Professional development is important to not only keep up with new developments in our own content area, but in professional development that helps us better serve our students. For example, my first day of student teaching we had professional development that dealt with families who do not speak English and what the parents would like to see from the schools. During this session we received a handout that talked about how schools can serve families who are lower income and who are migrant workers. Because the school I am at has such a diverse population this information was helpful now and will be helpful in the future. A mother who works at one of the Greeley meat packing plants spoke to us through a translator and asked if the school could try to have a parent teacher conference on the weekend so more parents could attend.
I will soon be receiving professional development on how to teach online during the school shutdown, which will be helpful. I have been looking at online teaching seminars through the Art of Education website to get some ideas on how to better serve my students. One thing interesting about professional development is how art teachers can benefit from other content areas, for example, how to incorporate literacy strategies from an English teacher professional development session into the art classroom. I have not had a chance to attend a literacy session yet but I would like to do so in the future. When I was at the Teaching for Artistic Behavior session in Denver an art teacher mentioned how useful a literacy strategy called the Daily 5 was in setting up her classroom. This teaching philosophy allows for small group work, increased student independence and how to differentiate instruction.
I chose to make a drypoint print of some driftwood. I chose this subject as a metaphor to represent future me because as of now I am a rough branch, but as I gain knowledge over time the rough edges get smoother as the waters of knowledge wear down the rough spots.