Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are a critical aspect of the teaching process in any classroom, but particularly in differentiated classrooms where ages and abilities are widely varied.  The age range of the students in my private art classes range from 7-14 years old with vastly differing abilities and levels of English. It is absolutley imperative that I continuously assess where my students are in their understanding during a lesson. Formative assessments serve as checkpoints during a lesson, which inform the teacher of the necessary and appropriate nature, type and direction of descriptive feedback she gives her students. This is differentiation in action. Moreover, this process allows students to revise their efforts and be assessed and accredited anew, which increases the quality and value of their learning (Wormeli 2010).

Romero Britto "Gato Feliz"

The performance objective I am using for this exercise is part of a 3^rd grade unit on pop-art drawing in the style of artist Romero Britto. 

Art deco pattern

Objective: Understand what a ‘pattern’ is, and how to draw a variety of patterns. 

In this lesson I am checking that students fully grasp the concept and definition of patterns and can effectively recreate these according to definition.

Dos and Don’ts

The first formative assessment I will use is Dos and Don’ts. In this exercise, students list 3 dos and 3 don’ts when applying, using, or relating to the content (Teach Thought, 2013). For this lesson, students will create a simple mindmap or chart and will indicate in written, descriptive terms what characteristics patterns do have and what characteristics are not consistent with a pattern. This activity encourages students to think beyond the simple definition of a term or concept by pushing them to consider it in terms of its contrast or opposite. I can properly assess their understanding of the term in this situation due to the fact that they cannot simply reproduce a rote definition.

Self-Directed Response

The second formal assessment I will use is Self-Directed Response. This assessment asks students to prove their understanding in a diagram, written or related form in such a way that a stranger would understand (Teach Thought, 2013). A lot of the learning, which happens in my art room, is visual in nature. Drawing lessons, for example, require that students can reproduce or recreate a style or element of line and shape. For younger children particularly, success is determined not only by their ability to observe closely and following guidelines, but also the nature of their fine and gross motor skills, and the proper use and handing of materials. Therefore, when assessing students leading up to a drawing lesson, I will often have students practice several preliminary sketches. For this assessment, students would draw a practice sketch of the assigned drawing task with all required elements correctly in place, such that an outsider would be immediately be able to identify the intention, guidelines and elements therein. If content is lacking, difficult to identify or generally unclear (i.e., an intended bird looks like an egg), I know I need to provide feedback and make adjustments before moving forward with the final drawing task.

Checks for Understanding

The third formative assessment I would use is Checks for Understanding. CFU is a strategy that allows for understanding continually while a lesson is being taught (Smart at Math, 2011). What’s particularly useful about this assessment strategy is that it operates in real-time, allowing teachers to make adjustments on the spot, before students have the chance to repeat and reinforce any mistakes. The teacher teaches, then immediately checks for understanding by calling on all students at random and asking questions. When answers are correct, the teacher repeats and confirms the correct response. When incomplete, the teacher elaborates on the question. When incorrect the correct answer is provided (Smart at Math, 2011). My classes are very small and this strategy lends itself nicely to an ongoing, open, ping-ponging style of teaching. The constant back and forth between my students and myself keeps them engaged, while calling on them at random keeps them alert and on their toes. When appropriate, I like to alter the strategy slightly by using the Right is Right and No Opt Out strategies to encourage students to think more deeply about their responses and have them commit to seeking out the correct response.

Formative assessments are useful and important tool for teachers. When used frequently during a lesson, they can make the difference between a lesson that students didn’t ‘get’ and a quality lesson with great instruction value.

Sources

Teach Thought (2013). 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds. Retrieved on January 27, 2017 from: http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/assessment/10-assessments-you-can-perform-in-90-seconds/

Smart at Math (2011). Checking for Understanding.wmv Retrieved on January 27, 2016 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7TO9alAss

Wormeli, Rick (2010). Formative and Summative Assessment. Retrieved on January 27, 2017 from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4

Reflection on Understanding and Applying Standards

  

This has been an intense and eye-opening week. It shed light on exactly how challenging, and how exciting, teaching can be. I learned important tools that will make the learning experience more relevant and engaging for my students, but will also guide and clarify the planning process for me.

