Amy Welin

Final Blog Reflection

Reflecting back on this past semester, it astounds me how much my perception and
understanding of art education has changed. To be honest, as I revealed in my visual map
journey, I ended up in the art education program by accident in some ways. After taking a week
of my classes as an elementary education major, I knew it didnt feel right. English has always
been my passion, so I made an appointment with my advisor to switch to Middle School
Language Arts education. Little did I know through the middle school program, we are able to
choose two content areas in which to become certified. Sitting in my advisors office, she asked
me which I would like to make my option area. Since I have always loved art and all of the art
classes I have taken, art seemed to make the most sense. I had no idea at that time what I was
really choosing, and how deeply I would come to care about the power of art education.
I am awestruck at the ability of art education to build and teach values, and allow an outlet for
students to learn and grow when making art. One of the major reasons I wanted to teach
language arts is because I believe that within this content area there is so much room to teach the
whole student and teach lessons that instill values. I didnt realize until this course how much
overlap there is with art education in this way. My art education experience was great, but very
different from the experience that I hope to provide for my future students. The biggest takeaway
from this semester for me has been the importance of meaning making in art. I now know the
necessity of ensuring that all units and individual assignments connect to students personally and
teach universal life lessons. I always thought that art could hold extraordinary meaning to
professional artists, but not that I could make art meaningful for me. This course has showed me
how wrong I was. I learned from Themes 3 & 4 the importance of pairing meaning making

activities with skill-based activities that scaffold for students so that they are developing as
artists. These can often go together as Kathy taught us with her lesson on learning to see, which
can apply to so many aspects of students lives other than just art. A resource in this class that
helped teach me elements of art that apply to students in meaningful ways are Gudes
Postmodern Principles. By focusing on these elements, students will find the assignments
relevant to their lives. This is so important because the traditional elements such as line, shape,
form, etc. are valuable but do not inspire the same passion and creativity that Gudes twenty-first
century principles do, which became very clear to me during my field experience. I feel that
these principles are so essential because they relate to the modern student, who are incredibly
technologically advanced. Another lesson I found to be really useful was the visual thinking
strategies lesson. In addition to art making, students should be thinking about works of art and
their meaning. This improves their literacy about images, which can apply specifically to
artworks but can also apply to the world around them and media messages. I want to teach to the
whole student and provide them with skills that they can use outside of the classroom.
Creating the lesson plan for Tiger Artists and the individual unit plan was one of the most
valuable aspects of this course. I love that we pick a big idea that we develop with the students
and really delve into it and explore its meaning. I learned the many ways to develop a big idea
through various activities. This was a really necessary learning activity to prepare me for
teaching art. In creating unit plans, I learned that it is very necessary to pick an idea that students
will find relatable and tailor the plans to their interests and abilities. For example, assuming that
students have background knowledge on a particular skill is unfair and limits the possibilities for
an assignment. As a teacher, I need to teach skills in different areas while teaching meaning
making. If this is done effectively, like Kathy taught in her lesson about drawing, I believe that

students will reach their fullest potential. There are many ways to build background knowledge
as a form of pre-assessment. This will guide student thinking and determine how deeply students
reflect on the big idea. Journaling activities, VTS lessons, and guest artists are a few examples of
pre-assessment for assignments. I also learned how important assessment is in documenting and
evaluating student progress. This can be trickier in art education than other domains because of
the open-ended nature of the content. Sometimes assessment can feel tedious to educators or like
it hinders creativity, but in reality assessment is an incredibly useful and necessary part of
student progress. Assessment does not have to mean tests, but encompasses a wide range of
ways to measure students growth. For example, asking students to journal every week of a
semester will track their progress and serve as a formative assessment. At the beginning of an
assignment, you can give students a rubric that details expectations and what they will be graded
on so that they are fully aware during the art making process. At the end of a unit, you can give
students a self-evaluation to ask them to reflect on the work they did and how they feel about it.
All of this works in favor of students, while also adhering to school systems that require
documentation to assure administrators learning is occurring. I feel like in listening to all of the
unit plan presentations that I was in awe of my classmates and their ideas. Not only from their
presentations, but their constructive comments about my unit plan. This helped me to realize that
it is so helpful to to have a network of peer teachers around you. This class and future classes
will be some of the only times we will have such a large number of art educators around us so
frequently, so it is a really special time. I always want to make sure I am working closely with
other teachers and asking them to evaluate me and my teaching methods and style. Even the best
art educators are only human and can always be working to improve themselves. This is all in the
best interest of students. I learned in this course how many ideas and feelings that students have,

particularly of middle school age. Their capabilities far exceeded my expectations and I was
blown away at the student artwork I saw from the Tiger Artists, from my field experience, and
from student examples shown in class. When art education is done well, like by the master
teachers Kathy, Amy, and the wonderful teachers who came in to share their wisdom with us, it
has limitless power that allows students to express themselves, explore their identities and the
world around them, and grow as human beings. Regardless of age, each person has experiences
that are valid, that have shaped them, and that they should be able to share with the world
through art. I am so grateful for the way this class has developed me as both an artist and an
educator, and I feel so much more prepared to continue my journey as an art educator from here
forward.