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Like the second years, this project is very much divided into two parts, designing a concept and making. So far we have been designing and I have taken the groups through that process while also looking at relevant artist's who can inform the work. One of the most successful parts of the project so far was a workshop we did on 'how to achieve the project goals.' The students helped create a digital poster, live, of what we needed to do to achieve in this project and how best to do it.

This class is small and attendance is very patchy as it is after school. For this reason I have had to loop back lots, for example out of 6, 3-4 students are in each class and must be caught up in the next class. This has slowed my plans, but it is my job to work with that.

At this point, most students have a concept sketch and are beginning to make. As the project is mixed media it is quite individual from this point on. When I planned the UOL I saw that I would not be able to plan for the latter part of the project and would need to see how the student's concepts would develop. The brief does ask them specifically to include photography, typography, and collage.

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Students will be given a timeline to fill out. This will be unique to their concepts and its need. I will assess these timelines and create individual/group workshops with the students. During some classes students will work independently. I feel the students are ready to take responsibility of their projects at this year level. My fear with this strategy is that students will be unmotivated (as the class is after school). I will keep checking in with each student and do group crits to avoid this.

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Initial Print Exercise- Students were asked to use their first initial as the subject, and to design, cut and print within 2 classes.

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Social Issue Mind Mapping Exercise

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Thumbnail sketching ideas

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Concept Sketching

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Finalising concepts and making a plan for lino

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This project is noticeably divided into 2 parts. The beginning  focuses entirely on design and how students can learn to develop their own subject matter and build a concept around it. We are officially at the point where part one is coming to a close and we will begin part 2.

We have used 2 opportunities for student presentation/peer feedback which I believe is very important when designing. The student's work has shown clear development afterwards.

Not all students have achieved at the same pace, with some forming ideas and executing early. While others have been slow to find ideas fitting of the success criteria, needing more to reach a concept. Students who are finished quickly have been tasked in helping these students.

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This is the point in the project where we finish our conceptual development and move towards physical making. From my experience last year, the students will find understanding what to cut and what not to cut difficult at first. I will try to scaffold an understanding of this by scanning in sketches and editing mockups so they can see possible outcomes.

I would like to try to get students to take time with their mark making. I plan to look at lino examples during the beginning stages of this process for the students to draw inspiration and understanding from. I will also play demonstrative videos during class so they can have a resource to hand at all times.

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Students transferred onto lino and used a marker to plan what areas needed to be cut

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With the help of the teacher, students experimented with typography for their designs.

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Finalising Lino Cuts

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Finished Prints

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1. Achievements:

The students created advanced conceptual designs for their year level.

All the students developed their feedback skills.

The students were able to answer questions and discuss their work during the exhibit.

Two students out of 8 were able to complete a multi-cut lino.

One of the students who falls behind the class in other subjects was one of the most advanced in the class. He was given an expert role to help the other students and definitely gained more academic confidence in the process.

2. Shortfalls:

I think the conceptual development was hard for the students. The aim was to have students motivated about their topics, by having them choose them. I'm not sure that was the outcome as the time only allowed a quick brainstorm of social issues before moving forward.

One student did not finish. I gave him lots of 1-1 time and had students who were ahead help him too. He is an international student and I did feel his lack of effort was due to behavioural/motivational/attendance issues rather than any special educational needs. I do wonder is it still important to get a student across the finish line no matter what?

3. Ways of refining the unit for next iteration:

Next time I will use a smaller subject scope.

The initial exercise should have been about mark making completely.

I would like to spend more time on mark making as the students struggled with this the most, specifically lettering.

More defined deadlines- I think in general once I have tried a unit and understand the pacing I will define deadlines with the students.

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Second Year Exhibit at the 'Glenstal Advent Arts Festival'

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Initial Impressionist Painting Exercise

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Compositional Study- 15 mins

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Student Landscape Photograph- revision photograph based on teacher feedback from initial photograph

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Colour Study- Students focused on colour mixing and Impressionist brushstroke technique, working over a printed A5 landscape photograph that they had taken

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Underpainting based on primary source landscape photograph. Students will use this as a guide to help them with composition.

