I have been trying to decompress for about 5 days now, and I think I am about ready to write down the experience I had at this year’s NAEA 2016 Conference in Chicago. I spent 4 days of my spring break in Chi-Town, reconnecting with old friends, meeting new friends, and of course, learning about my chosen profession.
This year’s experience can not compare to last year’s in NOLA. It wasn’t better; it wasn’t worse; it was different. First of all, let’s talk Chi-Town. It was cold. It wasn’t Canada cold, but I did have to pack for 40 degree weather. Not fun. I did however pack a fun hat!
Chicago is a much bigger city than New Orleans. It is more spread out, which made visiting the city a bit harder. So, in that respect, I didn’t get to experience that Chicago flavor the way I did in New Orleans. And, speaking of being spread out, the convention center in Chicago is ‘Uge…H-U-G-E! It has 4 levels, and 2 sides. So, sometimes getting from one session to the next was a race. Add into the mix about a thousand C2E2 goers…and it was game on. (Pun intended.) They did provide some nice cosplay costumes to look at though.
One of the best parts of the trip, besides what I learned, which I will talk about in my NAEA 2016: Chi-Town (part 2: the sessions) post, was getting to see my friends. My tribe. It has been a long 8 months since I last saw my people in Boston. I got to hang out with my favorite TABbers…Liz, Andy, Hillary, and of course, Ian. I also got to see some of my friends/mentors…Julie, Diane, Clyde, and Nan.
We spent 3 days catching up, talking TAB, making new memories, learning new things, walking all over the McCormick, and creating our newest hashtag #artteachersinbars. The first night, Andy and I found this fabulous dive bar near where we were staying. He told me I had to bring my sketchbook, which I reluctantly did. And of course, it was all down hill from there. Every night we went out and wound up at a bar, the sketchbooks came out. We even got Clyde in the game.
On Friday night, the TAB powers that be set up a dinner get together for us. Our gracious hosts provided some yummy pizza and procured an room for us to gather and be merry in. In pure Jean fashion, I went around and got selfies “with” everyone. It was a fabulous time had by all.
I was also lucky enough to visit the Art Institute of Chicago one evening. So glad that my registration at the conference allowed me to experience the museum free of charge. I saw some amazing pieces. I thought the museum should be it’s own post because I have a ton of pictures, and well, this post is starting to get a little lengthy.
I was sad when I had to say good-bye to two of my clan on Saturday afternoon, but luckily Ian was there to drag me around to sessions I hadn’t even considered…and it turned out to be a good thing. And, I made a new friend, Kay. It turned out we had a lot more in common than just being art teachers who TAB. When Sunday rolled around, it was time to take the long blue line train ride back to O’Hare. My head was spinning, so I just sat and looked out as the city turned into the suburbs and finally into an airport.
I am still trying to reflect on what I took away from the many sessions I attended, so give me a couple of more days before I get to that.
Peace Out Chi-Town! Until next year in NYC!!!
Thanks Chicago for a fabulous work-cation. Thanks NAEA for a great conference, let’s do it again next year in NYC…although I do have a few suggestions for an even better experience. 😉
It took the better part of the year, but I think I have finally figured out my Art 2: Painting/Drawing class. Last year I ran art 2 the same way I did my Art 1. All of us were new to TAB, so, I felt the need to make art 2 different wasn’t necessary. But, this year, since I had some kids from Art 1 in my Art 2, I had to change it up. I started out with an altered books unit I had done for many years. It is basically a way to get students exploring using media in different ways. However, the kids were not exploring and were not really understanding the purpose of the book, but they did them anyway. In my gut, the class just felt off. I told the students this, and they kind of looked at me funny, but were willing to just go with it.
