I would describe my teaching philosophy as constructivist – students create their own knowledge through construction, and through this foster critical thinking skills and intrinsic motivation. I am very interested in Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development – ZPD (Vygotsky in Werscht, 1984).

On my final practicum, I had noticed that many students struggled with the written work in the Visual Arts classroom. My mentor told me that many students choose Visual Art because they struggle with their writing skills, and Visual Art is a largely kinaesthetic class. Because of this, it was common for students to not turn in their written work. As I was taking six class-groups during this practicum, I had already experienced this situation a few times before it arose in my Year 10 class. The Year 10 class was small but had a range of diverse learners – there were several students with ASD, one with ADHD, one with an unspecified learning disability, and two gifted students.

I decided I wanted to create a resource that could help scaffold this task for the students. I began my research with a Google search into how artists statements are constructed. Many of the resources I found online were directed towards tertiary students or career artists, which is not suitable for the standards of a Year 10 class. I took notes on the common themes in these websites. I also spoke to both of my mentor teachers about which things they felt were most important to include.

From this, I created a page-long resource - Figure 1. I showed my mentor my first draft, and we collaborated to create the final version. In the middle of the page, the statement was broken down into 3 sections – what, why, and how. Each section had three further prompts, and some of the prompts had explanatory sections in brackets. At the top of the page was an explanation of what was required, and at the bottom of the page was a sample paragraph. The worksheet was scaffolded. This was paired with direct instruction – I spent a few minutes at the beginning of class explaining the requirements of the task, and answering any questions that they had. From there, I worked the room and checked on each student several times and offered 1-2-1 support. As I was helping each student individually, I could tailor my advice to fit their individual learning needs.

This worksheet operated within the theory of the ZPD. Every student completed the task to a satisfactory level, and submitted it within the timeframe. Each student was able to discuss their artwork in a way that was accessible to them, and followed the guidelines. Students who had difficulty with literacy completed the task successfully by touching on all the criteria. Students who were gifted were encouraged to use more artistic jargon. My mentor teacher was impressed with the quality of the responses, with how the resource scaffolded the process. She asked for a copy to use in future classes as she felt the resource could be accessed by students along the full range of abilities.