Teaching Portfolio
Education
During my student teaching experience I taught for 9 weeks at American Fork High School and for 6 weeks at Black Ridge Elementary. I am licensed by the state of Utah to teach grades K through 12.
As an educator, I have made the personal choice to always assume the best of my students. Everyone has bad days and makes mistakes, but it is my responsibility to teach students how to have a growth mindset and recognize the choices they have, regardless of their circumstances. I prioritize equity in my classroom, ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. I make accommodations for students who face additional challenges and design both my classroom and my teaching to promote respect and appreciation for each individual student. In my classroom, we celebrate diversity as something that adds to the strength of our community and makes for a more enriching learning environment.
In my art teaching, I prioritize building lifelong skills that will help my students live fuller lives and become more capable people in whatever they choose to do. For example, I want my students to learn how to analyze images and media from multiple perspectives. Art is a language of its own, and students need to know how to interpret and respond to the media they encounter. Creativity is also an important skill to develop because it teaches students how to solve problems, create a plan, and adapt to changing circumstances. Being able to create and execute a plan is empowering, and that will serve students throughout their lives. Another important ability that students can cultivate in an art classroom is the ability to make choices. There are many parts of life that do not come with directions or instructions. Art can be a place where students learn to look within themselves, assess what they want, and make informed choices.
My curriculum aims to build on the skills that students already possess and help them try things that are out of their comfort zone. I prioritize teaching to my students’ needs, so as I teach, I assess how my students are responding and configure lessons and units that correspond with what I think they will most benefit from learning. For example, one time, while teaching a drawing unit to an Honors Art class, I shared an image of a Jackson Pollock painting. I was about to move on when a student raised their hand and said, “I just don’t understand why that kind of art is important or why anyone cares so much about it.” Later in the same class, students expressed similar confusion. Their reaction informed me that abstraction wasn’t something they connected with or understood very well. I decided to design a unit on abstraction to help them learn media literacy, develop creativity, and practice making choices. In that unit, I presented them with numerous examples of abstraction, facilitated discussions and thought experiments, and encouraged them to try out their own abstractions. By the end of the unit, the same students who had been asking questions about it were now producing compelling abstract paintings that they were genuinely proud of. It also engaged certain students who discovered a hidden propensity for design and challenged those who usually relied on their ability to draw or render well. I am always looking to address the needs I observe in my students by providing them with opportunities to excel at what they enjoy and experiment with what is unfamiliar.
After School Art Lessons
Since June of 2023 I have been offering after-school art classes to students ages 6 to 18. My classes are offered in small groups of 4 to 7 students which allows me to work individually with each students but also creates a social environment which I believe is ideal for creating art. Artists can be relatively introverted people, and I have found that students learn a lot more when they can make art in a group rather than on their own. At a given time I have anywhere between 20 and 35 students from the Utah Valley area in my after-school art classes.
Information about after-school art classes:
I offer after school art classes in three different blocks during the year: Summer from June to the end of August, Fall from mid September to December, and Winter from January to the end of April. Students are welcome to join any time because all of our projects are 100% individually based. That allows each student to work at their own pace and skill level. I group my classes based on age to help students make connections with their peers. The youngest class is roughly ages 6 to 9, the next age group is 10 to 12, and the last group is 12 to 16, although I would accept as old as 18. Those age groups are adjustable to whatever students feel most comfortable with, but I foster and maintain a learning environment where every student can be challenged appropriate to their skill level. We also celebrate success on every skill level as success can look different from student to student.I teach multimedia especially because my goal is to help students develop a personal art practice that will help them become lifelong creatives. I teach oven-bake clay, charcoal, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, drawing, collage, bookmaking, and any other material that we can feasibly bring into our studio. Classes are offered out of a basement studio in Highland, UT.
If you would like more information about classes or are interested in signing your student up, please email me at emiwhiteart@gmail.com.
More After-School Art Student Work:
Teaching Experience in Elementary Schools
Black Ridge Elementary
As part of my student teaching, I spent six weeks at Black Ridge Elementary. While there, I planned and prepared lessons for grades K through 6. In one day, I taught 30 minute lessons for all seven grades. Each class spent one full week in art before rotating to the next specialty, so many of our projects were completed in 3 to 4 class periods. I coordinated with grade teachers to help students do art projects that were related to what they were learning in history or science.Projects:
Ted Harrison Utah Landscapes in Oil Pastel - 3rd and 4th grade
Tiny Collages - Foreground and Background - 3rd and 4th grade
Middle School Experience
Hózhó Academy
While I was a student at BYU, I had the opportunity to go down to Gallup, New Mexico and teach a one week art unit to middle schoolers at Hózhó Academy. Our students at Hózhó were all from indigenous families, which gave us teachers an opportunity to adjust our curriculum to fit the cultural backgrounds of our students. Two team teachers and I taught a unit about creating mini-art books called zines. The students were challenged to fill their handmade art books with a story that was personal to them and then participate in a class zine exchange where each student got to keep a copy of everyone else’s zine.
Unfolding Stories Zine Project:
High School Experience
American Fork High
As part of my student teaching experience I taught at American Fork High for nine weeks. While at American Fork, I taught two periods of Exploratory Art, one period of AP Art, three periods of Photography 1, and one Photography 2. It was a great experience for learning how to plan and organize multiple different subjects and I got to try out a lot of great projects to determine whether I should include them in my future curriculum.
Projects:
Observational Skull Drawings
Abstract Expressionism Action Paintings
Creative Diptych Photos
Mixed Light Photo Portraits
Adobe Illustrator
Photoshop
After Effects
Resume