After about half-way through the second marking period (we run classes for a full year, broken up into 2 semesters consisting of 3 6-week (mostly) marking periods) the class and I “started over”. I stopped with the altered books and put them into the storage closet. We went back to what I knew worked–themes. Students were coming up with some great ideas. I thought things were finally on-track until I was talking to a student during our second theme and asked him how he was thinking of proceeding with his idea. I asked about media and paper type. He looked at me like I had 5 heads. Then I took a look around the room, and I began to think the class looked like it was a beginning class, not a class that had gone through a year of high school art already. Yes the students had good ideas, but the artistic process stopped there. There was no skill development, there was no risk taking, no reflection, no connections.
At this point, what does any good art teacher do? Do they just keep on keeping on? Or do they reflect on what is going on and change things to help better the learning and understanding? I chose the later. We would “start over” just one more time.
By this point, it was the end of the first semester. This gave me the much needed time to really reflect on what my students needed. It was at this point I was going to try a unit style that Ian Sands developed. It involves 3 parts: digging deeper, challenge, and create. (You can find examples of his units here.) I borrowed his unit, Artists Steal. The students were successful. I mean, there was still work to be done, but for the most part, the transition was a smart one. I could see them beginning to have a deeper understanding of things artists do and how they, artists, create their artwork. Many of the kids used what they created in the unit challenge for their artwork. I was impressed by the level of understanding of appropriation.
Sponge Bob
Next it was time to create my own unit. I followed the “formula” for the unit and I decided that our next unit would be “Artists Tell Stories”. I came up with a digging deeper section, a challenge and a create section. With this unit, I saw several of my students really looking at artwork and finding out the story behind it or reading the story it was telling. They were also providing an excellent reflection on the video they chose to watch. LinkLinkLink
They say third times a charm, and they were right. I am glad that I went with my gut and stopped and started things over twice with my students. I can really see the growth taking place now and I can see their work having deeper thought and deeper meaning. Is this by any means perfect? Of course not. It is a work in progress. They know that. If it were, we would have done our current unit (Artists Represent), and the next two (Artists Abstract and Artists Are Non-Representational) first. But, hindsight and all.
I’ve got a couple of things to change on the structure of the units…like removing the option to create a pinboard of artwork. I found this isn’t lending itself to any deeper understanding. And, I need to work in more skills bootcamps, but that will come. Right now, as much as I want this particular group of students to explore different ways of art making, all but 1 or 2 don’t really want to, I think right now that momentum they’ve got going with exploring things artists do is more important than interrupting them to explore painting or printmaking or something like that. It’s all about choices and finding the right balance in the class. And with one and a half marking periods left, I feel I have made the right decision for both them and myself…..but mostly them.
I always say that my TAB classroom is a living entity that ebbs and flows with the needs of the students. My art 2 class this year proves that. If you are feeling a class is off, or they need something they aren’t getting at the moment, stop and reset. It is okay. It can only help. Be transparent about what you are doing; your students will understand. Mine did. And remember, it’s all for them.
While I was driving home, my mind began to go over my day in my classroom, just like it always does. Every day. On the long drive home down Hwy 79. Today I was thinking about what I was doing…or rather not doing. My students have very successful ideas and many interpret the themes thrown at them in out of the box ways. They make me very proud in that area.
The area of concern for me is the realization out of those ideas. What questions am I not asking? What activities can I be doing to help my students in this area? What are other TAB teachers doing to help provide their students the resources or help to flush out their ideas? And how can I implement that in my classes? How can I push my kids to develop the skills to bring their fabulous ideas to the next artistic level?
Let me be honest here…I am a little jealous of those TAB/Choice teachers that are able to help develop and “pull” both the great ideas and skills from their students. This is a goal of mine.
So, where is this post going? Well, I was thinking I need some kind of PD on how to achieve this in my classroom. How do other teachers run their classes? What types of activities do they do? But, I need more than just Twitter chats and Facebook groups. Don’t get me wrong, those are fabulous resources, but I need more. I need more than the 10-15 minute presentation from AOE conferences. I want more than the 30 minute presentation from my state conferences. I want more than the ones I can get at national conferences.
The best PD I have ever went to was the 2015 TAB Summer Institute. Why? Because I not only got to be face to face with like minded people looking to learn what I wanted to learn, but because I got to have in depth conversations about topics that were important to me. I need to discuss and ask questions in the moment to help with deep understanding. I also need to see a person. They body language and facial expressions helps me to learn.
