De-Mastering Art Education: Questioning Skills and The Future of

Assessment

David T Miller & Ian Williams

DISCLAIMER:The session title “De-Mastering Art Education: Questioning Skills and The Future of Assessment” and catalog description of said session was crafted to be intentionally provocative and vague and shamelessly utilizes current buzzwords such as ASSESSMENT and STUDENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES so as to ensure someone might actually come to see it.

DISCLAIMER:Neither presenter claims MASTERY in any of the subject areas advertised in the session description.  Far from it in fact.  Rather, each presenter is here today seeking to further their GROWTH in said subject areas with the assistance of knowledgeable, curious, or otherwise provoked session members.

Our Brave New World•Non-tested subject areas:•50% administrator evaluation•15% school-level data•35% teacher-level data

Student Learning Objectives• Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) – establish goals for students and then evaluate the extent to which the goals have been achieved. The SLOs were described throughout the session as a “three-room house”, with the three rooms being:

•Objective – learning goal• Target – the level of performance that students achieve in relation to the learning goal• Assessment – how that level of performance is measured

The two important questions (to us)

3a. The SLO Statement: What is the Important

Learning (Content)?3b. Standards selection

• Targeted content standards used in developing the SLO.

3c. Rationale statement• Explains why the SLO is important and

how students will demonstrate learning of the standards through this objective.

4a-b: What’s the Test?4c: How does it relate to the learning objective?• How does it relate to the standards?• Is it appropriately rigorous? (DOK Wheel)4d: Will the results describe mastery or growth?5a-d: How is the test given?6a: How is the test scored?6c: Who scores it?6b & d:How do you gather and manage the data?

The perpetual questions:•What do we want our students to learn?

•How do we understand and measure that learning?

A common concern: Which object shows stronger evidence of successful student learning?

A common concern: Which object shows stronger evidence of successful student learning?

Artifact of student learning

Art object

A common concern: Which object shows stronger evidence of successful student learning?

Artifact of student learning

Art object

A common concern:GROWTH

Students at the very top and the very bottom of the traditional E&P skill set have traditionally show limited growth in regards to those specific areas of assessment.

MASTERY

Setting a rigorous and static target, whatever the skillset (E&P or otherwise), means that some portion of our diverse population (inclusion) will struggle to achieve.

Developing a new standard of skill and a new way to assess it.

What skills do we want our students to learn?

Art object oriented skills• Line• Shape / Form• Color• Value• Texture• Space / Perspective• Pattern• Rhythm / Movement• Proportion / Scale• Balance• Unity• Emphasis

Learner oriented skills

• Persistence• Flexibility• Independence•Voice•Vocabulary

How do we assess these areas of skill?

Art object oriented assessment

• Focus assessment on the outcome (art object)?• Assess upon completion

the investigation?

Learner oriented assessment

• Focus assessment on the growth that takes place during the process?• Assess at regular

intervals, regardless of the point of progress in the investigation.

Questions for all:• How does assessment benefit the student?

• What challenges are inherent to developing a single assessment tool to be used in a diverse classroom?

• Excluding traditional art skills, what other skills are worthy of assessment?

• Is it possible to develop an authentic assessment tool that measures student growth towards a set of goals as opposed to student mastery of a set of objectives (skills)? What might it look like? How would this benefit the student?

Thank you!!!• David Miller- tex.art@verizon.net• Ian Williams- ianwhitewilliams@gmail.com

• Visit the blog to continue the discussion!

www.demasteringarted.wordpress.com