Art teachers everywhere can identify with the "penny-pinching blues." It seems every year art budgets are cut. Teachers have to beg, borrow, and get really creative to ensure students have enough quality supplies to last the year. In this episode, Andrew brings up broad strategies for advocating for (and using!) your budget while Tim shares some great classroom hacks to help teachers get the biggest bang for their buck. Listen up and learn how to budget like a boss!
Andrew and Tim share some practical tips and tricks for stretching that art budget (14:15). These tips are especially relevant to new teachers or teachers transferring to a new building, Next, Tim and Andrew discuss some common mistakes in budgeting and ordering supplies (19:00). Finally, the guys go out on a limb to discuss how budgeting like a boss can actually add legitimacy to an art program as an advocacy piece (26:00).
We've all had projects that have flopped, but how do we transition out of that failure into something meaningful? Andrew joins Tim on the show as they discuss the need to figure out how to make those failures relevant. They also talk about salvaging learning experiences for our students when things aren’t running as smoothly as we had hoped. Tim provides tips on using reflection and discussion as a learning experience (3:00). Andrew shares his ideas about what causes our projects to fail (7:00) and why he purposefully designs projects that force students to struggle (11:45). This episode has great suggestions for trying new projects in your classroom, saving lessons that go awry, and even using those lessons to teach our kids about failure.
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In this episode, Andrew brings up a topic that we all agree happens on a daily basis: student immaturity. It's a topic we don’t always feel comfortable sharing as somehow confessing this is an admission of classroom management failure. If creativity is the currency of art teachers, immaturity is the currency of our students. Be it fart jokes, sexual innuendo, or “that’s what she said” remarks, students revel in immaturity. Teachers deal with these antics in their own ways. Some see them as inevitable and harmless little quips that can lighten the class mood or build rapport. Others see them as a huge distraction that can completely derail your class and undermine everything you’re trying to do as a teacher.
Andrew and Tim begin by sharing some memorable stories of how student immaturity reared it’s head in their classrooms. You won't want to miss the epic fart story that Andrew tells (7:45)! They then discuss tips and tricks to deal with or circumvent immature and offensive behavior (11:30). And finally coming full circle, Tim and Andrew discuss ways that masterful teachers can navigate and even leverage immaturity into teachable moments to build a healthy classroom environment and strengthen rapport (21:00 ).
In this episode, Andrew shines a light on a pretty serious and worrying thought… the death of art education. While this may seem a bit melodramatic, there are serious shifts underway that are undermining and changing the status quo of art education. Right off the bat, Andrew brings on special guest Danny Gregory whose blog post, “Let’s Get Rid of Art Education in Schools,” had the art teaching world all worked up.
Love it or hate it, the article brings up some interesting points and got Andrew and fellow Art Ed Radio podcast host, Tim Bogatz, thinking about the current reality of art education (7:30). Tim and Andrew discuss advocacy strategies and how art teachers can take a stance in the face of shifting paradigms to champion our programs, whether these programs are more traditional or new and more inclusive to the world outside art (13:50).
In this episode, Andrew will shed some light on new acronyms from the art ed world including STEM, STEAM, and PBL. He'll share how to start incorporating these teaching philosophies into your classroom in order to get your students thinking like designers. He'll even talk about why having the STEM vs. STEAM debate isn't worth your time.
Joining Andrew will be his longtime friend and colleague, Ryan McInry. Ryan is a fellow Iowa art educator and a bonafide STEAM expert.
Andrew and Ryan discuss the unifying threads of STEM, STEAM, PBL and art and why these new paradigms don’t have to be a source of fear or confusion for art teachers (16:00). They also talk about how STEAM and PBL can lead art teachers to collaborate with other teachers in the building (21:00). Finally, Ryan and Andrew discuss how art teachers can be leaders when schools start adopting a STEAM or PBL approach (24:00 ).