DMA Art Teacher Gets Creative During Distance Learning

De Marillac Art Teacher Rebecca Shannon is no stranger to thinking out of the box. Rebecca has taught art at De Marillac for six years and has over 20 years experience at K-8 grade private and public schools. If you have attended any of our Annual Scholarship Benefit events, you are familiar with Rebecca’s creative art instruction through the varied collection of art pieces that are featured in the student art auction each year.

According to Rebecca, De Marillac’s personalized learning model and integration of technology into the classroom made the transition to distance learning a little easier for her and her colleagues. Nevertheless, trying to teach a visual and hands on subject like art has been a challenge for Rebecca.

With a special grant from the Good Tidings Foundation, Rebecca rushed to order supplies once the decision was made to transition to Distance Learning to ensure all students had supplies at home. “Our art program is essential to our curriculum at DMA. In my class, students create and express their thoughts and feelings through art, and it was very important for me to make sure all students could continue these practices at home in this unprecedented time.”

Over the first few weeks of the shelter-in-place order, Rebecca has learned she must pare down projects while continuing to deliver assignments that challenge students in a meaningful way. At this point, one might be wondering what types of assignments DMA students are working on.

The seventh and eighth grade students recently finished a unit on graffiti artists who transitioned into the fine arts world. Each student has written their name in stylized graffiti lettering, created a poster in the style of Keith Haring about a social topic they feel strongly about, and will soon venture into the worlds of FEK! And Banksy.

Sixth grade students are exploring color. The class just finished a project based on the art of Dean Russo, making some fierce and colorful tigers. Now, they will participate in an indoor scavenger hunt to look for colorful objects around their home that they can arrange in a color wheel and photograph.

And fourth and fifth grade students are working with geometric shapes and just finished some terrific robots with great expression.

And Rebecca’s creativity does not stop here. Many of our students are lonely. They miss their friends and the daily personal interaction with teachers and staff, so she set up an art gallery on Padlet, an app that allows teachers to create online virtual “bulletin” board, where students and teachers can collaborate, reflect, share links and pictures. Rebecca is using Padlet to track student assignments and as a way to share student art with the school community while encouraging each other through positive comments. It’s a small thing but sometimes it’s the small things that count the most, says Rebecca.

We are all looking forward to when this is over. At De Marillac, we are a tight-knit community and we especially look forward to the time when we can once again come together, join hands and celebrate each other.