Assessment Instruments
Throughout the semester teaching the students at Polaris, we used a couple of different formative and summative assessments. One formative assessment that we utilized nearly every week with the students was ‘Outcome Sentences.’ At the start of each class period, we would being by showing students the class blog from the previous week. This became an simple and effective way at recapping previous learning, and it also served as a transition for the students into art. The students would be prompted with, “What did you learn last week?”, or “What did we do last week?” This would give students the opportunity to share with peers what their experience was in creating artwork. Many times throughout the semester, students would share some challenges in their previous experiences as well. This would give teachers and students a great opportunity to offer some clarity to the whole group. Another formative assessment that we utilized at Polaris this semester was an in-progress ‘Gallery Walk.’ This assessment strategy was used at the end of the second day of our Supernova lesson, when students began painting. Students were guided as a group around the classroom looking at their peers’ creations. They would explain what they liked specifically about an artwork, and some students even gave some suggestions to their classmates on maybe what they should do next. The in-progress mini critique was truly an excellent formative assessment strategy.
Summative assessments also became part of our routine with the students at Polaris. At the end of each lesson, students would participate in a reflective activity to think about the decisions they made during the creation process. One example of a summative assessment that we used at the end of a project was a short ‘Gallery Walk.’ Students participated in this activity at the end of the Cyanotype printing lesson. Students were divided into small groups and looked at each others’ prints from the project. Students were asked to share with their peers about the artwork, “What things in the artwork excite you the most?”, and “If you could give a title to this artwork, what would you call it?” These questions would guide the students to observe the artwork of others more carefully and to consider things that might be communicated through it. Also for this lesson, the student who created the artwork was asked to share what they thought was successful about their art, and something that they would like to change about their artwork. Again, this was intended to have students look deeper into their artwork and choices they made in the process. The final thing students were asked to do in the Cyanotype printing lesson was to carefully explain the steps (and safety measures) needed to complete the process in terms simple enough someone who has never attempted the process would understand. Students were asked to write down the steps in their sketchbooks and draw a picture to accompany this writing if they would like. This assessment strategy gave teachers a deeper insight if students truly understood the process.
In our second lesson on paper marbling Nebulae, students participated in a ‘Token Reflective Activity’ for a summative assessment. Once students completed this project, they were worked with a partner to determine and place a token on: the artwork they love the most, the artwork they would hang in their homes/museum, the artwork they thought took the most time, and the artwork they think would cost the most money. Once the students were completed with this part of the activity, we joined the students back into a whole group and discussed the choices that were made. Students were really insightful with this activity, and gave specific feedback and responses to their peers. The goal of this activity was to help students look deeper into artwork, and apply personal meaning to various artwork based on what is visually depicted.
With our final lesson, the Supernova printing and painting exploration, the students ended up becoming really interested and involved with the process, so an extra work day was granted to finish the artwork. Due to this, we did not have enough time for students to participate in a reflective activity. Instead, students gave a name to their artwork in order to prepare it for an exhibition. Students did this for all of their projects on the last working day to finish out the art making process. To see our newsletter for the Polaris art exhibition, please download the file below.
Summative assessments also became part of our routine with the students at Polaris. At the end of each lesson, students would participate in a reflective activity to think about the decisions they made during the creation process. One example of a summative assessment that we used at the end of a project was a short ‘Gallery Walk.’ Students participated in this activity at the end of the Cyanotype printing lesson. Students were divided into small groups and looked at each others’ prints from the project. Students were asked to share with their peers about the artwork, “What things in the artwork excite you the most?”, and “If you could give a title to this artwork, what would you call it?” These questions would guide the students to observe the artwork of others more carefully and to consider things that might be communicated through it. Also for this lesson, the student who created the artwork was asked to share what they thought was successful about their art, and something that they would like to change about their artwork. Again, this was intended to have students look deeper into their artwork and choices they made in the process. The final thing students were asked to do in the Cyanotype printing lesson was to carefully explain the steps (and safety measures) needed to complete the process in terms simple enough someone who has never attempted the process would understand. Students were asked to write down the steps in their sketchbooks and draw a picture to accompany this writing if they would like. This assessment strategy gave teachers a deeper insight if students truly understood the process.
In our second lesson on paper marbling Nebulae, students participated in a ‘Token Reflective Activity’ for a summative assessment. Once students completed this project, they were worked with a partner to determine and place a token on: the artwork they love the most, the artwork they would hang in their homes/museum, the artwork they thought took the most time, and the artwork they think would cost the most money. Once the students were completed with this part of the activity, we joined the students back into a whole group and discussed the choices that were made. Students were really insightful with this activity, and gave specific feedback and responses to their peers. The goal of this activity was to help students look deeper into artwork, and apply personal meaning to various artwork based on what is visually depicted.
