How to get a job. (My résumé and portfolio)

It's been a while since I've posted. I've got some projects going on that I'll be ready to post really soon hopefully, but in the meantime, I've been updating my portfolio and résumé because I need a new job. Everyone has things they don't like about their job, I'm sure. And I wouldn't mind putting up with the things I don't like... if my job wasn't 45 minutes away from my house. That's an hour and a half of driving every day for the past two years and it's wearing me down.

So I've been looking for a new job which means some serious updates to my portfolio and résumé. The last time I was job hunting I was inexperienced, still working on my masters degree, and had all of 30 hours of observation/student teaching under my belt. So my portfolio was composed pretty much of hypotheticals and my résumé listed things like secretarial work. 

Now, I've been teaching for a couple of years, I have projects to show, lesson plans to bring, and experience to add to a résumé (and résumé website). 

However, the job I was applying for was a junior high art job and I've been teaching elementary since I started teaching. So my biggest struggle was choosing projects that could show my strength as an instructor without focusing as much on student skills. How could I show my skills as an art teacher, to guide and instruct my students, when the students I currently teach are so much younger than the students I want to teach?

Well first off, I have a portfolio. Like a real portfolio to carry student work in. The lady who interviewed before me had a three ring binder and I'm sure she could fit way more stuff in there than I could in my portfolio but I just think that a portfolio looks more artistic and professional. Like I take my kids' work seriously. That's just my opinion though. I suppose a binder works fine too. Any way, here's my portfolio. (please enjoy these many photos with my blue rug as the background...)

When you open the portfolio, there's a pocket and that's where I put my lesson plans and copies of my résumé.

But now on to the artwork. First, I started by showing the work of some of my more talented students, showing that I can identify students who need a bigger challenge and provide something appropriate to stretch their skills. These are from fourth graders (right) and a third grader (left) who entered the Arkansas Wildlife Federation "Wildlife of Arkansas" contest last year. On the left is also a picture of me and my third grader who got honorable mention. 

Next I showed my fourth graders' sculptures from this year. On the left I showed four of my favorite sculptures and on the right I showed one student's planning for her animal and then the execution. 

I like this spread because it gives me several talking points. First, the sculptures look really nice for fourth graders. The interview committee seemed impressed. Second, it gave me the chance to bring up that I had worked with an artist-in-residence, showing that I was motivated in looking outside my classroom for resources for my students and that I work well with others in the community. Third, the pictures on the right let me talk about how I like to let my students explore and find the medium that they work best in. This was a brand new student that I got in the middle of the year and up to this point, she never stood out to me as being particularly talented. Her drawing was okay but not one of my best for sure. But her sculpture blew me away as being the best one in the class. 

After the photos, I added a spread of several different projects we'd done this year, just to show a range of teaching assignments. On the left is two reference sheets that my kids did the first semester that they keep in their portfolio. The top left was a fun, spur of the moment project I did with my third graders where they had to pick an adjective and illustrate it, using the letters of the word to show the meaning of the word. Below is a zentangle from one of my fourth graders. 

Close up of my reference sheets in case anyone wants to steal. Go for it. One of them I found on Pinterest and adapted for my kids and the other I made up. 

After showing all of those projects, I said that even though those were fun projects, I could have just pulled projects from my most talented kids and showed them off, whether I had much to do with that talent or not. So these next three spread are what I showed the committee next. These are self portraits from two second graders and one third grader, respectively. Each spread contains a self portrait from the student from the beginning of the year and one from a few weeks ago.

I think these show so much growth from my students! I love them. And I think it really shows a lot about me as an art teacher too. It shows that I can actually teach a student to improve their skills, not just do fun projects with them. 

And I guess the committee thought so too! I will now be teaching junior high art starting in August! Fifteen minutes away from home! I'm so excited! I obviously had to create a whole new Pinterest account for the occasion so you can now follow me @MrsFortuneArt.