My question is, how can I get the professional development I want from the teachers who know what it is I want to know? How do I make that happen? How can we, my PLN, make that happen? I know we all can’t afford to fly to one place to do this…otherwise we would all be going to Boston this summer. And, I know I am not alone in feeling this way. I can’t be. But, there has to be a way. Someone please help me figure this out!!
I recently joined the FaceBook group Teachers Throwing Out Grades and it was suggested to read the book Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School by Starr Sackstein.So, I went to Amazon, saw that book was relatively cheap (and it does have a kindle version), and I ordered a copy. I mean, what could it hurt?
This isn’t the first time I have read a book on teaching practice. But, it is the one of the rare times I read a teaching book that didn’t bore me, put me to sleep, or made me give up in the middle. Most books I read about teaching are full of wonderful ideas, but it gets lost in “grad-school paper talk”, if you know what I mean. Hacking Assessment is written in a way that is comfortable and not off-putting.
Assessment must be a conversation, a narrative that enhances students’ understanding of what they know, what they can do, and what needs further work…..they need to understand how to make improvements and how to recognize when legitimate growth has occurred. -Starr Sackstein, Hacking Assessment
Alright, let’s get to it. Hacking Assessment is one of several books in the “Hacking” series. Starr Sackstein is a teacher who actually threw out her grade book and goes as gradeless as she can at her school–she is still required to have a grade for each semester. So, she writes from a place of first-hand experience. She also adds in the experiences of other teachers who have also tried to go gradeless. One thing, for me, that was a major plus is that Sackstein is a high school teacher, and so were most of the other teachers who shared experiences. As a high school teacher myself, it is helpful to hear from other high school teachers. They understand the issues of GPA, college applications, and a whole “lifetime” of using grades as a measure of learning and smartness.
Sackstein breaksdown her book into 10 chapters or what she calls “hacks”. Each addresses a different area of grading and assessment. The different hacks include: shifting the grades mindset, promoting buy-in, rebranding assignments as learning experiences, facilitating student partnerships, digitizing your data, maximizing time, tracking progress transparently, teaching reflection, teaching students to self-grade, and cloud-based archives.
Each hack is broken down into different parts: the problem, the hack, what you can do tomorrow, a blueprint for full implementation, overcoming pushback, and the hack in action. It is this breakdown that makes the book so accessible. As I read the book, I kept shaking my head in agreement and saying, yes…this makes so much sense.
As we rid ourselves of the grades, risk taking and questioning became a natural part of the process. -Starr Sackstein, Hacking Assessment
As a TAB teacher, I already do some of the things she suggests, but I don’t do all of the things. Hacking Assessment outlines how each hack is important, but as you read you understand how they all work together to create a meaningful learning experience for the students. The addition of the hack in action section helps to put it in perspective. You start to think, if this can be done in a math class, or an English class, of course this can be done in the art class. I also really appreciated the pushback sections for each hack. It gives the common arguments against that particular hack and how to combat that. For me, having it all in one place is helpful. I have conversations about the different aspects, but they seem to be everywhere, all over the interwebs, and it is hard to gather my thoughts easily on the matter. It helps me to focus and have the conversation more easily.
Hacking Assessment is a quick read, but one I encourage if you have any thoughts about going gradeless, or even lessing the amount of grades in your class. If nothing else, using some of the hacks will help your students be more reflective of their learning and gain back a little bit of the love they used have for learning.
I have been teaching ceramics classes for about 4 years now. And before that I taught sculpture classes and we would always have at least 2 projects with clay during those classes. Now, as students work, clay dries out and because “unusable” for awhile. Clay dries out because as you work with it, you hands and the air take out the moisture, kids build things that they don’t want or need, they fail to wrap up their pieces correctly and instead of trying to work with it, they move on, or they rip holes in the bags that hold the clay. So, due to all of these reasons, I have a ton of extra clay. Seriously…it is just so.much.clay.
