As a first year teacher I had never expected to find myself in a tenure track position at the high school level BUT also writing the curriculum for the Rocky Point animation program. This has been such a blessing and a fantastic learning experience. I have had the opportunity to work with so many amazing veteran teachers and talented students in this journey and I cannot express enough my gratitude for being trusted with such a position.
At the beginning of the school year I knew right away I wanted to create an ambitious and challenging curriculum that pushed students to take creative risks and think outside of the box. I am lucky to have so many amazing students that really rose to the occasion to create some fantastic work.
With animation being offered as an elective students with a wide variety of artistic competence were placed in my class. I knew I wanted to make the curriculum flexible enough that students at all skill level would feel challenged but not under pressure to preform at the same level as their classmates. This included flexible due dates and projects where students could really take the project and run with it should they feel artistically inclined.
My biggest hurdle in writing this class was addressing the challenges of learning the animation software, being that this class is far more challenging due to that technical aspect I made sure to provide supports to students such as extra help and online video tutorials I created myself to allow them to rewind methods at their own pace.
As the school year has progressed I have seen such a great level of growth in my students from their character designs to their animations and even their confidence in using the animation software. We have currently been wrapping up our rotoscoping unit where students designed their own characters and created a dance sequence. I am so proud of my students for taking on such a challenge and creating such beautiful work!