Mrs. Lapp's  Educational Philosophy

The anonymous quote at the base of this page states, “a teacher is someone who asks questions rather than answers them.” Synthesis is the process of creating something new, something unique, and the visual arts is one of the best avenues of exploring this high level of thinking, analyzing, and synthesizing.  During the year, my students learn about art from different times and cultures, the elements and principles of art, various media and techniques, and how to Describe, Analyze, interpret and evaluate art. For my masters program, I focused on improving my educator effectiveness by incorporating literacy and other content areas into more of my art units and having students use more technology and groupwork to learn about and create art.  Please refer to the "evidence of effectiveness" tab for more information about these three overarching goals.  Each week for one hour, students will spend most of their time immersed in the process of making art. Synthesis. As an effective educator, I pose essential questions to students, and over the course of a unit, they formulate the answers, or big ideas, in the form of art creations during a teacher guided yet open-ended art making process.  During the synthesis process, I continually provide formative feedback to the students, usually in the form of a question. The resulting product, student art, will be displayed and celebrated in hallways, at an annual spring art show, and in the community.

Each of my art students has a personal portfolio that almost all of their art will be  stored in for the year within the art room.  I will review this portfolio  at the end of each trimester and grade students on these standards aligned rubric based criteria:  understanding/ applying skills and concepts, and participation in all activities (this grade relates to students’ work ethic, are they on engaged and on task, do they try their best and are they safe and respectful).  Teacher feedback is shared with both parent and student during several conferences throughout the year.

 

At the end of the year, students proudly bring their portfolios home. Because of a lack of storage space, sculptures and pottery are brought home throughout the year; I  keep some works until the end of the year to display in the art show.  I urge parents to keep this portfolio so that they can look back on their child’s progress in the visual arts over the years.  Also, it is nice to select one art work from the entire year, frame it, and display it.  Over the years, a family can have a celebratory wall in their home filled with years of their child's expressive art work.

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Even though most of my time is allocated towards teaching, I continue to express myself through my own  art work. When I am not snowboarding with my daughter or helping my husband chop fire wood, I am usually creating art in my home studio in various styles.  Below are some examples of my work  (acrylic and oil paintings, lithographs, India ink sketches, photography, mixed media, encaustic, and Raku pottery.)