To begin, we were asked to unpack standards. As a private art teacher I have never worked with standards before, so that alone was new to me. With little knowledge of standards, I used to believe them to be strict guidelines against which teachers are required to align their curriculum, and assumed them to therefore be restrictive and limiting - almost disenfranchising teachers in that they ‘tell’ teachers what to teach. What I learned, however, is that standards do not thwart a teacher’s creativity or autonomy, but actually help to empower and strengthen her teaching. We learned several processes this week, which help teachers, do just that.

Unpacking Standards

Standards provide little guidance for teachers when taken at face value, yet standards are rich with possibility, information and potential. To unearth their full character, teachers must dig deep. To fully grasp what a standard is about it is necessary to “unpack” it.  Unpacking standards requires deconstructing it’s meaning – pulling out the verbs, isolating the nouns, and deciphering the ‘big idea’. Having studied philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the exercise of deconstructing meaning from a text, a sentence or a simple word, is not new to me. What was new to me, however, was the approach of looking to the nouns, verbs and big idea as indicators of what students are expected to know and do. I found this rather simple exercise to be enormously helpful in clarifying what my role is as teacher within the framework of a standard. It confirmed the fact that, rather than being a central figure in the classroom presenting facts, it is my responsibility to ensure my students come away with the big idea, the deeper meaning and the skills necessary to take learning to the next level. Furthermore, I found that when I unpacked a standard, I actually became more creative in my teaching, since it presented an array of possibilities and interpretations to which I had to find ways to align my teaching. This exercise confirmed the fact that standards are not bare-boned directives, but rather rich with potential for meaningful student engagement, and it’s our role as teachers to identify, embrace and translate that potential into meaty lessons with sticking power. Unpacking standards helps us do just that.

Backwards Mapping

Backwards mapping is the logical next step after unpacking a standard. It is a strategy that helps teachers teach towards goals in a way that equips students with learning experiences, contexts and meaningful activities that can be applied autonomously to varied and complex situations inside and outside of school (McTighe, 2012).

In backwards mapping the curriculum is designed starting from the goal and moves backwards from there – it is essentially a ‘starting from the end’. The process helps guide the design of lessons, units and teaching techniques such that specific learning goals are reached. It allows teachers to take the learning goals, objectives and expected proficiencies outlined in a standard, and to create targeted lessons consisting of activities, assessments and learning experiences that ensure students reach desired goals through each step of a unit. This gives the student increased responsibility and autonomy as they work their way through a lesson or unit, which in turn engages them deeply with their learning and provides them with vital life-skills which will carry them towards future educational success.

I found this process to be demanding, challenging and fun. Coming up with rigorous and meaningful curricula is not easy, however, backwards mapping provided me with a systematic, step-by-step guide on how to do this. Without this strategy in place I can certainly see how teachers might lose their way, veer off-track, lose focus of the big idea, and tend toward basal teacher-centered teaching resulting in lower-level learning. I found backwards mapping to be essential to the design of an empowering student-centered curriculum.

Writing Objectives

Writing objectives is the culminating and likely the most important stage of teaching toward a standard. This is where a teacher decides with utmost precision what learning, skills, knowledge and abilities she wants her students to come away with. Objectives are written against SWBAT guidelines (Students Will Be Able To) and should be SMART (Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Targeted). I found that referring to these acronyms in the simple exercise of asking myself what I want my students to be able to do proved very effective in shifting my perspective of ‘teacher doling out knowledge’ to ‘student engaged in a learning process’. Furthermore, writing SMART objectives with reference to Bloom’s Taxonomy of higher order learning domains required me to think above and beyond the lower level learning domains (remembering and understanding) and to reach for the higher order domains (apply, evaluate, analyze and create).