Do you have any tips for art teachers looking for new jobs? What's your "must have" for a portfolio? Do you prefer a binder or an art portfolio for interviews? My interviewers asked me not to bring my own work but do you like to bring your artwork to a job interview?

Kelsey

Working with an Artist-in-Residence

When my principal first approached me about having an artist-in-residence work with me and my students, I was a little skeptical. I wasn't sure if I would like turning over my classroom to another person.

But I have really enjoyed having her work with me. She's been a great resource for my students and for me too! I went to her studio for several hours one Friday afternoon to help her roll out and cut all of the clay tiles we needed for my students. I felt like an apprentice learning from a master artist! 

My kids have really loved having her teach them. They're learning a lot from her about sculpture, clay, firing ceramics, and glazing. Here are a couple of pics of their pieces in process.

I assigned my students to find an animal the first week we were back in January. It could be a real animal, a mythical animal, or a new animal from their imagination (ps, this is a great resource of you want to teach your kids about silly made up animals). They had to research or make up facts about their animal, sketch it, draw it, and color it. Then, when the artist came to work with them, they had to sculpt it. It was a really cool project and I will definitely be doing something similar again. 

Have you worked with an artist-in-residence before? What did you like or dislike about the experience? Does anyone have an artist in residence come on a regular basis? 

Kelsey 

Impromptu art critique

I have an artist-in-residence currently working with my fourth graders to make clay sculptures (more on that later). While she's here, my third grade class has to clean up early to get out of her way since my third grade class is over at 10:50 and my fourth grade class starts at 10:50 (which is miserable, by the way). 

So while the artist is setting up, I've had to find something to do with twenty something third graders in the hallway. Luckily, I have a lot of third grade artwork hanging up right now from the kids whose artwork didn't make it in the Have a HeART for Art contest that is held in our county.

So I decided at the last minute while walking my third graders down the hallway to have an impromptu art critique.

I started off my asking students to raise their hands and then tell the rest of the class which of the heart artworks was their favorite and, more importantly, why it was their favorite.

Then, I asked questions like "which artist has the best use of shape in their artwork?" or "which artwork shows the best use of color?" And I would have students walk to their answer and point to it without touching. It was really cool to see differing opinions and preferences from all the different students. Overall, one of my favorite things I've ever made up on the spot.

Do you have hallway art critiques? What else do you do when you have a few minutes to burn at the end of a class?

Kelsey

Examples

Oh examples. Kids love them, I hate them. It seems like every time I make an example, I end up with a bunch of copycats and a bunch more meltdowns because their artwork doesn't look just like mine.

It's a struggle for me. On the one hand, I like the kids to have a visual to refer back to so I'm not bombarded with a million questions about what I've already explained. On the other hand, I'm not the kind of art teacher who likes a bunch of carbon copy artworks and the "mine's not perfect" fits are the bane of my existence.

So I decide based on the project. If my fourth graders are making collages about different kind of weather, they don't really need an example for that. But if my kindergarteners are drawing pigs for the first time, they need some sort of visual to rely on beyond just my verbal directions. (ps, here are my kindergartener pig drawings. I think they are freaking adorable.)

My first graders have been learning about Ben Franklin in their classroom. So I've taken advantage of that to teach about another famous inventor, Leonardo da Vinci. We've talked about both inventors and then about the process of inventing; first, you have to have a problem, next, you decide how to solve it, last, you draw the invention. I wanted my kids to include several things in their drawings that are better explained by visuals, rather than me just telling them, like notes and descriptions, the idea of motion, backgrounds, etc. So I made an example.

But instead of drawing a really nice drawing of an invention, I drew something that was just a little bit above most of their skill levels. That way, they still have something to strive for but it's not a constant comparison.

This project also works well for an example because each kid had to come up with his or her problem before I showed my example. And I was very clear from the beginning that no one could do the same invention as I did.

Every year, they blow me away with this project. I've never had kid not like this project. They all have problems they want to solve. This project really brings out their creativity. I'm constantly amazed by their crazy, creative inventions. When we're done with this project, I'm definitely going to post the finished products.

