Site Visit Notes

Student Name: Allison Johnson

School:

Date/Site Visit Number: November 1st/ 1st Visit

Grade Level/Subject: 2nd Grade/Art

Using the space provided below, briefly summarize todays classroom experience.
Identify the Illinois
Standard 2 Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge
Professional Teaching
Standard(s) targeted in
todays experience.
Identify performance
activities that occurs today
which addressed the
teaching standards identified
above. Then describe what
you learned.

Describe the impact of the

performance activities on
student learning.
Describe any additional
activities of significance that
occurred today.
General comments and
observations including at
least one emerging question.

The students were taught Egyptian art and how people were painted
during this era. At the beginning of the lesson, Miss Gumbs went
over Egyptian art and then broke down section by section why
people were drawn the way they were. The students learned about
colors, historical meanings, facial expressions and body form during
that time.
Miss Gumbs has two Masters in Art and she used her knowledge to
not only teach the students art, but to do it at level they could
understand. She would ask questions from previous lesson, that
applied to this lesson and most of the class would raise their hands
with the answers. At one point she broke down Egyptian art using
her as a statue and showed them how walking like an Egyptian
became a thing.
I learned how important it is to not assume your student cant learn
complex ideas, like art history, but they can in a basic form. I
learned a lot about Egyptian art during her lesson. Seeing how she
took some of the deeper concepts and applied them to modern day,
helped the students see the significance.
The students paid very close attention to the lesson and were excited
to learn about the drawings. By combining lessons together and
calling upon prior knowledge, it encouraged the students to be a part
of the lesson and to pay attention.
At the very end of the lesson, Miss Gumbs told the students that they
would learn about hieroglyphics when they met again. The students
left the classroom excited about the next class.
As I said, I learned a few things in this lesson as well and to have
that light bulb go off oh that is why they do that it made the class
very enjoyable. Not only is it enjoyable for the students but it is
great for the teacher as well. Watching Miss Gumbs get up and
model the drawing structure was interactive for the students and
encouraged them to pay attention. Teaching art to elementary school
students can be preserved as cutting and pasting after watching
Miss Gumbs, I learned how beneficial it is to the entire curriculum.
Why does Art always get cut when it can be such a fundamental
teaching tool for so many other subjects?