I was both challenged and excited about using higher order thinking terms such as demonstrate, sketch, develop, compare, defend and create when designing a 3^rd grade art lesson. I felt that using the SWBAT and SMART acronyms, together with Bloom’s Taxonomy, pushed me to develop an exceptionally rigorous lesson for my young artists, one where they are required to “critique the work of their peers against project guidelines” and “defend their design choices” and “compare the work of one artist to that of another”. These types of exercises help them develop life-skills that are widely applicable far beyond the art room while they are also observable and measurable which helps me gage student learning. I will undoubtedly be using this effective process for future lesson planning.

In conclusion, unpacking standards, backwards mapping, and writing SMART objectives are powerful strategies for designing a curriculum that is standard-aligned, student-centered, task-oriented, rigorous, measurable and exciting. Understanding how these processes work will make me a more effective teacher and my students more engaged, passionate and committed life-long learners.  

Backwards Mapping in the Art Room

Common Core Standards, which state the educational goals for subjects and grade levels, serve as a useful guiding framework for teachers planning their curriculum. The concise language and written descriptions of the learning and proficiencies students are expected to show at various stages and grade levels provides teachers with clear learning goals. Teachers are responsible for teaching towards these goals but the ultimate aim of a curriculum is not to simply reach these goals, rather, it is to equip students with learning that ‘sticks’ and that they can apply autonomously to varied complex situations (McTighe, 2012).

One way to achieve this is to design the curriculum backwards from the goal, essentially ‘starting from the end’. ‘Backwards mapping’ is a process that educators use to design lessons and teaching techniques to achieve specific learning goals. Starting with the goal and moving backwards allows teachers to take the learning objectives and expected proficiencies outlined in a standard for a unit or course and then create lessons and activities that achieve those desired goals through each step of a unit. (edglossary, 2013)

In order to illustrate how this might look, I will break down an art lesson using backwards mapping. I am using a discipline-specific performance standard adapted to 3^rd graders from the New York State Common Core Standards for Visual Art. This standard is part of Performance Category 1: Creating, and Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work. See full standards here.

Romero Britto Pop-Art Hearts

Standard Gr3V A:Cr2.1.3  

Create artwork using a variety of artistic processes and materials

I chose this standard because creating is the most fundamental and primal of activities in the visual arts. It is through the creation of art that we give ourselves expression and communicate with the world around us, and where we come to understand ourselves and others. Artmaking connects individuals and communities through the sharing, expressing and communicating of ideas, experiences, feelings and beliefs (NCCAS, 2007). Through this voice, this connection to self and others, artmaking is both empowering and is a means to emotional wellbeing. Furthermore, the creativity, problem solving and innovative thinking required to create art are essential life skills that are learned through the artmaking process and which are applicable to every other discipline.

This standard is very broad, so I pull out the key words, ‘create’, ‘artwork’, ‘artistic process’ and ‘materials’, to help me determine which steps, activities and teaching approaches I will need to consider when rolling out this project. If all elements in the standard are met, students will be able to apply knowledge learned about Pop-Art and artist Romero Britto to elaborate on imaginative ideas, organize, plan and develop their own Pop-Art drawing using a variety of materials.

Proficiencies:

1.     Ability to a achieve a Pop-Art style drawing using color, line and shape like Romero Britto

2.     Understanding of what a ‘pattern’ is, and how to draw a variety of patterns

3.     Ability to break a drawing into fractured shapes, and filling these shapes with bright colors and a variety of patterns

4.     Ability to refine and complete artistic work, and elaborate visually by adding detail during art-making that enhances meaning (patterns, bold lines)

5.     Ability to responsibly and properly use relevant materials (felt markers, permanent markers and marker paper) and marker techniques

Assessments I will use to ensure that students are meeting the standard

 1. Notes, analysis and discussion about Romero Britto’s art following a PPT presentation: Students are grouped into pairs and ask each other the following questions from the whiteboard. Answers are recorded in their sketchbooks. Prompted questions: What do you see in his work? How would you describe his style? What kinds of subjects and objects are depicted? Where would you find these objects in real life? Describe his use of color, line and shape. How and why do you think he fractured his subjects? How does he enhance his work (color, pattern)? How does his work make you feel? Findings are shared orally with the class.

