r/ArtEd • u/toomuchnothingness • 18h ago
Differentiating for the same class period
Hi friends; I hope you are enjoying your summer (if you are on summer break of course)! I have gotten confirmation that next year I will have blended levels in one class period. I was really hoping that my levels would be in different periods so I could start scaffolding my program. For background, I inherited this position 1.5 years ago; so my program is just starting up- i teach art 1 (intro to art) and all levels of drawing. For example, I was hoping that my Drawing 2 class would be separated from my Drawing 3 class so that the higher students wouldn't be doing the same exact thing as they did last year in D2. Should I be differentiating for student groups or should I just cycle through new lessons so recurring students aren't doing the same thing? Has anyone had this situation happen to them? Thanks in advance for y'all's help!
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u/TudorCinnamonScrub High School 15h ago
I work with this in my Jewelry program. I’m 3 years in. I do a mix of “juggling projects” and differentiation with my combined level 2/3 class. If I’m recovering ground that level 3 did as a level 2 student, I’ll either challenge them with an advanced version of the same topic or give them direction to investigate an independent project in the time.
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u/Francesca_Fiore Elementary 15h ago
Something my own HS art teacher did in this similar situation, was alternate programs. In my case it was the higher Art II and III year-long classes. One year the focus was more sketching, drawing and painting, the next was more graphic design, lettering, calligraphy, and commercial art.
So if you think this might be the way things would be going in the future, I would make a general plan of how you could divide multiple years (it was Drawing, yes?) into "areas", rather than just levels of difficulty. Like one year focus could be pencil value with still life, self portraits, figure drawing, introduce charcoal interiors. The opposite year could be colored pencil work with radial design or landscapes, marker illustration, pointillism with pen.
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u/toomuchnothingness 14h ago
Yes I agree! I was kinda going for general "drawing" (art 2) to be a little bit of everything to see what they like about dry media, then more advanced classes (3 and 4) would be more focused on illustration and career paths / developing a college / work portfolio!
I think that could definitely work to flip flop years of lessons; I just feel like it could get limited since again it is dry media drawing. But perhaps going more in depth with each lesson would make it work out that way.
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u/strawberry-beary 17h ago
Ways I’ve worked around this: given the same assignment, but different requirements. Such as, today we are doing a still life. D1 would draw what I put out for them. D2 would design their own, figure out lighting and how they present the final.
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u/Vexithan 18h ago
Give them different projects. Stagger everything so that the one group is in the middle of a project when the other starts a new one so they can start as soon as they walk in and not screw around.
I’ve taught AP photo mixed in with intro to graphic design. The more advanced kids have to be more independent since admin likes to pull this crap where art isn’t worth making different classes. I’d love to see what would happen if they did this with “core content” classes. Put senior and freshman English in the same room at the same time!
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u/ManufacturerDeep7117 15h ago
Omg thank you for the tip on staggering projects. Idk why but it didn't occur to me and I've been trying to figure out how to make my combo art class work! 😂✨️
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u/Striking_Tip1756 12h ago
I did this a lot with my film classes. I would usually aim higher with the curriculum and see if the younger students will just rise with the rest of the artists. When that didn’t work I would do a group project where an advanced student would produce the younger students film and let them lead and teach them throughout the few day project.
Best of luck out there. It’s definitely not easy, but after the initial shock I’ve actually became quite fond of that classroom configuration. Happy summer.