Assessment.

For this week, I read Chapters 1, 7, and 5 (Formative Assessment) from Beattie’s “Assessment in Art Education.” There are so many possibilities for steps and techniques in assessment it will be difficult to narrow it down to the ones I imply most in my future classroom. To me, it seemed there were things I should be doing in order to assess student performance before, during, and after a specific lesson plan.

Before the lesson starts, I always make my lesson plans based off of what I want students to know and be able to do at the end of the lesson. Everything goes backwards from there. These objectives and key concepts should be clear and assessable in some way. It is also important that these final goals are made clear to the students when explaining the new lesson. It would be nice to be able to do a mini-syllabus for each project, with the objectives, ways I will be grading, and tentative schedule given to every student from the beginning. This makes expectations clear, and should be posted in the classroom as we go on with the unit. As mentioned in class as well as the text, I think a form of a pre-test is important in order to assess prior knowledge as well as skill. This can be conceptual, in a form of “Tell me what you think __innocence/juxtaposition/pop culture__ means?” Or it can be a skill test such as “Paint me the most realistic eyeball you can in fifteen minutes.” I think both of these are important for establishing an individual baseline for each student, as well as knowing where your class stands as a whole before you move forward. I wouldn’t let students worry about it, and be clear that it will not be graded, without being clear on what I am as a teacher looking for. Student and teacher examples should be displayed to set the bar for standards.

When the lesson is in full swing, I believe that there needs to be a check-in. Somehow students should be able to ask me questions, be reminded of expectations, and I need to see how the project is going before it is suddenly “too late” to help the project stay on course and on time. This is where I think the formative assessment techniques could be helpful in order to keep this informal and at any point. I like the idea of student discussions, one-on-one or in groups. I also liked the idea of thirty-second note cards, where students can be given a prompt such as “What is most challenging right now?” Where students have to paraphrase and determine what is most important to communicate to me as the teacher. These note-cards are then collected, and I give a brief response to the entire class about the topics discussed. This also gives me a better idea of what to focus on for individual help.

Once the project has come to a close, I do believe in a form of a summative assessment. I also think that this should be a holistic grade, as there should be many different things happening in a student’s brain while working. Nor will all kids be completely successful in one area alone. This holistic grade would include:

o   Understanding and communication of content

o   Technical skill, use of medium, composition

o   Attitude and effort

o   Personal development

o   Overall effectiveness

o   Time management

In order to receive a summative grade of an A, a student would have to excel in all of these areas and complete work on time. Individual pre-tests would be looked at to see the personal development, while an overall effectiveness would incorporate a sense of how the work is as a whole and in a general comparison to the work of the class. I believe students should be given another note card to turn in with their work as a way to communicate to me how they feel they explored these areas I will be grading. I want to know that a student stayed up until three in the morning in order to finish on time, or what a symbol is supposed to mean in their work, or that they know they should have started their work sooner. They should be able to paraphrase their process to have their voice be heard in the final grading system.

For a transitional phase, I thought it would be interesting to make kids critically think about the project we just completed by using the “disprove theory” as mentioned in the text. In this theory, students argue against an art aesthetic. For example: Do all portraits have to be realistic? Should photographs just be black and white? This gets kids to appreciate the work that they have just completed, while being little avant-garde artists for a moment to criticize it, reject it, and appreciate/develop other forms of aesthetics. This is an important process for artists throughout history and should be continually thought about by all artists today. To me, this would bring a sense of closure to the lesson while preparing the class to move forward to the next project/idea at hand.