10 pieces of advice for student teachers:

1) Make it a point to remember EVERYONE’S name you meet during your internship. Your cooperating teacher most likely will introduce you to several influential people in the field of art education and chances are you will see them three or four more times before your internship is over. If you want to impress them, start by remembering their names. They say you are more likely to remember someone’s name if you repeat it aloud the first time you meet…so try it because it certainly won’t hurt.

2) Take lots of pictures of student artwork. It is easy to get caught up photographing yourself and the students working and while these situations are important to document don’t lose track of why you are there in the first place - the art. This way when you are putting your portfolio together you can refer to actual student artwork to demonstrate evidence of learning.

3) If you don’t have one yet, get a USB drive to store things on. A 2.0 GB memory stick will only cost you about ten dollars today and it is worth every penny. You will always have your information conveniently with you and stored safely.

4) Find out where the teachers eat lunch and eat with them. No one knows more about the school system than those who work in it and quite honestly no one will give you, the emerging teacher, a more straightforward answer to questions about school and the future of education than the teachers themselves.

5) Find out what works for you to always be prepared and don’t be afraid to try different methods. Write everything down, it will help keep your momentum flowing. Do not throw ANY papers away because you will reference them when you are organizing your thoughts later.

6) Think of ways you and your students can help raise money for your school. You could organize a student art auction or create artistic greeting cards in class and sell them. The behind the scenes work that goes into planning a function or a school wide activity promoting cooperation would be a wonderful addition to document in your portfolio.

7) Take advantage of your position as the art teacher by expressing your creativity. I purchased some cheap blank canvas shoes from Walmart and painted my world on them with colorful paint pens. You can dress professionally and top it off with your sweet shoes; the students and staff at my school responded positively. Why not make a lesson out of it?

8) Don’t be afraid to ask your cooperating teacher and other available staff to take pictures for you. Chances are they would love to help. Try to take numerous pictures of the same thing to ensure you are getting an effective shot.

9) Become a member of the downtown library. It is free and there is no such thing as late charges. If you ever feel creatively stumped or unmotivated, the downtown library is a good place to find inspiration, resources or even a movie for personal downtime.

10) Treasure every moment. This is an experience of a life time and you will be building the foundation of your future.

10 pieces of advice for student teachers...

10 pieces of advice for student teachers:
in no particular order…

1. Be prepared! Plan your days several class periods in advance. That way you always know what’s going on and if something happens you have a back up plan.

2. Start the semester with a self-portrait project. It will help you to associate names with faces and drawing styles.

3. Keep in mind how long a project is going to take before you start it. If students are still working on one of your projects after the student teaching period is over it makes life more complicated for you and your supervising teacher. And students will probably not benefit as much from the lesson.

4. Ask for advice frequently from your supervising teachers, supervising UF faculty, students, and peers. How am I doing? What could I do better? What would you suggest? It will help you improve your teaching practice and let them know that you value their input, plus if you document it you can use it as evidence for continuous improvement in your teaching portfolio.

5. Take lots of pictures and ask your supervising teacher for help taking them. Put your camera where you and your supervising teacher can easily access it for when that perfect picture opportunity arises.

6. Let your students see some of your work early on. It will help them to get to know you and will build their confidence in your ability to teach them. Also, make quality examples for projects. If it looks like you spent a lot of time and effort on your piece, students will be more likely to do so themselves, and it gives them something to aim for.

7. Be enthusiastic about art (your art, their art, the art that you are studying) and let students know what they are doing well in addition to things they could do to make their work better. Enthusiasm is contagious. If you are excited about what they are making they will be too.

8. Keep a really thorough teaching journal. Give an overview of pretty much everything that happened each week in your journal in addition to answering the questions that the packet suggests. It’s time consuming in the short term, but it will make finding evidence for your portfolio later that much easier.

9. Don’t be afraid to revise a lesson or your evaluation strategies after observing how students do with the project.

10. Make yourself a grade book and keep on top of it. If students are going to be assessed by their work ethic make notes of this during classes. It can be hard to remember stuff like that when you are sitting down to grade after the fact.

Ten Points of Advice for Student Teachers

Ten Words of Advice for Student Teachers (in no particular order)

Make sure to be on time and be aware of the time all of the time. It can be disruptive to the flow of the school day if you don’t come early enough to prepare for the day. Also it is courteous to teachers when you are on time for them to transition into their other classes.

Introduce yourself to everyone, teachers, faculty, students, and families. It will make your stay more comfortable for your own sake and everyone you associate with. Building a good rapport is key to getting the respect of those you work with and an often time is a good way to get help and feedback.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions or for advice. Not just from mentors but everyone, including students.

Plan every moment of your lessons and teaching. It will help you to meet your goals and keep the flow of the class more manageable.

Keep a log of ways to improve your teaching methods. Even a seemingly perfect class could still use revision.

Take all criticism with a positive attitude. Remember that you are new to this and your mentors have been doing this a long time; Even if it is something that won’t fit with your methods or style, listen, they are there to help you.

In teaching there should hardly ever be downtime. Make use of your time outside of teaching lessons preparing for other classes, displaying or handing back work, up keeping a clean and safe room, etc.

