Co-Teachers: Isabel Fernandez and Delaney Kjellsen
Friday, September 10th, 2021 at Lopez Elementary
On Friday, September 10th, 2021 I had the wonderful opportunity to co-teach a fun lesson at Lopez Elementary. Walking into the classroom I was super excited and knew it would go great and the students would have fun. I was only weary about one thing... would we have enough time to probe students to think deeper about the project and for them to finish a decent-sized chalk drawing?
What went well:
I think the key to solving this problem was this one question we asked our students to consider once they'd made their own connections between identity, community, and school. This question was "How would you represent/draw that [part of your school community?"
This question made moving from talking about the school community to drawing their school community almost seamless. This nice transition from talking to sketching helped with our time constraints a lot. If we had spent any more time talking, I don't think students would have had enough time to complete their sidewalk chalk drawings.
What did not go as planned:
Once we moved outside, most of the students had a clear plan of how they were going to use sidewalk chalk to represent their school community. However, there were a few students who did get a bit confused. I think the best way to combat this confusion in the future, will be to ask students to bring their sketchbooks with them outside so they can refer back to their school community sketches. This way, when we are in the classroom, we can talk with each student individually when their focus is better and make sure they are on the right track. (Future actions)
For example, when we moved outside, one student began to draw her family because their last lesson was to draw their family community. If we had made sure she was on the right track inside and then asked her to bring her sketchbook with her, I think she would've understood our expectations better. Despite that, the way that I went about getting her on the right track without the sketchbooks was simple. She identified her friends as a part of her school community, so she decided to turn what she had started to draw as her family into her friends.
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