With our final lesson, the Supernova printing and painting exploration, the students ended up becoming really interested and involved with the process, so an extra work day was granted to finish the artwork. Due to this, we did not have enough time for students to participate in a reflective activity. Instead, students gave a name to their artwork in order to prepare it for an exhibition. Students did this for all of their projects on the last working day to finish out the art making process. To see our newsletter for the Polaris art exhibition, please download the file below.
Newsletter 2018.pdf | |
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While we did not grade the students this semester at Polaris, for each lesson a rubric was developed for practice. To see an example of a rubric that was developed for the Supernova project, please click the button below.
Documentation of Learning
Along with developing lesson plans each week for the students at Polaris, we documented students in the creating process by utilizing pictures, videos, and student quotes. After each week, we would arrange these elements and upload them to a blog. The quotes, videos, and pictures would all serve as evidence to what the students were learning that day. Overall, these students in this class were very vocal about what they were experiencing and often shared with teachers and peers.
In our first lesson where students created Cyanotype prints, student learning was really nicely demonstrated. For this lesson, students were really encouraged to experiment and draw a few different compositions in their sketchbooks. In this part of the lesson, students observed deeply and considered objects’ size, shapes, and textures. The students arranged objects in many ways and recorded these compositions in their sketchbooks. This demonstrated that students understood the importance of planning, and beginning to comprehend what a good composition is. Another concept that was important for students to learn for this process was exposure; this is was changes the color of a print to the deep blue color. Students demonstrated a very clear understanding of exposure after the first attempt of this process was unsuccessful. The first day that students attempted to create Cyanotype prints, the weather was gloomy, and the sun was behind the clouds. On this day a few, very faint and weak prints were created by students. The second attempt of Cyanotypes, on a sunnier day, yielded much different results. Each student created a more successful print. Many students commented on how much different (and better) these prints looked, and how big of a difference a sunny day makes. The different lighting conditions and print qualities provided students with great opportunity to learn the process, and comprehend exposure. The final thing that was documented in class and on the blog for this lesson was students’ thoughts and descriptions of the process. In their sketchbooks, students described the correct procedure to create a Cyanotype print. Most of the students provided clear descriptions of the Cyanotype process. Again, students truly learned a lot from experiencing this process on days with very different conditions.
The weekly blog demonstrates student learning well for our second lesson on paper marbling also. The main thing concept that was understood by the students was creative problem solving. In the planning process some students had very specific ideas in mind for their final Nebula, but the paper marbling process was more of an expressive art making form. Students would initially attempt the paper marbling process and realize that the final outcome looked much different than they originally thought it would. Students would analyze their first attempt then make some adjustments for their second attempt. Though the process of making multiple paper marbles, students demonstrated creative problem solving to fix the initial ‘mistakes’ in their artwork; trial and error became a crucial part of this art experience. Mixed media was another concept that students demonstrated an understanding of in this art experience. As students finished the paper marbling process, they would cut out construction paper shapes, create foil figures, and add drawing elements to their paper marble. Many students created planets, aliens, and stars to their artwork. Adding other art mediums to this work became important for students as they were better able to communicate their original intent for their Nebulas. One final concept that the students demonstrated a knowledge of in this lesson was making personal connections to the artwork. This was illustrated on the final day of this project in the reflective activity. Our reflective activity involved students placing various tokens with different meanings on the artwork of their classmates. In this reflective activity especially, students thought critically about the artwork and shared how the artwork made them feel. This was an excellent display of students connecting personal emotions into artwork.
The final Supernova project demonstrated an understanding of many art concepts in the blog; many of which have been repeated throughout the semester. In this project, students experimented with printmaking and painting techniques. In the monoprinting portion of the lesson students illustrated an understanding of numeracy. To be successful, students needed to follow a correct sequence of steps to create a print for their artwork. Some students noted the importance of these steps, since a few of them tried to do things in a different order and their artwork was not as successful as they would have liked. Experimentation was one other concept that students demonstrated in the monoprinting part of the lesson. All of the student created at least two prints, and many students created more. There was experimentation with shapes, colors, lines, paper quality, and how water impacted the process; some great insights were discovered by the students. The painting part of the lesson also yielded some great learning from the students. We demonstrated a couple of different brush techniques that the students were able to use in their art. As the students began painting, various brush strokes were utilized by the students in their paintings. Most of the students created paintings with multiple types of brushstrokes to communicate their ideas for the Supernova project; we even had a few students experiment with painting with a palette knife. One final thing that students demonstrated an understanding of was color mixing. A few students mixed colors to create new colors that they wanted to use for their artwork. At times during this lesson, there were a couple of students who wanted to know how to make a color so they turned to their peers for help. The collaboration element was something that was not initially planned for, but it was great to see students help each other with their artwork.
