SLO's in the (online) Art Room

Since December I have been working with my team to prepare for next year, the first year that teachers will be measured in the art classroom based on assessments that (hopefully) show student growth. A Student Learning Objective (SLO) will be created which shows goals for students in your classroom based on certain data (example from ODE). The way we will measure if students meet these goals are assessments called Student Growth Measures (SGM). More information about SGM from ODE can be found here. 
As you may know, I have given a pilot assessment to my students to see what a pre-assessment and post-assessment could look like in the Art 1 classroom and what issues may come up. The pre-assessment was given to 4 different sections of Art 1. Two sections gave a test with multiple-answer, multiple-choice, essay, and short answer questions. The other two sections gave a pre-assessment with multiple-choice, short answer, and essay questions. I did this to see how different types of questions may or may not show student growth. So far, the data has been helpful to seeing what students already know and don't know when entering my classroom. More about data collected here. However, we did run into a few issues along the way.

One of these issues is collecting reliable and objective data that tests student knowledge. I mentioned we used essay questions on this pre-assessment. Though this is a great way for students to explain their knowledge, it was difficult to grade the content opposed to a student's writing style/skill. Even though we had a rubric, grading was subjective and the results varied in a large way between different teachers (see above). Since we are being evaluated on this data as teachers, it is important that our assessments provide reliable and valid results. 
Changes have been made to the test since we first gave it to create one solid version that does not include essays or short answer. This is the version that will be used next year. We included multiple-choice (making sure every question as 4 choices) and multiple-answer questions. To create the final (for now) version of the pre-assessment and post-assessment, we looked though the scope and sequence of our course, the existing questions on the test, and student results. The assessment includes at least one question about each topic in the course.
Example:
3. What kind of drawing is a quick sketch that captures what the artist sees?
A. Portrait
B. Point-of-view
C. Gestural
D. Linear Perspective 

I am also currently working on a SGM for my Art 5 class but because this course is so independent it is difficult/impossible to create a multiple-choice type of assessment for it. Therefore, I am considering reviewing student portfolios as they enter and at the end of the course. If graded by an unbiased source (someone outside of my classroom) using a rubric, perhaps I could get reliable and valid data from this method. I will also be able to see where students are coming from and what their strengths and weaknesses are before I begin working with them. 
I look forward to the weeks to come when I will be giving my post-assessment and be able to see if my students have grown. I will continue to post my results from this assessment journey I am on!

Trying New Things

 

I apologize for the lack of entries lately. Winter break kept me busy relaxing. I am now getting prepared for the second semester of this school year and the first time I will be teaching Art 5. I am excited to finally put the course to work and see how students respond. I also have added more assignments to Art 1 that align with the Common Core standards as well as a pre-test and post-test to measure student growth. Starting next school year, 50% of my evaluation will be measuring student growth in my class. Next semester the Art 1 classes will test a multiple choice, multiple answer, essay, and short answer assessment. I am very excited to see the results and also a little nervous to see how much my students learn and retain at the end of the course. The pre and post-tests include art history and media questions as well as well as questions that have students explain why they chose a particular answer for a previous question, as the PARCC test will do. Lastly there are two essay questions: one that asks students to write about the merits of art education in schools and the other a critique of a specific piece of art they have never seen. I will be sharing the results of the pre-test and I believe this data will help drive my instruction. Previously I have issued a survey for students to take where they are asked what they already know about art, rather than specific questions. I believe the pre-test will give me more specific results. Also, this semester I am taking a Spanish course online. This is the first course I have ever taken online and I am doing an experiment to see how I perform in such an environment. I am already starting to understand the perspective of my students and the challenges of self-motivation. I am hoping these findings will help me serve them better. Stay tuned!