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I had originally planned to start painting by week 5. However I feel having the preparatory colour study before hand will greatly help students in their final piece.

Students have shown great progress in the understanding of the ideas and principles involved in impressionism. I am hopeful that the freedom that Impressionism provides the students stylistically and experimentally will be an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

Generally the Unit is going to plan. Students do not seem drawn to the Social Media Exhibit idea, so I may scrap that. There is an Arts Week in the school and we may instead use that to exhibit, I believe this will help students feel motivated to take ownership of their work.

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I am making an effort to continually set time aside for art appreciation and will continue to do so. I feel running it alongside student work will help them really explore the work and draw learning from it.

In order to help students with composition my plan is to use demonstration. I want to give students as much scaffolding as possible while also letting them experiments and independently work.

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Initial paint process

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Week 2 of painting, Students are experimenting with adding texture and brushstrokes. I've made it clear that paint can be layered and I am encouraging experimentation.

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Final Impressionist Landscape Piece

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First Year Exhibit at the 'Glenstal Advent Arts Festival'

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1. Achievements:

One of the most successful parts of this project was the freedom of style that Impressionism allows. However this is a double edged sword as some students deemed this more difficult.

I painted a piece as demonstration during some of the classes. I felt this was new to me but went quite well. I would do this again for future paint projects.

The students painted over a print of the photographs they took. This was to practice colour mixing. I thought it was one of the most beneficial strategies I have implemented in my teaching practice. It was the type of exercise that I always am aiming to find with first years; focused on one aspect of the unit. It produced beautiful results.

I felt there was a good pace to the project. Students covered a lot of ground and there was little falling behind despite it being one of my biggest groups to date.

2. Shortfalls:

I feel Impressionist painting might be a higher level subject matter to focus on for first years. Understanding how to use paint more abstractly may need to come after a more fundimental painting project.

Due to the nature of boarding school, it was hard for students to find time to go outside for walks, explore their environment and shoot their landscape photographs.

I think there could have been a stronger push on how central light is in Impressionism.

3. Ways of refining the unit for next iteration:

Were I in the same school, I feel we would focus the photography in one location and shoot during a class. We did do a walk as a class but it was to demonstrate what was required of them rather than actually shooting their photographs.

I would change the year level or change the painting style. I would keep using nature as the subject for first years.

We had a successful group crit at the end, next time I would like another one early on in the painting process.

A class dedicated to looking at light in Impressionist paintings.

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Fifth Year Exhibit at the 'Glenstal Advent Arts Festival'

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1. Achievements:

After speaking with the students I was left with the understanding that the pacing of this project gave them more time to focus on developing their concepts. As a whole, I have learned that the art room appears to focus on skill over concept development. One of my biggest wins in this project was understanding that this is something I would like to change. I feel students will gain more from the art room in terms of life skill if this learning is developed more.

Another takeaway from my discussion with students was that the framework used gave the project more structure. I felt from the beginning we broke down what was needed in the project and the students discussed with me how this helped them feel more creative and less lost in the project.

I think the students had the chance to work in different mediums and technologies than usual and was told that they really enjoyed this.

2. Shortfalls:

I would like to work on students motivation. I always feel this is an uphill battle in the art room. My coop teacher made a good point that when you are new to art teaching you expect the students to have the same eagerness and motivation that you did. It is important to understand that that will be different with every pupil. I do want to do more research about student motivation.

I would like to have developed the student's photography skills more, but time made this impossible.

I want to look into how to get student to come up with more iterations of their final concept. This was very difficult and I did try.

3. Ways of refining the unit for next iteration:

Understanding the class I am going into. I now know that in this school art is not held in high regard for senior cycle. It is held after school and has poor attendance. Out of 6, I regularly had 2-4 in my classroom and ultimately only was able to complete the project with 4 students. I know this was not my fault but I feel I have learned that it is important to get a feel of the type of class that the UOL is being designed for. This UOL was not appropriate for the group I had, but would be for other groups.

With a larger group, there will be less room for individualised timelines and students will have to maybe do a workshop in the first half of the class and then make their independent work in the second half.