Instruction and Assessment Philosophy

Why teach art?

- Enjoyment of the visual arts is a fundamental aspect of a high quality of life.
- Formal and informal visual art saturates our lives, and it is important to be able to
evaluate and interpret its quality and messages.
- The critical thinking and problem-solving skills involved in creating and evaluating
artwork are universal and necessary for the success of future generations.
- Art is a form of self-expression that surpasses verbal explanation, and the process
and product can powerfully impact the creator and the viewer in a unique way.
What skills can be assessed?
- Colorado State Standards!
o Observe and Learn to Comprehend
o Envision and Critique to Reflect
o Invent and Discover to Create
o Relate and Connect to Transfer
- Thinking Skills:
o Students learn to experiment with materials and solutions to problems.
o Students learn to solve problems and navigate or improve upon failures in
their work.
o Students apply all levels of Blooms taxonomy of thinking.
o Students learn to appreciate multiple perspectives from culture, history, and
styles of expression.
o The variety of paths to success in art means that students develop complex
analytical skills in determining the quality of artwork. This ability to evaluate
gray areas, instead of black and white answers, is transferable to many
deeper aspects of life, including moral, political, and personal life choices.
- Collaboration and Peer Feedback
o Effective classroom management is vital for establishing a safe, productive
environment for students to make mistakes, experiment, and accept input
from the teacher and each other.
o In both formative and summative assessment strategies, collaboration and
peer feedback gives students new ideas and can enhance their ability to
generate and develop ideas and technical content knowledge.
Critiques develop students ability to honestly and positively discuss
their peers work. The ability to confidently provide and accept
constructive feedback is important in all aspects of life.
How do I assess?
- Authentic Assessment
o All assessment in visual art fits the category of authentic assessment, which
Donna Beattie describes in her book Assessment in Art Education as
assessment that uses realistic, meaningful, open-ended problems, true to a
discipline. This means that unlike areas such as math, where there is most
often a single right or wrong process and answer, artistic processes and
products can be achieved successfully through an almost endless number of
solutions.
- Formative Assessment

o One-on-one verbal feedback for each student is a crucial way that the
teacher can give students ideas and feedback about how to improve where
they are struggling, and how to challenge themselves further in the areas
where they are successful.
o Pre-assessment and frequent formative assessment informs the teacher
about what students are learning and what they are struggling with.
o The teacher should always seek new ways to grow and improve. This
awareness of their instructional efficacy often comes from students
performance on formative assessments.
o A quick review at the beginning of each class and closure at the end of each
class are both important for checking in with how well the class is
understanding the content.
One great strategy is asking students to raise their hand and show on a
scale of 1-5 how well they understand whatever specific thing they are
working on or developing. This can be followed up with individual
check-ins during work time. Other strategies such as think-pair-share
or exit tickets are valuable ways for students to inform the teacher
about how well they are learning, without necessarily having to share
their struggles in front of all of their peers.
Summative Assessment
o The teacher and students provide verbal and/or written feedback about the
quality of final products. This reflection enables students to determine and
improve upon the following:
Did I communicate my ideas and message successfully?
Did I successfully implement relevant artistic techniques in an effective
composition?
Did I experiment with a wide range of ideas and develop the most
effective artistic solution?
Did I meet the project requirements while still expressing myself in an
original manner?
o Differentiation, based on knowledge from formative assessments and preassessments, is indispensable in assessment. The actual grading component
should be differentiated based on how much students grew, their effort,
whether they challenged themselves, and how well they met the project and
process criteria.
For example, a student who begins at an advanced level and shows no
growth should not necessarily be scored as highly as a student who
begins at a basic level and demonstrates a high amount of growth and
improvement.