A Change of Scenery: Week 4

A Change of Scenery 

        This week for our 412 lab we did things a little differently. We visited the Palmer Museum of Art, which is Penn State's own art museum right on campus! Myself and a number of my classmates had never been inside the museum before, so it was super cool to be able to finally go inside and observe the pieces that the university has acquired. 

Why an Art Museum...?

        I'm sure you're curious why a bunch of pre-service ag teachers were having class in an art museum. I'm not gonna lie- I wondered the same thing at first. I really think it helped me not only understand the connection between art and agriculture, but also get to know my cohort members a little better. The members of my lab group had an awesome time interpreting art pieces together.

        During our tour, we looked at two pieces together as a group and were able to observe 3 different teaching styles. 

        First, we saw a still-life oil painting called Still Life With Grapes by Severin Rosen. Honestly, this piece was incredible. The detail that Rosen was able to capture on canvas with oil paints was unbelievable. Remember how I mentioned we were able to observe two different learning styles? For this painting, we observed a teacher-centered lesson: a lecture. We learned about the artist and this particular painting. We connected the fruits in the painting to modern-day agriculture and the fruits that we produce today. I found it extremely interesting that we can pick out so many facts from a painting. 

Still Life With Grapes by Severin Rosen


        Next, we looked at a piece called Harlem Rose by Willie Cole. This learning style we observed was a learner-teacher centered approach called "shared inquiry" where we made observations about the art together. We related the discussion to things that may be prominent in our lives which we can adapt to fit our future students in our classrooms. The teacher in the shared inquiry acts almost as a host that just facilitates conversation and encourages student engagement. I really liked this teaching style and I look forward to being able to adapt this to fit my students' needs in the future.
Harlem Rose by Willie Cole


        The last activity/learning style we completed was a learner-centered approach called "free-choice learning" where the students took the lead. It resembled a flipped tour where we selected art pieces to briefly interpret. Each student is given a prompt where they select an artwork that they believe best describes the prompt they selected. My prompt that I picked was "find a piece that says something about love". It took me a lot longer than I thought it would to find a work that I thought showed that prompt the best, but I ended up choosing Mother and Son I by John Bernard Flannagan. I picked this one because of the was the mother was supporting her son- he looks pretty big to be holding the way that she is and she makes it look like she also thinks he's a little heavy. We also noted the skin-to-skin contact shows that fondness that she has for her son.
Mother and Son I by John Bernard Flannagan


Where Can I Go From Here?

        After being able to participate in this experience, I am super excited to have learned different ways to facilitate instruction. I also learned that you can connect agriculture to just about anything, even art, and that place-based learning can be extremely beneficial to the students' development in the classroom. I look forward to being able to apply these different styles and activities so that my instruction had variability and is not too boring for learning. I am most excited to find a way to incorporate the free-choice learning activity that we did at the end of our visit to the Palmer Museum of Art. This experience was a really fun and engaging way for my cohort and I to learn about place-based learning and some different ways to facilitate instruction.

Week 4 sure was a busy one, but it only gets busier! Already a month in... student teaching will be here before I know it!

Thanks for tuning in:) 

Krista Mathias

Comments

  1. Elizabeth HoltrySeptember 17, 2022 at 1:57 PM

    Krista,
    Way to connect with the art in the Palmer Art Museum during Lab. I like that you included that we are a month in. I swear that the first four weeks have flown by. Excited get to student teaching by this big cohort family working together.
    Keep up the Great Work!
    Liz

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carly RudySeptember 18, 2022 at 8:08 AM

    Krista, I think you did a great job connecting with the art during the lab tour. I can really relate to your takeaways. Cant believe we are one month in, crazy to think that its almost time to student teach. Good job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 18, 2022 at 3:53 PM

    Krista, I like your take away that we can connect agriculture to a lot of things outside of what might first come to our mind. I think this is a great point moving forward as we continue to work on our interest approaches and providing experiential learning opportunities for our students. Great job! :)

    ReplyDelete

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