What about you? Do you make examples for your students? Or does it depend on the grade level and project? Do you have something that works better than an example of the finished product?

Kelsey

ALE Art

As with most things on this blog, I'm not writing this post as an expert but as an experimenter who's doing her best to find out what works.

At our school, we have a dedicated Alternative Learning Environment classroom. Right now, there are five students, all boys, in the class. Two second graders, two third graders, and one fourth grader. These students have such bad behavior issues that they can't be in a regular classroom setting.

So my school's policy until very recently was, since they have severe behavior issues that prevent them from functioning in a normal classroom,  it will be just fine to throw them into regular activity classroom with no aide or anything... So I would have a normal class of 23ish second graders plus two second graders and two third graders.

Finally I put my foot down, along with the other activity teachers, and administration decided to change the way they're doing activity for the ALE kids. And just in time since we got a fourth grader added last week.

Now they're coming to see me all at the same time, still no aide, but I don't have a whole other class to teach while they're there. But now I'm having to figure out what lessons I can teach to two second graders, two third graders, and one fourth graders with severe behavior issues, that will engage them all, keep them calm, and actually teach them something.

This week, I gave them the choice of using play doh or Legos. The only stipulation I gave them was that they had to actually make something, not just play. I told them at the end of class, they would be given a chance to share what they made with the rest of the class. They did pretty well. It was rowdy, but they all actually created something. Then one of the third graders threw his Legos across the room at the end of class and a second grader destroyed his creation so he wouldn't have to share. But hey, for the first time having them by themselves, it could have been way worse. I didn't have to call an administrator and there was no physical violence! Small victories.

Do you have any severe behavior issues? Does anyone else have an entire class of ALE students? What kind of projects do you do with students like this? 

Kelsey

No day like a snow day...

No school is about to drive me crazy. Seriously. This is our third day this week. It's Wednesday. I haven't gone to work since last Friday and last week, we only had three days. I feel like I'm getting so behind. I was supposed to have an artist-in-residence coming to work with my fourth graders on animal sculptures this week. I don't know what we're doing about that now. 

But hey, a break is always nice. Spending time with the husband and playing the Sims 4 has been fun even if we are two fully grown adults. :)

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to post soon! In the meantime, here's a snow day selfie. 

Kelsey

New Center

So this Monday was Presidents' Day and then Tuesday, we were out of school for a snow day. I love/hate weeks like that. On the one hand, I love being out of school. On the other hand, I hate it because since I don't get to see all my kids, there's really no point in starting a project since half of them will end up behind. I feel like it's just a waste. So I decided to pull out my art centers again for Kindergarten. 

And I added a new center this time. I call it the illustration center. All of the kids at that center, usually about six or seven, work together on a huge piece of paper. You could use butcher paper for this; I had some huge paper donated to me so I used that. 

I assign the group a story that they are all familiar with like the Three Little Pigs or Little Red Riding Hood. For the one in the example below I used Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I like that they have to work together as a group to illustrate one story, not separate stories. A lot of my kindergartner still want to each work separately on one big piece of paper so we had to talk about that. I still got a lot of separate drawings but I thought for the first time at this center, they all did a pretty good job. This group did a really awesome job working together to make one story. You can see they have the house with Goldilocks, the three bears along the side, and one of them even attempted to spell Goldilocks and the three bears all by herself.

I think the center is a great way to build teamwork skills, something they don't get a lot of time to do in their classrooms anymore. It's also a way of getting students to recall and retell familiar stories.

These are the CCSS frameworks this center is working on. 

CCRA.R.2 Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

RL.K.2 With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.

RL.K.3 With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

One of the best things about this center is that it doesn't really require any special supplies other than a big piece of paper. Just some markers or crayons or whatever you would normal have on your tables. 

If you use centers, do you have an illustration center? What other centers should I add next time?

Kelsey

PS: I re-re-designed my blog. I can't make up my mind. I'm the worst. What do you think? I need to just actually design it myself and stop using all the pre-made blogger templates but who has time for that??