Day Eleven: Finishing the Notan Design Lesson

Eighth Grade:
Today, Nora and I finished teaching our Notan Design lesson to the eighth grade class. The students had continued their lessons with Mr. H on Friday and were expected to be finishing up in class today. Before the class began Nora and I worked quickly with Mr. H to come up with a small project for students to start today, since many were nearing the end of our lesson, according to Mr. H. Mr. H informed us that these students recently learned about analogous and complimentary colors, so he thought it would be a great idea for students to build off of our lesson with this knowledge to create another small Notan, now that they understand how it works. We started the class by splitting students up into pairs to critique and contemplate scoring based on the self-assessment forms they received last week. Due to the new lesson/filler that we were introducing to the class, we decided to  introduce our closure question near the beginning of class, because it felt like an appropriate way to start. Our questions was, "If you could go back and do something differently, what would it be and why?" This allowed students to think about their design and what would be an improvement for their 4x4 in. color Notan creations. We also reminded students of what was all due at the beginning of the next hour and collected the work from students that were done and gave further instruction to students who needed it. We then gave the students work time, Nora and I circulated the room answering questions, giving suggestions, and reinforcing students. The class seemed a little less under our control today, I think it was because it was a Monday and some students were getting frustrated with cutting and gluing paper due to other projects Mr. H has worked with them on. Some of the students were turning out fantastic projects though, it was so exciting to see how successful and intricate some of their work was. I really look forward to reading through their answers, self-assessments, and getting the chance to really sit down and look at their final products. As class wrapped up, Nora and I flipped through the closure questions to make sure that students were able to answer all of them before class and pointed out the items that are due tomorrow. Mr. H then took over to remind students of what they were doing tomorrow and take back control of the room.