by Madeleine Mosher
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
A Chesapeake High School teacher recently showed her students several pictures of cats and asked them to choose which matched their mood that day.
Pam Ehrenreich, who frequently uses the “mood meter” in her virtual classroom, is one of Baltimore County Public Schools’ art educators working to teach students skills on line that traditionally require close, hands-on instruction.
Ehrenreich is the chair of the Fine Art Department at Chesapeake High. She is one of hundreds of teachers who have used icebreakers to connect with students since remote classes started Sept. 8.
Drawing and painting teacher Jessica Powell said she learns about her students at Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts through virtual discussion boards. These electronic devices enable students to hold conversations in the form of posted messages.
“If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?” Powell asked students to prompt a discussion intended to encourage interaction. She has been a teacher 14 years.
Students’ artwork also is used to build relationships with teachers.
“Connection is so important now more than ever,” said Raine Valentine who teaches art at Ridgely Middle School, “and it is also more difficult now. To make sure each of my students feels seen and heard.”
Valentine said in an email interview that she gives feedback on each student’s artwork every week, congratulating them on strong points and suggesting improvements.
Julia Stone, an art teacher at Owings Mills Elementary School, said she assigns projects centered on themes like “identity” to get a look into each student’s heart and mind.
And students often use art to visualize their dreams.
Recently, Stone, a teacher for four years, showed her students pictures of studios used by artists. Then, she asked them to design a plan for their own work space. She said she knew some students don’t have access to a space at home, so she allowed them to design an ideal studio as well.
Valentine, an art teacher for 13 years, said she taught a similar lesson. She encouraged students to draw, paint, digitally design or build with cardboard or Legos a representation of their ideal studio, she explained.
“I noticed that all the students are so excited to create and share their work,” Valentine said. “I can tell they need this creative outlet, especially in light of what’s happening in our world.”
While art teachers have discovered unique ways to instruct students, they also are grappling with limited supplies and space.
Stone said that each school in the district has its own plan for distributing materials.
Supplies requested by Ridgely Middle and Owings Mills are on backorder, which officials explained means they won’t be available for a few weeks at least. Owings Mills was able to organize a supply pickup for students so they could have colored pencils, markers and other materials at the start of school, officials said.
Patapsco High organized a similar pickup, and Chesapeake High will hold one on Wednesday. Ehrenreich said she and her fellow teachers spent an estimated 45 to 50 hours ordering, organizing and packaging sketchbooks, paint, colored pencils and paper for students.
Though Powell’s painting students typically get to use canvases for their projects, she said she thinks that her students might enjoy the smaller scale a sketchbook provides. This year, she took time with her classes to decorate and organize their sketchbooks, so they were still able to create art, though with limited space.
Despite limited supplies, Powell said the difference between virtual and in-person learning she feels the most is collaboration between students.
“I think that they learn a lot more from one another than from me,” she said
To develop virtual collaboration, Powell placed her students in groups, giving them a choice between six paint colors: lemon yellow, cadmium orange, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, viridian green and dioxane violet. Each student chose a color-coded group that meets every week to talk and work together.
Though having limited supplies is challenging, Ehrenreich, who has been teaching for more than 25 years, said the hardest part of virtual art instruction is physical separation from students.
“That’s the biggest part that I miss, being able to walk around the room and see them creating,” she said.
To develop a similar dynamic, she instructs students to angle their cameras so she can see their hands while they work and requires them to post their work to a virtual learning platform every day.
Powell said another challenge is helping her students collaborate through Google Meet, which BCPS uses for virtual classes. When she teaches in-person, she said she seats her students at tables together, where they develop what she calls “table culture.”
Powell described “table culture” this way: “That normal banter and conversation that you have while you’re working with those that are seated around you.”
To develop virtual table culture, Powell said she assigns groups to breakout rooms during classroom sessions, where they discuss projects and ideas.
“[Students are] largely, I think, excited and engaged to be doing something with somebody else,” she said.
Stone described how her elementary school students typically re-teach classroom lessons to each other.
“We really depend on them for that sometimes,” she said, but it’s hard for them to talk and explain things to each other online.
Because her students are younger, Stone said she wants to focus on teaching them how to use new technology before adding collaborative aspects like breakout rooms.
Valentine again used art to help her students collaborate: they designed a class mural during the first week of school. Each student contributed an image that represented him or herself in the art class, and Valentine used an online platform to combine them into a mural.
She said she thinks it is important that each student feels noticed.
“I think it is vital to make sure students know that they are safe and supported with whatever they need to be successful,” Valentine said.