Normally, I reconstitute my clay by putting the pieces in a 5 gallon bucket and then fill the bucket with water. Eventually the clay softens and becomes slurry-like. From there, I pull some out, put it on a plaster bat, and let it dry enough so I can wedge the clay back into a usable form for my students. Quite frankly, this is a pain in the ass. I hate wedging with a passion. It reminds me how weak and out of shape I am. Not to mention it is time consuming.
Recently it was brought to my attention that our district has a grant program. I thought great, I can apply for a grant, talk to the principal to see if the district will help with the cost, and add in the money that ceramics club has raised, and with all that I can purchase a pugmill to help me on my “mission” to get all this dried clay usable again. I asked a group of potters on a Facebook group I am part of for a pugmill recommendation. That is when a woman told me this method of reconstituting I had never heard of.
She told me to put no more than 2 cups of water into the bag with the dried out clay. Next put the clay bag in a big bucket–like a 5 gallon one, and fill the bucket with water until the bag of clay is covered. Finally, let it sit for a week or so. The theory is the pressure from the water outside of the bag will push the water in the bag back into the clay and soften the clay so it can be used again. I’m gonna be honest here, I was a little skeptical. But, I did it anyway.
Well, after about 5 days I checked the bucket. Almost all of the water I had put into the bag was gone…it had soaked into the clay. I took the bag out of the bucket and opened to see what the clay felt like. It was a little slimy on the outside, but the clay it self was wet all the way through. It was as if it was brand new from the store. And bonus, because this was a bag of clay that was solid and not a bunch of pieces left over, I don’t have to wedge it. I was able to re-bag it and put it with the other clay for my students to use.
I am so excited that this worked. I went through all my clay and pulled all the bags where the clay was one big giant block like this and put them aside. I loaded up my bucket with a new block and water, and in a week I hope to have another bag ready to go. I still have the other buckets with scraps the kids create, and that will have to wedged, but this new method will really help me out, and I can save the ceramic club’s money for something more fun for us to use it on.
There’s been a lot of talk lately on all the art related Facebook groups I am a part of. I mean, it is a subject art teachers discuss a lot, but in the past few weeks the conversation has been longer and more engaging. We have been discussing grades vs. assessment, participation vs. engagement, eliminating grades all together, how the high school GPA would be affected, is it even possible to not give a grade at the high school level, and much more. It is enough to make your head explode…and it’s beginning to make mine explode.
Grading and assessment is always on my radar. I wrote about my assessment model in this post earlier this year. I even presented on the model at the AOE 2016 Winter Conference stating how we as teachers need to grade less on compliance and instead create meaningful assessment. So it is easy to understand why all this talk about grading has caused the wheels in my head to go into overdrive. I began to look closely at what I am currently doing, what it means, and how could I change it? I wish it was as simple as deciding I won’t grade anymore, but because there are so many facets to all this, it’s not. In this current education model we are in, as a high school teacher with parents that expect grades, colleges that look at GPA to determine a student’s acceptance to their school, a UIL board that requires passing grades to play and compete, and students who are motivated by them, I HAVE to provide a grade.
Currently I give a mixture of completion grades and grades(numbers that are perhaps arbitrarily assigned) that reflect artistic behavior/growth assessments. I find that the assessment feedback is important to my students and their artistic growth. I want to continue to provide that to them, but I hate that I have to translate that feedback into a numerical grade. However, the assessments boil down to only doling out a few grades…many less than the amount my district “requires”. That’s where the completion grades come in. But, do those grades really show anything other than the fact that a student completed an assignment?
And then all the “WHAT IFS….?” start to walk in. What if I pushed? How far could I go? What if I just stopped caring and gave everyone a 100–what would that do to my classes and the “importance” of them? What if I gave the minimum amount of grades I get away with giving, would I get a stern talking to? Would all this change the student input/output in my classes?