2. In their sketchbooks, students organize and develop ideas for their subject. They explore and experiment with drawing Pop-Art subject matter using elements of line, color and shape similar to the artist’s.

3. Whole group discussion. What is a ‘pattern’ and how are patterns made? Students are shown handouts of various patterns. Students identify patterns in nature, pictures, books, visuals and in objects around the room. Students record these patterns in their sketchbooks, and add several more patterns from their imagination.

4. Class discussion on how we used markers in pervious lessons will show me who recalls marker techniques. Question prompts: When do you use fine vs. broad tipped markers? How do you overlap and blend? What techniques are best for coloring larger sections and for contouring? What happens when I use a dark color on top of a light color, and vice versa? Students are handed a Romero Britto printout for coloring. They actively explore these questions and experiment, demonstrating their understanding.

Learning experiences or activities to help students meet the standard

As this is a visual arts lesson, the culminating final result will be a physical 2-D artwork. Therefore, for this project, all learning experiences and activities will be part of the same find result, but will take several lessons to complete and will be broken down into distinct activities.

Romero Britto Pop-Art Dogs

Final Project Experience: Pop-Art-inspired drawing by artist Romero Britto

Activity 1: Drawing: On good marker paper, using thick, black permanent marker students create a drawing of a Pop-Art subject of their choice and break it up into several fractured shapes in the style of Britto. Students may use their sketchbooks as a reference.

Activity 2: Patterns: Students develop, choose or identify at least 5 distinct patterns and add these patterns to the shapes to their drawing.

Activity 3: Marker techniques: Students employ a variety of markers (broad tipped, fine tipped and permanent) in a full range of colors to color their drawing, filling in shapes, spaces and patterns. Attention is paid to using bold, bright colors like Britto.

Activity 4: Editing/Adding Detail: Students edit, refine, embellish and finalize their drawing using Britto-style details and finishing touches. This may include emphasizing the back lines, adding additional patterns, or overlaying colors. Students determine when their work is 'finished'.

Activity 5: Reflection: Students complete an Artist Statement worksheet answering the following questions: (Students talk about their inspiration and what creating this piece of art meant to them)

1. What is the name of your artwork?
2. How did you create your artwork: What tools, materials and techniques did you use?
3. What does this piece of art mean to you?

References

NYSED.gov. Curriculum and Instruction. The Arts Standards. Retrieved June 25, 2015. http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/arts/VA_ataglance.pdf

Wiggins, Grant (2005). Understanding by Design. Retrieved on January 19th, 2017 from http://www.grantwiggins.org/documents/UbDQuikvue1005.pdf

McTighe, Jay (2012). Common Core Big Ideas 4: Map Backwards From Intended Results. Retrieved on January 20th, 2017 from: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/common-core-map-backwards-jay-mctighe-grant-wiggins

National Core Arts Standards: A Conceptual Framework for Arts Learning (2007). http://www.nationalartsstandards.org/sites/default/files/Conceptual%20Framework%2007-21-16_0.pdf

The Glossary of Education Reform. Backward Design. Retrieved December 13, 2013 from http://edglossary.org/backward-design/

Image. Romero Britto. 'Duke and Grace'. http://www.britto.com/images/gallery/fineartprints/duke_grace.jpg

Deep Space Sparkle. Romero Britto Pop-Art Drawings. Retrieved from http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/tmc/2016/11/01/romero-britto-pop-art-drawings/