In our first lesson where students created Cyanotype prints, student learning was really nicely demonstrated. For this lesson, students were really encouraged to experiment and draw a few different compositions in their sketchbooks. In this part of the lesson, students observed deeply and considered objects’ size, shapes, and textures. The students arranged objects in many ways and recorded these compositions in their sketchbooks. This demonstrated that students understood the importance of planning, and beginning to comprehend what a good composition is. Another concept that was important for students to learn for this process was exposure; this is was changes the color of a print to the deep blue color. Students demonstrated a very clear understanding of exposure after the first attempt of this process was unsuccessful. The first day that students attempted to create Cyanotype prints, the weather was gloomy, and the sun was behind the clouds. On this day a few, very faint and weak prints were created by students. The second attempt of Cyanotypes, on a sunnier day, yielded much different results. Each student created a more successful print. Many students commented on how much different (and better) these prints looked, and how big of a difference a sunny day makes. The different lighting conditions and print qualities provided students with great opportunity to learn the process, and comprehend exposure. The final thing that was documented in class and on the blog for this lesson was students’ thoughts and descriptions of the process. In their sketchbooks, students described the correct procedure to create a Cyanotype print. Most of the students provided clear descriptions of the Cyanotype process. Again, students truly learned a lot from experiencing this process on days with very different conditions.
The weekly blog demonstrates student learning well for our second lesson on paper marbling also. The main thing concept that was understood by the students was creative problem solving. In the planning process some students had very specific ideas in mind for their final Nebula, but the paper marbling process was more of an expressive art making form. Students would initially attempt the paper marbling process and realize that the final outcome looked much different than they originally thought it would. Students would analyze their first attempt then make some adjustments for their second attempt. Though the process of making multiple paper marbles, students demonstrated creative problem solving to fix the initial ‘mistakes’ in their artwork; trial and error became a crucial part of this art experience. Mixed media was another concept that students demonstrated an understanding of in this art experience. As students finished the paper marbling process, they would cut out construction paper shapes, create foil figures, and add drawing elements to their paper marble. Many students created planets, aliens, and stars to their artwork. Adding other art mediums to this work became important for students as they were better able to communicate their original intent for their Nebulas. One final concept that the students demonstrated a knowledge of in this lesson was making personal connections to the artwork. This was illustrated on the final day of this project in the reflective activity. Our reflective activity involved students placing various tokens with different meanings on the artwork of their classmates. In this reflective activity especially, students thought critically about the artwork and shared how the artwork made them feel. This was an excellent display of students connecting personal emotions into artwork.
The final Supernova project demonstrated an understanding of many art concepts in the blog; many of which have been repeated throughout the semester. In this project, students experimented with printmaking and painting techniques. In the monoprinting portion of the lesson students illustrated an understanding of numeracy. To be successful, students needed to follow a correct sequence of steps to create a print for their artwork. Some students noted the importance of these steps, since a few of them tried to do things in a different order and their artwork was not as successful as they would have liked. Experimentation was one other concept that students demonstrated in the monoprinting part of the lesson. All of the student created at least two prints, and many students created more. There was experimentation with shapes, colors, lines, paper quality, and how water impacted the process; some great insights were discovered by the students. The painting part of the lesson also yielded some great learning from the students. We demonstrated a couple of different brush techniques that the students were able to use in their art. As the students began painting, various brush strokes were utilized by the students in their paintings. Most of the students created paintings with multiple types of brushstrokes to communicate their ideas for the Supernova project; we even had a few students experiment with painting with a palette knife. One final thing that students demonstrated an understanding of was color mixing. A few students mixed colors to create new colors that they wanted to use for their artwork. At times during this lesson, there were a couple of students who wanted to know how to make a color so they turned to their peers for help. The collaboration element was something that was not initially planned for, but it was great to see students help each other with their artwork.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Assessment Plan
Throughout the semester at Polaris, we would note strengths and weaknesses in our assessment strategies. One thing that was a strength in the assessment plan during the semester was that students were using what they were learning and what they already knew about science and apply it to art. For example in the Cyanotype lesson, the students had previously learned about UV rays and then we taught them how UV rays can be used to create an art form. We were just taking some of their previously learned knowledge and looking at it through the lens of an artist. Another strength in our assessment plan was that we would consider all aspects in the art making process. The assessment plan accounted for understanding of artists and artworks, planning, creating, and reflecting. Students were assessed on understanding and effort in all of these areas, instead of just what they produced for a final artwork. The ultimate goal in our class was to teach students the entire process an artist may go through to create artwork, and I feel that the assessment plan reflects this idea. One final strength that I noted from the assessment this semester was that our assessment strategies allowed for students to experiment and try new things in the art making process. Students were never assessed on what a final artwork looked like, but they were assessed more on their active participation and efforts throughout the creating process. This allowed for students to feel comfortable with experimenting, since they were never assessed on the quality of a final artwork.
