Standard 3-4 Developing student understanding through instructional
strategies that are appropriate to the subject matter
ARTIFACT
Two of my passions are teaching music and art history. My favorite artist is
Vincent Van Gogh. While attending a Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE)
workshop many summers ago, I saw a presentation of Van Gogh's art set to the
music, "Vincent," by Don McLean. I decided to incorporate technology
into this type of lesson by designing a PowerPoint presentation of Vincent's art
set to the same song.
I wrote the accompanying lesson plan to tie this presentation to my Van Gogh and
poetry units.
REFLECTION
Creating this PowerPoint was one of the most meaningful experiences I've had
in my career. I was just learning how to work with the PowerPoint program, so my
technology skills were being challenged. I wanted to get it right, because I
could see the potential in this presentation. I knew that McLean's song,
"Vincent," was his interpretation of Van Gogh's art, so I
decided to interpret the song by finding the paintings I thought would fit the
lyrics. As I searched the Internet for appropriate paintings to go with the
lyrics, I came to a new understanding of Van Gogh and his life's struggles.
Viewing the final presentation was very moving for me.
Another reason for designing this lesson was to use it
for my lesson evaluation by my principal. Not only did she like the lesson, my
class was enthralled. Of course, they had learned much about Van Gogh, so they
were able to understand the meaning behind the art. Later on, I was
asked to do the same lesson in our fifth grade classes. The teachers and the
students reacted the same way. (The teachers in the back of the room were
trying to hide their tears.) The next afternoon, a parent from that class
commented to me about how her child had described the paintings and their meanings
to her all the way home!
I had difficulty importing the song into the
presentation. I decided to play the music on my stereo while advancing the
PowerPoint manually. Recently I was taught how to import the music, so the whole
program is now automatic. Unfortunately, I have yet to learned how to save it to
the Internet to be heard on my website. The pictures are there, but the sound
isn't. I guess this is still a work in progress.
WHAT'S NEXT? There is no question that I will use this presentation again. It's engaging for the students and helps them learn about poetry, interpretation, and art history. For me, I think back to the experience of creating it and the sensation of viewing it for the first time. It keeps me motivated to find other meaningful uses of technology in the classroom.