DB#5 Reflection

Theme 1: Viewing and Responding to Art

Through this Overview class, I could meet fabulous artists such as Nick Cave, Do Ho Seo and various artworks. Experiencing many artworks and learning how to view and respond to Art, I not only have felt much more comfortable with dealing with artworks but also developed esthetic and critical view toward Art. Especially unlike typical way of art appreciation which is easily obsessed to Art history and background information such as artists’ intention and techniques, VTS which I experience many times in the class was totally new and innovative instruction. I loved and was very impressed by the interaction between peers during VTS lessons. The open ended environment could make me an active viewer. I could view and respond to the artworks according to my personal knowledge and experience without any pressure that I need to give the right answer. As I was improving through this experience, my future students could get many benefits strongly related to creativity and critical thinking skills from VTS lessons. I personally believe that viewing and responding to Art is no less important than making Art in art education since majority of students would live as an art consumer rather than artists. The more insightful consumers who have deep perspective toward Art we produce, the more fascinating artists who make our society more beautiful there are. I think this is one of important missions of art education and educators.          

Theme 2: Developing Art Curriculum

Working on art curriculum, I realized creating and developing curriculum require various skills such as creativity and insight. While making unit plan and Tiger Artist lesson plan, I was surprised that how many educational themes and concepts can associate with art lessons. Sadly enough, I used to doubt art lessons’ educational effectiveness and attraction so this experience was more beneficial to me since I got to be fully convinced by the effectiveness of art as a main subject in schools. In terms of that, one thing I was most interested is that art lessons can have correlation with many other subjects such as Social studies, English and Science, etc. Since I never experience the possibility during my school years, this was amazing to me. I, now, believe art is a basic element which could not only cover many school subjects but also be efficiently used in many different areas.

Many curriculums I have experience through the class and internship course included various concepts related to real world such as visual culture and popular culture. And many art mediums art curriculum choose were also very various and unique. I felt like art curriculum has been much more developed compared to those in my childhood. As an art advocate, I think I can persuade Korean educators and parents why art is important and why they cannot marginalize art as a subject since I found and experienced the effectiveness and possibilities of Art.             

Theme 3:  Teaching Art

Along with Internship, Tiger Artist provided a chance for me to meet children in art classroom. Through communicating and interacting with young students, I could develop ideas and polish my educational philosophy. Applying strategies in terms of art making and evaluation, I could experiment how things work in the actual art classroom. I, sometimes, met constraints and obstacles but could learn a lot by solving the problems. Experiencing art classroom and teaching art, I couldn’t stop thinking about my future classroom and students in detail. Dealing with students, I also wanted to concretely learn how to manage and inspire students to actively get involved in the art classes. I remember my art teachers throughout my school years didn’t provide any time to communicate with them and peers. However, in the Tiger Artist class and the class I have observed during the internship, there were active discussions and positive conversations between teachers and students and between peers. Through this experience, I get more confident dealing with young students.            

Theme 4:  Peer Units Review and Unit Self Evaluation

Reading peer unit review, I was very impressed by the way teacher and students interact with each other for better achievements. Many assignments I did were done when I finished presenting in front of class but this evaluation strategy could make learning going on. Whether the comments are about criticism or praise, this process opened the possibility to improve my ideas.   P3 was very beneficial tool for me to develop my ideas since I can get confident from Praise and try to make sure some points which were questioned by peer and get better ideas from Polish. For example, I wasn’t sure whether I introduce many cultural masks or not because I thought too many background information could confuse my young students. But, after reading many peers’ suggestion that I’d better show mask examples to inspire students, I was convinced by the needs of including mask examples now. One more thing I changed is about one of evaluation methods. I planned that I choose several best works and talk about the reason why the works are great. But one peers’ said this evaluation could hurt some children’s’ feeling when their works are not picked. I think that was a great point so I decided to take the idea so I modified the idea. I would not mention “Best works” to students and show several students’ artworks which are picked by random sampling. Like these, there were many ideas that I haven’t thought of. This peer evaluation method was also influenced in self evaluation. While watching peer presenting, I found not only what I did well but also what I skipped or missed. This was a good process for me to objectively assess mine. I think that second life as a main concept was interesting and inspiring enough but I think I should have included more information about specific artists’ artworks in the unit plan. And skipping rubric was not good even if I didn’t know that I need to make it. I think I can do better next time since I learned a lot through this experience.

I remember the moment when I looked at the syllabus for the first time. I was very embarrassed by many challenging assignments. At that time, I wasn’t sure that I could do them successfully. However, every time I conducted and finished each assignment, I was very satisfied and could feel a sense of achievements. I have learned a lot from Dr. Unrath and peers throughout the semester and I get confidence which makes me keep going.