Maine College of Art & Design: Family and Friends Weekend

While completing the fall semester of the MAT program, I received the opportunity to lead a drawing workshop for the Friends & Family weekend Maine College of Art & Design was hosting for it's undergraduate students. Unexpectedly, I ended up with a full house of 24 attendees, and with no other goal than drawing the model--I had to lead everyone!

This experience was an exercise entirely in social communication and tone as a teacher. Many of the undergraduate students in this workshop had already taken a figure drawing class, while many of the parents had never drawn in their life. I adjusted my language with every attendee, gave personal suggestions while also broadly directing the whole class through the drawing from start to finish. 

Many of the parents were so pleased from the experience, and it was an immediate connection with the families that in a lot of student-teaching experiences, you may never get. It also immediately showed me the dedication parents may have to their child's education, and that we're all on the same team--rooting for the student!

This experienced focused heavily on a few teaching standards for me, mainly instructional strategies, collaboration, and innovative application of content.