Browns and Greys Lesson

Mixing browns and greys with only Red, Yellow and Blue. Continuation of colour theory lessons.

While the student's work is unfinished, the students will take another lesson to complete the cube at the bottom of the page.

Personal reflection:

I felt unprepared for this lesson.

I did not prepare beforehand as I had intended and only had five minutes before the lesson to create the worksheet. Although, I did receive praise from my subject mentor considering the design it's not what I had hoped it would be. I had done a lot of research before hand, so in terms of knowledge I felt informed and ready.

Part of what I was asked to do, was to prepare some artists which engaged with browns, which I did do. You can see the evidence of this in another one of my blog posts: Lesson Plan Concepts - Browns. It was useful reflections in how to plan a lesson around these ideas. This lesson, was a group teach with my subject mentor and so I was told I would be doing just the demonstration. As such it was not asked of me to use any of the artist research I had done.

Behavioural issue:

During the lesson, one student threw a cup of blue paint at another student's face.

I was helping another student at the back and I did not see the escalation.

This was within a team teach, so the responsibility was not solely on myself to take charge and respond to the situation, but I feel guilty that it happened within a class I was part in charge of. I must reflect on this critically in order to facilitate safer environments for learning.

My SM told me that she was glad to observe the class while I did the demonstration as she could pay attention to dynamics that do and do not work from a new angle. She realised that the three biggest personalities in the class are all sitting next to each other, which may. contribute to the escalation of the disruptive behaviour.

In terms of managing behaviour, I am struggling at this school.

There is no real behaviour management plan and so instead of managing behaviours with escalating warnings and minor sanctions, students are only threatened by unanimous detentions.

SM Feedback:

Lovely start - Asking all students to 'shush' collaboratively gains silence in the room.

Questioning to establish prior knowledge

Using names for noisy students - comes more with building relationships

Good use of voice

Celebrating students is good - Careful not to give high fives as to avoid unnecessary contact with students.

Good job in asking for control within the class:

- 'Guys please pay attention.'

- 'Stand here please.'

- 'Do not talk over me.'

They are a tricky group to get focussed and to stop chatting. - This is only due to a few students.

You have very good subject knowledge.

You explain terms well, such as neutralise.

- Finding the balance between two saturated colours, to create the unsaturated grey directly between them.

- First Mix the secondary colour, then mix in that colour's complimentary colour to make greys and browns.

'like cousins' - explains simply the relations between colours and makes these relationships simpler to grasp.

Call and response technique is helpful, Everyone say 'play' > 'Play'. This strategy helps engage those who easily get distracted.

"Please don't tap." - example of where you called out and stopped low level disruption.

The sheet is great, this works well.

Equipment - Students help themselves

TARGET - Instead, give students jobs (offer house points as a reward).

- The focus gained in the demonstration was only lost when the students were left to organise themselves. Instead, maintain the control in the classroom.

Target - Bring back round to demo cube. This could help to refocus, would mean you are not having to explain 20 different times and means you are more in control of the room.

Exemplar Material:

To gain further understanding of the materials, I used the same poster paint that the year 7s would use to create this exemplar piece.

My goal with this, was to immediately apply the scope of browns and greys to a work.

Four greys were used here: A cool-toned unsaturated grey, A cool-toned dark grey, a warm-toned light brown, a warm-toned dark brown.

Student Work: