Student Teaching Blog #6

Assessment is very important in art, just like any other subject, however, I think it really goes overlooked and that could be one of the little reasons that art lacks credibility in the world of education. A valid technique to assess students work on a regular basis can begin by simply handing out artwork to your students. A few art teachers (including my cooperating teacher) handout artwork to students one-by-one. They call their name and that student will come up to get their artwork. This gives the teacher another opportunity to review where the student is in their art project and make the needed comments of encouragement or observation. I feel that this is beneficial in several ways. One, it helps us connect artwork with student. Two, we catch mistakes or misunderstandings before a student continues with the work or completes it. And it gives us a moment of one-on-one interaction right before the student begins working, so hopefully they will keep your words in mind. Three, we can see how students interpreted our instruction, and quickly make changes in our lesson plan if needed so we can be better teachers. I really like this way of passing out artwork to students and beginning work time. It also helps me learn students' names.

During our professional development time we are also beginning to conduct data analysis. I am doing this in third grade with my cooperating teacher. We gave every third grade class a pre-test regarding our next still life unit. This was a five question test. Next, we recorded all of the scores for each question in a spreadsheet format. I found this hard to read visually, so I graphed all of this information to charts. Now we can easily recognize which class needs to review tints, shade, intermediate colors, etc. My cooperating teacher also liked the charts.

I have also started to conduct my own data analysis with a unit on weaving that I am introducing with a second grade class. I have already given them a pre-test before I introduced the weaving unit. I will give them a mid-test assessment before I leave my elementary placement. I will then do a comparative analysis and graph this information. If all goes well, I will have evidence of achievement with my teaching. It will also be a good experience to share with future employers during job interviews.