Be sure to keep your ambitions for the term in line with your short time and ability. A good idea is only good if it can be used effectively.

Stay rested and eat healthy. Teaching is a high energy job and you will soon learn that you won’t perform well without taking care of yourself.

Fill your medicine cabinet, take vitamins daily, and wash your hand every chance you get. It’s better to use preventative health measures otherwise I guarantee you will get sick, maybe more than once.

10 Pieces of Advice for a Student Teacher

1. Have fun, student will notice when you are not enjoying your self. Plus, it will be a much better experience for everyone if you have fun with it.
2. Be prepared on the first day. Jump right in, get comfortable with the students, show them what your role is in the classroom.
3. Respect your students, they wont respect you if you don’t respect them.
4. Ask your supervising teacher lots of questions!
5. Develop positive relationships with other people in the school besides your supervising teacher.
6. Eat breakfast.
7. If you have a new outfit sit down in it, lean over in it, and move around in it in front of the mirror to make sure it still looks appropriate after you are wearing it for a while.
8. If you see your students in the morning before class say “hi” and ask them how things are going, it will really make them happy.
9. Admit when you need help and ask your supervising teacher for advice. This will help you in the long run, and show him/her that you respect them and their classroom.
10. Have fun (I am not trying to get away with nine, this is really important) Laugh with your students! Some times the best learning occurs when people forget they are learning (or teaching.)
11. Ok I was about to post and stole this one from Lindsey; Write everything down!! Notes to yourself, improvements on lessons, things about particular students, ideas for your portfolio, etc.

Ten Pieces of Advice for Student Teachers

1. Write everything down in your planner. When you started a new lesson, programs at the school, any meetings you attend, and any important due dates. All of the days run together and it's impossible to figure out when you did this or that. Oh, look up the school phone number and put that in your phone. There's nothing like flipping through the phonebook at 6:30 in the morning desperately trying to get ahold of the school to tell someone that you're sick and won't be there.

2. Even if you are really nervous presenting a lesson to students, being observed in front of your UF Supervisor, or announcing student work at an awards ceremony, know that everyone wants you to succeed. Though you'll be aware of how you'd like to do things differently, no one is very critical of you. Any bits of advice are meant to make you the best teacher that you can be.

3. Make lots of mental notes. Sometimes you'll give instructions to students, and they'll have great difficulties following some aspect of the lesson. The students won't really realize your errors, but you can use the opportunity to learn from their struggles. Just keep in mind how you can improve your teaching and make your instructions more concise. My teaching on Friday was always much better than on Monday because I had several days to work out the kinks.

4. As you take on more responsibilities as a teacher, it's important to be more conscious when your cooperating teacher teaches a lesson. It's a great opportunity to sit by the students and see how they see you teaching. You'll begin to see what your demonstrations look like from across the room. You might realize that you need to walk around the room when showing how to mix paint or which markers don't really show up on the board. Most students are so eager to start working that they won't tell you that they can't see your examples on the board from their seats.

5. Buy lots of long tank tops. These are the key to successfully bridging the gap between your pants and top. If you just put a plain tank top under your outfit, you don't have to worry all day about bending down to pick up a crayon or reaching up too high and showing midriff. You never realize the importance of full range of motion until you accidentally wear a sweater that's a little too short and you have to spend the whole day tugging on it to keep yourself covered.

6. Become a member of the faculty. I attended every faculty meeting, baby shower, bridal shower, student art show, book study group, and any other event that I was invited to by a faculty member. It shows your school that you are committed to teaching and that you're not dying to get home when the last bell rings. You'll get to know a bunch of great people who have the same awful sleep schedule as you, have the same problems with students that you do, and are your biggest cheerleaders. I learned so much from the teachers at my school, and I came to value their advice. It's a lot easier to be at school every day when you have adult friends there to talk to.

7. Be careful with gossip. There's a certain level of appropriate communication (knowing what's going on in a student's home life often makes your realize why undesirable behavior has developed). However, it's incredibly important to not get sucked into gossiping. I never had any situations where I said something I shouldn't have, but I was always very aware that I needed to only talk about things that were appropriate and relevant. Just be careful. You don't want to put your foot in your mouth when you are a guest in a school.

8. Ask for help when you need it. Pretty late in student teaching, I had a bad week where I was just a little "off". The students only saw me once a week, so they didn't really notice, but I was just a bit less patient, not as thorough with my teaching, and not as aware of the classroom. I told my cooperating teacher, and she gladly helped in small ways-- distributing supplies or intervening with difficult students. She didn't take over the class, but she helped share the work. The next week, I was back to myself again, and she passed the teaching responsibilities back to me.

9. Get used to sounding kind of dorky. You have to figure out a way to a way to teach students in terms they can understand. I used the words wavy, gloppy, wonky, squiggly, and other non-sensical words to describe things. Also, figure out how to break drawing into simple shapes such as circle, oval, stretched out letter “n”, smile, frown, etc. Kids remember the steps to drawing much better when they connect it with something they already know. But you do feel pretty stupid explaining that way. . .

