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Clinical Field Experience A: Integrating Creative Arts and Literacy

Randi Lussier

Grand Canyon University

ECE- 620 Instructional Methodologies: Language Arts and the Creative Arts

Professor Mellott

December 23, 2020

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Field Experience A

I was able to meet with my mentor teacher in person, however she is teaching remotely

and allowed me to sit in on a few of her Zoom meetings with her students and observe. We did

discuss how teaching remotely has made it difficult to engage students and keep their attention,

but that integrating creative arts has helped and that her second grades really enjoy getting to add

music, acting, and drawing to their lessons. She shared with me that pre and post assessments are

vital in gaining a full understanding of your students and their growth.

We discussed how using arts is an amazing way to differentiate for learners because

everyone has their own creative style and what works for one student may not work for another.

For example, if she has the students draw the setting of the story and then write about it, she isn’t

grading on their ability to draw, she wants to see that they understood the setting. If a student has

trouble writing, they can use the drawing to their advantage and vice versa. She shared that is it

never just the creative aspect, it is paired with another element, so that the students who are not

naturally creative are included as well. She stated that this has helped with engagement and

differentiation during distance learning, and that it is a little bit easier for students it seems

because they are in the comfort of their homes and not in front of their peers if they are shy.

She collects data from pre-assessment to use as a starting point and see what the students

know and where she must begging teaching a specific subject or topic. If the students show that

they know it she just reviews it and then gives a post assessment. However, all data is analyzed

and used to determine teaching strategies and how much content the students need, she then

creates her lessons from this and incorporates creative arts in at least one lesson a day. She uses

post assessment to show growth and understanding before changing topics.

I was able to observe some goal setting that she does with students on a bi-weekly basis.
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She works with each student to set goals with them, she then shares this goal with the family and

she and the student track the goal and the progress together. I think this is an amazing way to

keep up engagement and include families in their child’s learning development and achievement.

I was able to learn so much from my first two observations with her and I cannot wait to

implement her goal setting and her arts/writing assessments with my students so that they feel

that they are getting more than just a writing assignment. I have so many creative students and I

need to use that to engage them and allow them to express it during their assignments and

assessments.