on some of the challenges that public school teachers in low-income areas face on a daily basis.
Below you can find a variety of images of projects my students created, please click on each image to read details about the lesson.
Falk Laboratory School
Teaching at Falk Laboratory School was a completely different experience from that of Fulton Elementary School. Falk is a K-8 school with two different art teachers for lower and upper grade levels. During my student teaching experience, I primarily taught students in 5th through 8th grade. Falk Laboratory School is an extremely expensive private school with nearly all students coming from wealthy backgrounds. There was no art budget, meaning the art teacher had no limits on what could be ordered each school year. This school placed a high value on the arts and even had specific blocks set aside for integration between classroom teachers and the art teachers. The school had student artwork displayed on nearly every free hallway surface and in addition to this, there were several permanent art pieces throughout the school. Each year, 8th grade students voted on a media type for their 8th grade project and a resident artist was brought in to assist in creating the permanent art display.
In addition to the school bringing in resident artist each year, I was lucky enough to have an artist come in and speak to my 5th and 6th grade students too. One of my goals as an art educator is to teach content in a way that is meaningful to my students and is able to connect to their lives. When I discovered the local Pittsburgh based artist, Emma Lazauski, I knew I needed to teach a lesson based on her artwork. While planning the lesson, I reached out to Lazauski and was thrilled when she accepted an invitation to come speak to my students. The level of engagement in this project was phenomenal. When Lazauski came in, students had questions prepared to ask about her work and were excited to show off their projects, inspired by her artwork.
At Faulk, I was able to try a variety of new things and my teaching mentor gave me a lot of room to grow. My biggest takeaway from my experience at Falk was to create lessons that engage students in a way that connect with their lives. When students are able to connect with the content, they are always more invested in their work.
Below you can find a variety of images of projects my students created, please click on each image to read details about the lesson.
Emma Lazauski Inspired Bottled Creatures
During my time student teaching at Falk, one of my personal goals was to create lessons based on local artists students could connect with. One of those artists was Emma Lazauski. Lazauski creates intricate paintings of imagined creatures in bottles. 5th and 6th grade students imagined creatures in a similar way, drew them, and then created their creatures out of clay inside of baby food jars. Since Emma Lazauski was a local artist, I contacted her and asked Lazauski to come talk to my classes. This gave students the chance to ask questions about her artwork and share their own creations with her.
Below you can find a variety of images from the project, please click on each image to read details about it.
Screen Printing
During my time at Falk, my student teaching mentor Cheryl Capezzuti encouraged me to experiment with different art forms I hadn’t had the chance to work with previously. As I mentioned, I had a personal goal of connecting with local artists to make content more engaging for students. After a visit to the Andy Warhol Museum (a former Pittsburgh based artist), I designed a screen-printing lesson. Students planned designs to screen print that required three separate prints that were then layered to complete the image.
Below is a collection of images from the process and of the final products. Please click on each image to read more about it.
Glass Fusing
After a trip to the Pittsburgh Glass Center, I was inspired to teach a lesson with this new media. Below are a variety of images of students’ glass fusing projects. This was the last project I taught while I was at Falk and because of this, many of the images show the glass projects prior to being fused.
Below is a collection of images from the process and of the completed projects. Please click on each image to read more about it.
Plaster Mold Making
The plaster mold making project was one of my favorite art projects during my time student teaching. I loved this project because it gave students the chance to work with a new media and this assignment really let their creativity shine. First, sixth grade students created a silicone cast of their hand. Then students filled the cast with plaster to create a mold of their hand. While waiting for the plaster to dry, students created clay objects that they later attached to their artwork. After the plaster hardened, students peeled away the silicone cast to reveal their plaster hand. Next, students painted their hands and glued on their clay objects to complete their project.
My students had incredibly creative ideas for this project, please browse the images below of both their completed projects and the making process. Click on each image to read more about it.