I don’t have the answers. I have been creating some sketchnotes to work out my thoughts. I am on a mission to figure this out before next August when school starts again. Yes I know that is 7 months away, but this isn’t an easy issue. Like I said, there are so many facets I have to take into account: district requirements, local admin expectations, parent expectations, student motivation, UIL guidelines, coaches needs, pass to play, meaningful grades, assessment v. completion, and ultimately, what I believe the purpose of the grade in my class should be. That is the ultimate question that I just can’t answer………….yet.
Every year, the Art of Education has a Art Ed Blog of the Year contest. Some of my mentors have been winners in the past. This year, I am pleased to announce that my blog, Art Class by Mrs. B, has not only been nominated, but is a finalist in the competition this year.
So, if you think my blog is all that and a bag of chips, it would be much appreciated if you took a moment to vote for it. VOTE
I love sharing, and I love that you take the time to read my blog. Thanks for reading and thank you for all the support.
There has been a lot of debate recently about what is important in an art class. What should we, as art teachers, be teaching our students? Is it enough to just teach skills? How important is it to be able to recognize the Mona Lisa or Starry Night?
Do we just want “good-looking” artwork to hang in the hall? Is it important that we, our program, be know for our students winning art contests?
Or, do we want students who can think? Do we want students that create THEIR own work, and not the work conceive by the teacher? Should students be able to include their interests in their art making? Is it important that students be able to go through the process…from conception, through research, revision, reflection, and to the final product? And, how important, in a school setting, is the final product?
I think all of these things are important, but some more important than others. While yes I want a good looking display in my hallway, I would sacrifice that for meaningful work that was authentic to students and their interests over something I wanted them to create. And, yes I want them to recognize important works of art, but for what reason really do they need to know that? Can they be intelligent without knowing what those paintings looked like? Can they be great thinkers and inventors? I mean, unless they are going on a game show anytime soon, should it be at the top of my priority list?
When it comes to skills, yes, they are important, and YES I TEACH SKILLS. But, for me skills are just one part of the whole artist. You made be a wiz with a pair of scissors, but if you don’t know what to create with those scissors without someone telling you, then what’s the point?
I want my students to leave my class as thinkers. I want them to be able to go through a process from beginning to end. I want them to be able to problem solve and take risks, I want them to know what failure is and how they can learn from that. I want them to push limits and to look within themselves. I want them to be able to see all this in themselves, and in others. I think if you just focus on skills and what the teacher directs the students to create, you are limiting your students and their potential.
That is what is important to me and that is why I follow the TAB philosophy. What is important to you?
One of my goals this year was to have my students really understand the artistic behaviors. I thought last year the students were looking at them only on the surface. I want a deeper understanding for them this year as I feel the behaviors I use are important, not only for growing as an artist, but they are things that can be transferred to other aspects of their academic and their personal lives.
One way I am stressing the artistic behaviors and thinking like an artist is that I will be assessing my students based on the process/behaviors they show in class, not on the physical artwork they create. Here is the rubric I created based on the artistic behaviors. I wrote more about it here.
I wanted my students to be introduced to the 9 Artistic Behaviors before we jumped into creating art. But, I didn’t just want to do a power point on them. I wanted something more to go along with each behavior. That’s how I came up with my Artistic Behavior Boot Camp. In this boot camp, we would spend about a week and a half being introduced to the behaviors. As a class, we would do an activity. Then the students would be given a reflection sheet where they were asked to look through the artistic behaviors that are listed on their sheet and posted on the wall (with a brief description under each), and choose which behavior they thought the activity best connected to. They had to say why they felt that way, what they learned from the activity, and how they thought it connected to being an artist.
THE BEHAVIORS AND THEIR ACTIVITIES
Artists Collaborate: In this activity, I copied an MC Escher print I had and cut the print into 2″x 2″ squares. I handed the students a square and a 3″x 3″ post-it. The students had to transfer their piece to the post-it and then go in the hall and assemble the puzzle. In hindsight, I chose a very hard image to work from. I know better for next year.
M.C. Escher, “Reflection”, 1950, linocut printed from two blocks, 26 x 32 cm.
