Standard 1 Know Students and how they learn

Situation: Year six class at a middle class state school that has a bring your own device policy. There are twenty-seven students; three on Individual Curriculum Plans (ICPs), three English as a Second Language or Dialect (ELS/D) two on the autism spectrum and four who are on behaviour plans. The class is co taught for Mathematics and HASS the teacher next door takes Maths and the teacher (and myself) teach HASS. In this particular situation I am teaching art for the first 2 weeks as the art teacher isn’t back until the third week.

The Task for this class is to do a self-portrait (Artifact 1) but not with a mirror, students are to draw themselves how they see themselves and then draw pictures of things that are important to them so as to share about themselves in a less intrusive way. Rather than ask them what they like and don’t like they show what they are passionate about and also allows the teacher to see the real person. Teaching students to see themselves honestly helps boost their ability to accept compliments and critiques as well as help boost their self-confidence (Positive Action. 2023). These will then be displayed on the walls around the classroom.

Action to be taken, students are given an A3 piece of paper and told to use whatever colours they like (pen or pencil or crayon), they are shown how to divide the face up into thirds and then draw eyes, nose and mouth. Some students drew themselves as they would like to be when they are older, a couple drew themselves as anime like characters and others drew themselves quite like they would have seen in a mirror.

Result was that students had a great collage of who they are as a person and lets the teacher and fellow students see into the personal life of each other. This allows me to look at commonalities with the things they like so I can target that in my lessons for the future. It shows me a little about the student’s values and what is important to them as well as shows the different family dynamics. This helps me to see how a student may need to be treated a little more sensitively if there is a breakdown in the family.

Reference

Positive Action. (2023). Teaching Self-Awareness to Students. Teaching Self-Awareness to Students: 5 Effective Activities (positiveaction.net)