As the semester progressed, and more experience was gained, a couple of improvements in the assessment plan were noted. One of the biggest weaknesses was that lesson objectives were too broad; specifically the objectives that discussed students utilizing art vocabulary in the reflection process. In our objectives and assessment, we were never specific in what art language students should be using for a particular lesson. Art language and vocabulary is very broad so it is pretty tough to assess, and it doesn’t necessarily assess the correct learning from the students since it is quite vague. In the future, it would be important to be more specific and disclose more specific terminology that will be assessed in the lesson objectives. For example in the paper marbling lesson, we focused on line, shapes, colors, and forms in the art making process, so these should have been the artistic vocabularies that students were assessed on. In the reflective activity, it would be a lot easier and more accurate to assess students based on how and when they used these terms. Another weakness that was seen in this plan was specifically defining outcomes for students. For example, in the monoprinting and painting lesson there was an outcome about students creating a thoughtful composition for their monoprints. In the future, it will be essential to be specific and explicitly explain what a thoughtful composition is to the students. It would be a good idea to even show students a few examples of poor composition and good composition. Doing so would make it clearer to students what is expected, and it would make for more specific and better quality assessment. The final weakness in the assessment plan that I would like to discuss is specific to the Cyanotype printing lesson. The first thing is that there are a couple safety issues that come up in this process. Students were assessed on proper use and safety on the process at the end of the lesson, when this should have been assessed before beginning the printing process. For future lessons that require significant safety precautions, it is noted that students need to display an understanding of the proper safety before attempting the process. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would assign a brief quiz on proper safety with Cyanotypes and then students would be required to pass it before being allowed to use the chemical. This way I can see what students understand the requirements beforehand, and then I have evidence that students do understand the proper safety procedures. The second thing that could have used improvement was the assessment activity that required students to write out the correct process for creating a Cyanotype print. This was fairly open ended, and there were some students that were confused on where to start. In the future, I think it would be useful to give students an exit quiz that assesses students’ understanding of the process. I would make a short quiz with multiple choice and/or fill in the blank answers. I feel that this assessment strategy would provide more accurate data on how well students understand the process.
As the semester progressed, and more experience was gained, a couple of improvements in the assessment plan were noted. One of the biggest weaknesses was that lesson objectives were too broad; specifically the objectives that discussed students utilizing art vocabulary in the reflection process. In our objectives and assessment, we were never specific in what art language students should be using for a particular lesson. Art language and vocabulary is very broad so it is pretty tough to assess, and it doesn’t necessarily assess the correct learning from the students since it is quite vague. In the future, it would be important to be more specific and disclose more specific terminology that will be assessed in the lesson objectives. For example in the paper marbling lesson, we focused on line, shapes, colors, and forms in the art making process, so these should have been the artistic vocabularies that students were assessed on. In the reflective activity, it would be a lot easier and more accurate to assess students based on how and when they used these terms. Another weakness that was seen in this plan was specifically defining outcomes for students. For example, in the monoprinting and painting lesson there was an outcome about students creating a thoughtful composition for their monoprints. In the future, it will be essential to be specific and explicitly explain what a thoughtful composition is to the students. It would be a good idea to even show students a few examples of poor composition and good composition. Doing so would make it clearer to students what is expected, and it would make for more specific and better quality assessment. The final weakness in the assessment plan that I would like to discuss is specific to the Cyanotype printing lesson. The first thing is that there are a couple safety issues that come up in this process. Students were assessed on proper use and safety on the process at the end of the lesson, when this should have been assessed before beginning the printing process. For future lessons that require significant safety precautions, it is noted that students need to display an understanding of the proper safety before attempting the process. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would assign a brief quiz on proper safety with Cyanotypes and then students would be required to pass it before being allowed to use the chemical. This way I can see what students understand the requirements beforehand, and then I have evidence that students do understand the proper safety procedures. The second thing that could have used improvement was the assessment activity that required students to write out the correct process for creating a Cyanotype print. This was fairly open ended, and there were some students that were confused on where to start. In the future, I think it would be useful to give students an exit quiz that assesses students’ understanding of the process. I would make a short quiz with multiple choice and/or fill in the blank answers. I feel that this assessment strategy would provide more accurate data on how well students understand the process.