Reflect on the process you’ve just worked through. Consider your decision-making throughout this process How do your instructional decisions, the technologies used, the teachers & students roles change as you describe your lesson at each SAMR level?
I thought it would be interesting to use my self portrait drawing unit/lesson to see how well my teaching strategies work with my pedagogical techniques and the students. When I first started teaching this unit we just used step by step worksheets that then became YouTube videos on how to draw the details of the facial features to start the project, which I think fits the SUBSTITUTION phase of the SMAR model.
Also when I first started teaching this lesson, I usually took the students' pictures because I wanted a certain lighting effect to creative contrast for the drawing. I now allow the students to take their own pictures to help them take ownership in the process. I have always printed out the photos for reference, but now they can also use their chromebooks to view the images more closely to see details of the images. All of this falls in the AUGMENTATION phase of the model because they can take multiple shots with the camera. And now that they can also use phones and/or digital cameras, we can view them immediately to see if they work or not before printing.
Something I have never thought about doing is having the students experiment with a photo editing software for this project. The class this is for is my 2-D studio so it is in my art room and not the Mac lab where I teach my digital design class. But when my digital design class last spring was forced to use their Chromebooks and not Macs with Adobe software on it, it allowed the students and I to play around with different photo editing tools/software that are free and available on the Chromebooks. Now that I am familiar with a few of these, I can have my 2-D studio students experiment with the software to adjust the lighting and contrast so they have a wide range of value on their photo for the drawing. This falls in the MODIFY phase because the students are modifying the image to see it and draw it better.
Another thing I have not thought about doing until late last year and this year is to have students video themselves telling me THEIR thinking process while working on their projects. I stress to my students often, that the class they are taking is more about the learning process than the outcome, because not all students are extremely talented in art or drawing. So I want them to focus on LEARNING new drawing techniques and SEEING things they may not have noticed. Then I want them to learn from their mistakes. Drawing is tough and it is a very hard medium to get perfect, so if students can SEE where they might have went wrong on an area and show me that they noticed it, then I know they have LEARNED something from this project. So for the reflection piece they video themselves explaining and SHOWING me areas that they believe they did well and areas they struggled with. IF they can explain how to fix it the next time, I boost their grade even more. This helps me understand their thinking process when they explain it in detail, because they might do some things different than I would, and if they can provide evidence on WHY they did things a certain way, I know they were thinking about it while doing it. I think this falls in the REDEFINE task, because initially the project was about the outcome - the self portrait and how well they got the image in proportion. But now I focus more on the learning process as an assessment tool than the outcome of the drawing.
I thought it would be interesting to use my self portrait drawing unit/lesson to see how well my teaching strategies work with my pedagogical techniques and the students. When I first started teaching this unit we just used step by step worksheets that then became YouTube videos on how to draw the details of the facial features to start the project, which I think fits the SUBSTITUTION phase of the SMAR model.
Also when I first started teaching this lesson, I usually took the students' pictures because I wanted a certain lighting effect to creative contrast for the drawing. I now allow the students to take their own pictures to help them take ownership in the process. I have always printed out the photos for reference, but now they can also use their chromebooks to view the images more closely to see details of the images. All of this falls in the AUGMENTATION phase of the model because they can take multiple shots with the camera. And now that they can also use phones and/or digital cameras, we can view them immediately to see if they work or not before printing.
Something I have never thought about doing is having the students experiment with a photo editing software for this project. The class this is for is my 2-D studio so it is in my art room and not the Mac lab where I teach my digital design class. But when my digital design class last spring was forced to use their Chromebooks and not Macs with Adobe software on it, it allowed the students and I to play around with different photo editing tools/software that are free and available on the Chromebooks. Now that I am familiar with a few of these, I can have my 2-D studio students experiment with the software to adjust the lighting and contrast so they have a wide range of value on their photo for the drawing. This falls in the MODIFY phase because the students are modifying the image to see it and draw it better.
Another thing I have not thought about doing until late last year and this year is to have students video themselves telling me THEIR thinking process while working on their projects. I stress to my students often, that the class they are taking is more about the learning process than the outcome, because not all students are extremely talented in art or drawing. So I want them to focus on LEARNING new drawing techniques and SEEING things they may not have noticed. Then I want them to learn from their mistakes. Drawing is tough and it is a very hard medium to get perfect, so if students can SEE where they might have went wrong on an area and show me that they noticed it, then I know they have LEARNED something from this project. So for the reflection piece they video themselves explaining and SHOWING me areas that they believe they did well and areas they struggled with. IF they can explain how to fix it the next time, I boost their grade even more. This helps me understand their thinking process when they explain it in detail, because they might do some things different than I would, and if they can provide evidence on WHY they did things a certain way, I know they were thinking about it while doing it. I think this falls in the REDEFINE task, because initially the project was about the outcome - the self portrait and how well they got the image in proportion. But now I focus more on the learning process as an assessment tool than the outcome of the drawing.