Module 3: Arts curriculum

Lesson plans

M3 Task 1 - Assessing a lesson plan

The Internet has lots of sites that include lesson plans for all areas of the curriculum. They may be plans for single lessons, or for sequences of lessons. Many make marginal use of the Internet and some none at all.

The quality of lesson plans available is not always high. This is a further reminder that (almost) anybody can publish (almost) anything on the Internet. It is also important to remember that even high quality lesson plans may not be applicable to the syllabus requirements in your State or Territory or the needs and interests of your students. Use the evaluation criteria reviewed in Module 2 to assess this type of material.

M3 Task 1 - Assessing a lesson plan

Look at some of the following examples, which are of varying quality, and consider what use the plans could have in your own classroom:

Admiral Cowdisley Shovel Education Group
http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/
Click on Drawing > Portraiture.

Art Teacher on the Net
http://www.artmuseums.com/
Scroll down the page and click on the chalkboard icon for Art History.

The Educator's Reference Desk: Lesson Plans
http://www.eduref.org
You can browse the lesson plans by subject area or search all the lesson plans.
Select Arts > Visual Arts > Visual Arts Lesson Plans > Starry Night.
You may wish to return to the Arts Lesson Plans area (use the Back button on your browser) and look under one of the other headings such as Art History or Computers in Art. You can also return to the Main Index and look under Interdisciplinary.

Crayola
http://www.crayola.com
Click on Educators > Lesson Plans.
From the drop down Grade menu choose Grade 7 to 12 and from the Theme menu select Artists' Lives and Work, then click on Search for Lessons. Choose Daring Color with de Kooning. Click on Search Lesson Plans and search other options such as different ages and themes or try limiting your search by timeframe.

Getty ArtsEdNet
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet/
Go to Lesson Plans & Curriculum Ideas > Sorted by Grade Level > Middle School.
Look at the unit on Celebration! Go back to Lesson Plans & Curriculum Ideas (use the Back button on your browser). Click on Alphabetical Listing. Select the unit called The Aesthetic Experience.

The Incredible Art Department
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/
Click on Lessons > Elementary Lessons > Archived Elementary Lessons.
Look at some of the options, such as Matisse Face Masterpiece.

Kodak
http://www.kodak.com
Click on Taking Great Pictures > Digital Learning Centre > DLC Plus Book

National Gallery of Australia
http://www.nga.gov.au/
Click on Education then Teacher's Notes. This will allow you to download lesson notes and resources.

Choose one of the better lesson and prepare a recommendation for a faculty or Key Learning Area meeting on how it could be used to add to already existing classroom activities. Consider the following questions:

How does the lesson plan relate to existing curriculum used in your faculty or Key Learning Area?
Which of the print resources you currently use or know about would complement the lesson plan?
What other resources would you need to locate in order to use the lesson plan?
In Module 2 Task 1, you identified some goals of Visual Arts learning in relation to communication technologies. Which of them are supported by the lesson plan?
Which elements of your State or Territory curriculum guidelines are supported by the lesson plan?

You can print these questions if you wish (M3 Task 1 Questions).

You may have found that none of the lesson plans in Task 1 could be used directly in the classroom, as they did not relate to your curriculum or were too specific. Lesson plans on the Internet are often best used as a stimulus for classroom teaching.

There are many directories of lesson plans. You can search for those related to art by entering the following keywords into a search engine such as Google (http://www.google.com), "lesson plans" directories art. See Module 1 Task 7 for more help on searching by keywords.


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