10. Be adaptable. You just never know. Fire alarms go off unexpectedly, teachers drop their students off late, water cups spill, students are unable to sit still for 5 minutes of directions after 2 hours of testing. Sometimes all of your wonderful planning and preparing has to be thrown out the window in favor of some other activity, sometimes you can’t get done as much as you’d like to, sometimes one class is really behind the others and you have to figure out a way to creatively catch them up while still fulfilling lesson objectives. One of the worst mistakes I made was lining a particularly crazy Kindergarten class up on time, only for their classroom teacher to show up several minutes late. To keep them from a mutiny, I reviewed the lesson’s vocabulary, steps, etc. You just never know.

A List of 10 Pieces of Advice for High School Student Teachers

1) Your Presentation is most important. You need to dress well and come to class looking professional everyday. This is your job. You should set the example for your students and take your job seriously. You should always be dressed appropriately and a step above your students. Surprisingly your students notice things like this and they will judge you which could in time dictate how much respect you receive from the students.

2) Get lots of Sleep. I never realized how much I needed sleep to get through the day until I started student teaching. High school days are much longer than elementary schools so you need to have enough energy to get you through the long stretch. I can remember my first week of student teaching. I thought I could be ok with about five hours of sleep but come the middle of the first week I was struggling to get through the day. Coffee couldn't help that energy that only rest and sleep could provide.

3) Be on top of your Organization. Being organized will keep you on top of your students and basically make sure that you are grading fairly as well as keeping track of progress. For example, if a situation occurs in the classroom where a student will say that they turned in something that you know that they obviously have not, and this will happen, if you are organized you will easily be able to look up the work turned in and not have the problem of the student claiming that you have lost their work.

4) Be Consistent. Be consistent in how you grade, discipline, and handle any sort of issue related to the classroom. Students will notice this and respect from the students comes easier when they know that you treat everyone equal.

5) Be On Time. Getting to school early is a must and will help make planning for your day much easier. You don't want to get to school late and immediately start teaching. You need time to prepare mentally and physically for the day and having time in the morning to plan your day out or at least first period will start your day off on a better foot.

6) Be ready to Research. Be prepared to go that extra mile when preparing a lesson or presentation to a class. You want to be able to give the students as much knowledge about a subject as possible. It helps if you are very much in tune with what you are talking about. Giving a lesson on something you don't know much about will be noticed by your students and their interest in the project will be about the same as your interest and attitude in the subject.

7) Reflect on student learning. If you constantly reflect on student achievement, behavior and student progress in your classroom you will better yourself at assessing them in the end. You will be able to determine much better if learning took place with the student from constant reflection from day to day.

8) Get to Know All Your Students. Believe me you don't want to sit down at the end of a project and try and grade a student you hardly ever talked to. Students need your guidance and knowing every one of your students learning achievements and learning potential will all reflect your assessment of the student in the end. Students appreciate the little things like saying "hello" to them or making an effort to check up on them when making your rounds through the classroom. It builds student confidence which will increase student production and learning.

9) Be Aware of high school social issues. Believe me when I say that you need to be on top of what goes on with your students inside and outside of the classroom. Not literally, but being on top of social issues and problems that come with being a high school kid will help better you in times of need in the classroom. No one wants to be out of the loop and students will assume that you are. Things like understanding new technology, student behavior, and relationships between students in your class can help a teacher understand their students more and avoid conflicts.

10) Relax, it's ok to be cool. Students should not look to you as a buddy but it's ok to talk to your students and be there as someone to talk and consult with. High school students will throw everything at you, even stuff that will make your jaw drop but it's up to you to decide what is appropriate and not to talk with your students about. You don't have to be strict and over protective when talking to your students, but you should always use precaution and know when you may put yourself in a position that could cross the line between the student and the teacher.

10 pieces of advise for future student teachers (in no particular order):

1. Take photos of everything- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Especially the ugly. You want to document everything so that you can see improvement. 

2. Always take lots of notes throughout the day- the more you remember the better. Especially when preparing your Portfolio.

3. Expect the unexpected... and always have a back-up plan. Sometimes lessons don't go as planned and it's important to prepare for that. 

4. be consistent and confident- especially your first few weeks there. The kids will play off of your every move, if you are consistent in your discipline and confident in your approach they will respect you. 

5. They've said it once, I'll say it again- invest in comfortable shoes. You will be on your feet all day long. i mean it... all day. 

6. Get lots of sleep- you need all the energy you can get to chase around 100+ kids a day. 

7. Keep in constant contact with the other student teachers- they are the only people who know exactly what you are going through and learning from each other is a great tool.

8. Give yourself enough time to clean up at the end of each class- making students responsible for cleaning up their own mess is important for them and also makes transitioning to the next class easier for you. 

9. Collaborate with other teachers- seeing how other teachers run their classrooms and what they are teaching can be helpful in how you plan for your classes. I found that if i could tie what the students were learning in their classroom to what we did in art they were more excited to make art. 

10.  learn from your students- notice how your students are reacting to your lessons and adapt to meet their needs. If you aren't getting the quality of work you expected then reflect on what went wrong and how you can make it more successful in the future.