From Recall to Higher-Order Thinking

This year is all about growth! Both student growth and teacher growth. With common core and an increased focus on literacy in the art classroom, we are challenged to look at our weaknesses and evolve to meet new standards of learning. Last year, my team and I spent a large amount of time working on converting our curriculum to include more writing and reading. Two years ago, I went through the process of adding quizzes to my classroom to check student's ability to recall the information they were assigned to read. This mostly assured me that students were being held accountable for reading the material as sometimes they would get away with simply completing the project by looking at examples. Now, my task is to take a basic recall quiz and turn it into one that pushes students to answer questions about comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

I used a very simple and helpful guide I found on pinterest to learn more about how these questions could appear in the art classroom. Then, I reflected on my current quiz questions which included one such as this:
1. Which objects appear the largest in a drawing?
A. Objects in the foreground
B. Objects in the middle ground
C. Objects in the background
The answer to this question was simply provided in the assigned reading and it does not ask students to apply their knowledge. So I came up with a series of new questions that challenge students to apply and then analyse.
Examples:
Apply: In this image, which part is the foreground?



 Analyze: Which option shows the correct use of proportion?

 



 And I have even added a question where students have to choose the drawing that shows the most depth in order to fulfil the evaluation question. I believe these new questions will test more than if my students can read the information and put it down on paper but if they actually understand it.

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!

The Perks of Data

Pre-test grades earned by students

I am beginning the second week of my semester this week and learning a lot about my students. As I have talked about in previous entries, I have students fill out an “interest inventory” or get to know you assignment at the beginning of my class. This semester, I am also piloting a pre-test that measures what students already know about art. At the end of the class they will take this test again (with some different questions on the same information) to display the growth they have made in my course. My interest inventory has always told me much about what my students wanted to learn and what they already knew, but the pre-test has taken it to a new level. I am now able to gage the level of understanding for specific concepts. I put a question in the pre-test asking students if they had ever taken an art class before, it turns out that 55% have prior art experience while 45% do not. Almost half of my students are completely new to this subject so depending on their interests, they may have never drawn realistically before. I analyzed the data from the test to see what concepts students were widely familiar with and which they were often incorrect about. Students understood foreground, pattern, texture, portraits, primary colors, mixed media, and abstract art, or they were at least able to guess the correct answers for them. I was surprised to see how much they already feel comfortable with coming in. This tells me that when I get to these concepts in the curriculum, students won't need as much time in the lesson to focus on the terms, but perhaps we can spend more time going over examples and brainstorming for their projects. On the other hand, students were often incorrect on the questions about linear perspective, value, art criticism, and cubism. This data seems to match up with what are usually some of the most difficult lessons to teach. Having this information early will help me focus in on these lessons and provide multiple ways of learning. I added a question to my interest inventory that I found to be very helpful in understanding what methods I should use to teach these lessons. When asked which method students preferred for learning a new technique, they preferred demonstrations most often (see below).

Now I know what my students feel more comfortable with, what they will most likely struggle with, and how they learn best. With a class of 260 students, trends in data are very important to pay attention to! I will use this data to guide my instruction and look forward to seeing student growth at the end of my semester.