Artists Solve Problems: I had lots of ideas for this activity. In the end I decided to show the Ted Talk “Embrace the Shake” about artist Phil Hansen.
Artists Take Risks: I had stumbled upon this video we ended up calling the “Baby George Video”. It was short, but I think the message was super clear.
Artists Communicate. In this activity, students found a partner. One partner was given an image and had to describe the image, and without showing the partner or pointing to the partner’s page, get them to draw the image.
Artists Observe: I had taken this quiz on facebook that I thought would make a great observe activity. The students were shown four squares and had to choose the one that was a different shade. Every time they got it right, a new grid (with more squares) would appear. It got harder and harder as the difference was slighter and slighter. On top of that, it was timed.
Artists Create Original Art: What better way to kill 2 birds with one stone, but to do a short Slides presentation about Copyright, Fair Use, Appropriation, and Parody. In the presentation, I briefly went over a concept, then the students were shown a case and they had to decide what the outcome was. The presentation ended with a mock violation between DisneyLand and Street Artist Banksy’s Dismaland.
Artists Develop Art Making Skills: Each student was equipped with a marker on the end of a 3′ dowel. We went out into the hall where I rolled out a long paper and had the students look out the window and draw what they saw.
Artists Have a Global Awareness of Art Making: The third video I had them watch was the trailer for Season 7 of the PBS series Art 21.
Artists Reflect: For our final activity, I handed back all of the 8 previous reflection sheets and gave them a new reflection sheet. I asked the students to review what they had chosen and written for each activity over the past week and a half. They then had to choose one behavior for each activity. (On the previous reflection sheets, many students circled several behaviors for each activity and had repeated behaviors from activity to activity. I will come back to this shortly.) After making connections, they were left with one behavior, They were asked what filling out all the sheets had to do with that behavior, and they had to connect that behavior with being an artist.
I returned all the reflection sheets the next day and we had our Boot Camp Wrap Up. I created one more slide show and engaged the students in a discussion to decompress all we had just done. We went through each activity and I asked them what behavior they thought it was. I asked why. Sometimes they all agreed and sometimes they didn’t. And, they were able to say why for all opinions. I would reveal what behavior I had intended to connect with the activity. Then with my enormous passion and animation, I talked about what that behavior meant in terms of art and being an artist. As I walked around the room and looked at the students, I could see they were taking it in. I see the sparks. When I got to taking risks and how my classroom was a place to be comfortable, a place to explore and fail, I could see the looks on their faces change–a change I thought was positive.
The slide show ended with a review of how they would be assessed in my art class. I asked them what an 87 on an artwork meant. I could see them reaching for something, but floundering. I assured them that their lack of finding a answer was okay. The number grade in art seems arbitrary. It doesn’t help you know where you are or where you need to go. They agreed. They now knew why we spent time looking at these behaviors and how we would use them in the coming year.
I learned as much from this boot camp as my students did. As the first reflections sheets started to come in and I began reading, I was surprised. Surely the students would have the same thought process I did. ::face plant:: I became so interested in the different behaviors they chose for each activity and the various reasons why. I decided to make a chart to record all the different choices. Artists collaborate and artists communicate were two that were often connected to each other. The same was true with artists solve problems and artists take risks. The students made connections between the behaviors without even knowing it–connections that are just inherent in the behaviors. Of course there were those students that went through the motions without much thought, but there were many that I saw really thinking about what they had just done and making connections. And, students were honest by saying they didn’t understand what a behavior meant (like global awareness), so they weren’t really sure if they were making the right connections.
The Artistic Behaviors Boot Camp achieved what I hoped it would. It introduced the students to the artistic behaviors. It enabled the kids to begin to think and to make connections between what they are doing and what artists do. And, I got to learn a little about my students and how they think. Were there rough patches? Yes. I wanted to throw in the towel after the first day. But, I am so glad I didn’t. I am sure I will make tweaks to it in the few weeks before school next August, but for now, I am calling this boot camp a success..
