Celebrating the Little Wins

''Below is an extract from a reflection I wrote while teaching a 1st year unit of learning, in this lesson we were looking at movement and rhythm within paintings of Van Gogh. Two of my students are severely autistic, and my class is their only mainstream experience. We had a huge win in this lesson, read below...

The Internet was affected by the storm, did not know until coming into school that morning. This meant that the video I had planned to show the students, the research task I wanted them to complete and the artist website, Gareth McCormack that I wanted them to look at in groups could not be done. I had to think on my feet of how to make this an engaging first lesson, and hook this group at the start of their new project. If I had let this class slide into a more relaxed page class, I feel motivation would have dipped for the entire project, so I decided to go down a class discussion based route for this lesson, aiming to involve each student in a peer discussion and give them opportunity to participate in the class (whiteboards, writing on my whiteboard, peer and group discussions, pair work) in multiple ways. 

The class went better than I had expected - I was unsure how many cognitive links but quickly established that most of the class had gone to see the virtual installation of Van Gogh’s work in Dublin - so were instantly excited to share with both me and their peers their knowledge and opinions. Quickly this class became student let learning, with heavy emphasis on peer teaching and learning, with a really nice flow that I didn’t have to do much guiding on. 

I was able to teach movement and rhythm within Starry night using previously learned information about line and shape, from our last project. Students quickly grasped the movement part, and the students from the unit surprised me with rhythm, when I asked for a definition they teamed up to beatbox and create an audio rhythm, which created a lovely atmosphere and sparked other students off to try and create rhythm, I let this flow and feel students will remember this far better than if I had stopped it and given them a written definition. It was lovely that all students engaged here and participated, and that the SEN students are starting to feel comfortable enough in their only mainstream class to spark moments like this. 

Landscape photography was taught through questioning and discovery learning, volunteers came up to the board to grid out the rule of thirds, peers voting on if the focal points would hit line intersections, all in all a very high motivation and high energy exercise. Overall I am pleased with how I handled the sudden change in lesson plan and adapted, but also am so pleased with the inclusive and supportive atmosphere that is being created within this groups classroom every day, they are making me prouder by the day.''