1st year at Clayton
"Safety First" by Scott Wilson, 7th Grade
This year I took on a new challenge, teaching not only at two schools, but combining a secondary school with an elementary! As many of you know, I am the visual art specialist for the BTSALP program for Beacon Heights Elementary, a position I have held for the last three years. When it was explained to the BTS specialists that we would need to take on two schools to have a full time teaching position, most took on two BTSALP elementary schools. My hope was that by also teaching outside the BTSALP program, I could qualify for a "continuing" versus a one year only contract. Thank you Clayton for giving me that status!
It has been a lot of work teaching at both schools, but the challenge has had its rewards. This year at Clayton I have seen one of my Multi Media students, Helena Rodriquez, win the grand prize for the State of Utah's Martin Luther King Video Contest. Students in that class also produced some pretty amazing Web sites using Weebly. In Multi-Cultural Crafts students created some very cool Tessellation Murals for the tunnels at the VA Hospital, Brook Chou won third place for her clay tiger mask at the District Secondary art show and Jane Helston took an honorable mention for her Chinese New Year Kite. Another honorable mention went to one of my students in my Photo-Journalism class for his photo "Safety First". Journalism has been a very rewarding class to teach, students produced monthly newsletters that looked professional, thanks to Microsoft Publisher.
Teaching media has allowed me to explore teaching in a whole new way. Edmodo, a teacher's version of Facebook, has been a marvelous tool for the classroom. assignments are given out and handed in electronically and students create their own classroom community that allows parents and teachers to monitor their social network for evidence of bullying and deal with inappropriate dialogue in an immediate and constructive way. All in all, it has been a fun and rewarding first year at Clayton!
It has been a lot of work teaching at both schools, but the challenge has had its rewards. This year at Clayton I have seen one of my Multi Media students, Helena Rodriquez, win the grand prize for the State of Utah's Martin Luther King Video Contest. Students in that class also produced some pretty amazing Web sites using Weebly. In Multi-Cultural Crafts students created some very cool Tessellation Murals for the tunnels at the VA Hospital, Brook Chou won third place for her clay tiger mask at the District Secondary art show and Jane Helston took an honorable mention for her Chinese New Year Kite. Another honorable mention went to one of my students in my Photo-Journalism class for his photo "Safety First". Journalism has been a very rewarding class to teach, students produced monthly newsletters that looked professional, thanks to Microsoft Publisher.
Teaching media has allowed me to explore teaching in a whole new way. Edmodo, a teacher's version of Facebook, has been a marvelous tool for the classroom. assignments are given out and handed in electronically and students create their own classroom community that allows parents and teachers to monitor their social network for evidence of bullying and deal with inappropriate dialogue in an immediate and constructive way. All in all, it has been a fun and rewarding first year at Clayton!