If you teach high school, you know that there is no way to get away from grades. Grades determine GPA, which determines the top 10%, which could mean automatic acceptance into a state college, etc., etc., etc. It’s a vicious cycle that personally I dislike. A lot.
If you have ever read a Facebook post by me about grading, then you know the struggle for me is real. I am tasked with too many “mandatory” grades in too short of a time. I wish I could be like Ian Sands and not grade anymore. However, that really isn’t an option. I already push it and not fulfill my requirement every marking period. But shhh…don’t tell nobody.
Now, we all should know that grades=/=assessments. They are not the same thing. Currently for me, grades in art are equal to the hoops I make the students jump through. Did you complete this on time? Did your artwork have 3 lines and 6 warm colors? (For the record, I don’t grade like this, and I think you should not either. Seriously, when you make artwork, do you want to be told how many colors you should have? But I digress. That’s a topic for another day.) Do you have at least four sentences in your reflection blog post?
What do these types of things tell me about how well you, the student, are doing in art? How well are you understanding the process? How are you improving your artistic behaviors in your journey on thinking and behaving like an artist? Answer: They don’t. They tell me nothing, except that you did something I arbitrarily asked you to do.
As art teachers, we assess our kids every day; or at least we should. I do. I make adjustments for what I see my students need. I make mental notes of where a student is and how can I help facilitate him/her to get to the next step or level. I am constantly thinking about my kids and where they are going and how can they get there. What resources can I share? What artists or art movements can I ask them to look up? What other media might intrigue them? I am taking mental notes of how my students are growing as artists and thinkers. Isn’t that my job?
This summer I have done a lot of thinking and talking about how to connect the assessments I am making everyday with the grades I am required to give to appease administration, students, parents, whomever. How can I make the grades I give actually mean something…both for the students and for me. I don’t want to give meaningless numbers anymore. I want my students to understand that their grade in my class is directly related to how they are growing as an artist.
This is my plan. I will no longer grade final artwork products. The product shouldn’t be what is important about the student. The learning that occurs while creating that product is. The real product is the student herself. I want to grade her. How do I do that, you ask? Good question.
I have taken something I already use to assess my students and that I ask my students to use to assess themselves when blogging about the process. Apex Art generated a wonderful list of artistic behaviors that I have adopted in my classroom. I then thought of how my son is graded at his school, and how much it means to me. I go over with his teacher the standards and where he falls on each standard. That is so much more useful than being given a report card with an arbitrary number on it. He got a 3 in math…so what?! I combined these two things and came up with a 4 level scale: exceeding, meeting, progressing, and emerging. I then assigned numerical values to each level. Now, I know this may seem arbitrary, but it is commonly understood that an A/90 is proficient in a subject. So, I figured meeting a behavior is kind of like proficient, so that would be an A/90. Exceeding=100; Meeting=90; Progressing=80; and Emerging=70. I took these behaviors and levels and put them into a chart, with a space for notes.
This makes sense to me. I plan on having the students and myself look at 6 of the 9 behaviors for each grading period. (In my case 6 weeks.) We will have discussions and meetings and the student will have his/her chart to see where they are at and where they need to go. I will look carefully at how they assess their process and work in their blog posts. For me, this will make the grades they receive more meaningful. We can have conversations about it. They will be able to explain why they are at the level they are and know why they received the grade they did.
I am very excited to bring this into my classroom. I think it will help bring forward the “for” in the Teaching FOR Artistic Behavior (TAB) classroom I have set up. I challenge you to make a greater connection between your assessments and your grades this year as well.
was sad when I had to say good-bye to two of my clan on Saturday afternoon, but luckily Ian was there to drag me around to sessions I hadn’t even considered…and it turned out to be a good thing. And, I made a new friend, Kay. It turned out we had a lot more in common than just being art teachers who TAB. When Sunday rolled around, it was time to take the long blue line train ride back to O’Hare. My head was spinning, so I just sat and looked out as the city turned into the suburbs and finally into an airport.
TAB Studio with Mrs. B 