This past semester at UMASS I took a course titled ‘Advanced Problems in Art Education’. One major requirement for this class was that each student had to complete 90 hours of pre practicum teaching at a local Massachusetts School, under the direction of a supervising practitioner. For the first two weeks at our school placement we had to take observation notes about our supervising practitioner (their teaching methods, types of activities, etc.) as well as their classes (student behavior, level of effort put into projects, etc.). After this observation phase was complete we could then begin to assist and work one-on-one with students as well as teach full lessons to whole classes.
One such activity that I worked on during my time at Williams Middle School was the massive dinosaur sculpture you see above. This sculpture had been started by my supervising practitioner Edward O’Gilvie and had been worked on by various middle school students throughout the past 3 - 4 years. Ed created the initial form of the dinosaur by making a cardboard silhouette of a brontosaurus. From there he used many cardboard strips to create a skeleton there by giving the sculpture volume. Next, his students used masking tape to hold the cardboard strips together and then added four layers of paper mache (newspaper and paper towels) to cover the surface. Last year some students had stared to add an initial layer of white paint on the completed sections of the dinosaur, however there were areas that were not yet complete and as a result could not be painted.
In my free time and during select class periods I assisted Ed in the completion of this sculpture by sculpting and forming: one kneecap (back right leg), two feet (front right foot, back right foot), sixteen toes (four on each foot) and two eyebrows.
I also worked with and instructed small groups of students to paint: the first white primer coat, the layer of green skin, the green stripes and four toes (front right foot).
Sadly my hours of pre-practicum teaching ended before I could see the completion of this project (more details needed to be added) but I am very happy with how this sculpture turned out and am proud to have helped out on it.
(The following images are the last photos I took of the sculpture in which more detail was added)
I also created and taught a lesson to a group of 6th grade students about the history of optical toys, the creation of the ‘thaumatrope’ and how these precursor devices eventually led to the medium of animation. A thaumatrope is a disk with a different picture on each side and is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the optical phenomenon “persistence of vision”. Below is the teaching example I created.
Examples of my students’ thaumatropes can be found here:
https://hurleyteaching.blogspot.com/2022/06/williams-middle-school-pre-practicum.html
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