The Formative and Summative Assessments in Art Education

Formative Evaluation

     According to Clements and Wachowiak, authors of Emphasis Art, formative assessment happens during the art creation process.  Formative assessment isn't just a teachers input and influence but also the development of the students own thoughts they form while making their art piece.
     Garrison and Ehringhaus, from the NMSA publication Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom, have another take on how to conduct formative assessment.  Garrison and Ehringhaus suggest to look at formative assessment as practice.  Not only does practice allow a student to grasp what is new to them but also allows teachers to give themselves a formative assessment.  Is the instruction I am giving helping my students progress towards their summative assessment?
     A few formative assessment examples from Garrison and Ehringhaus:

• Observations -go beyond walking around the room to see if students are on task or need clarification.  Observations assist teachers in gathering evidence of student learning to inform instructional planning.  Use these observations for feedback to give students about their learning.
• Questioning Strategiess -embed these into the lesson plan.  Asking better questions allows an opportunity for deeper thinking and provides insight and depth of understanding.   This also helps student ask better questions and is a part of a students formative assessment.
• Student Record Keeping -the process of students keeping ongoing records of their own work not only engages students, it helps them go beyond the grade and see where they started and see the progress they are making toward the learning goal.

     Something else that was brought to my attention by Lisa Pulsifer, an eHow contributor, was how to implement formative assessment.  Her suggestion was:

• Define learning objectives in both short-and long-term.  This should include specific benchmarks so the students will easily be able to understand what steps it will take to reach their final goals.

Summative Evaluation


     "Summative Evaluation is used to diagnose, to revise curricula, and to determine if objectives have been met" says Clements and Wachowiak.  Summative is just that-a summing up.  Keeping that mind, Clements and Wachowiak suggest that summative assessments are most effective at the end of the academic year, or when portfolios are finalized.  Some effective ways to go about conducting summative assessments according to Garrison and Ehringhaus:

• State Assessments
• District benchmark or interim assessments
• End-of-unit or chapter tests
• End-of-term or semester exams

     Also, a way to conduct a summative evaluation of not only what the students learned, but how effective your teaching was is though a questionnaire.  Develop a questionnaire to have the students fill out.  Some examples from Clements and Wachowiak of questions are as follows:

• Did you learn any new words or art ideas this year? What?
• What did you learn this year about how to make art?
• How is art different from other subjects?
• How could the teacher make art class better and be better to the students?
• When you are older, how will you use anything you did in art this year?
• Why do you think students should study art?

     The last way and something that has come up across the board as an effective way to go about summative assessment was using a Rubric.  To quote Clements and Wachowiak, "Rubrics provide standards and expectations they can use to evaluate their performance while completing the assignment".

    

The Self-Portraiture Progression

     My first sorry attempt at a self-portrait was drawing a picture from memory.  If I were ever to appear on the Cartoon Network I now know what I'd look like.  

     My second attempt was just looking at a photo of myself.  Although more accurate and slight more human looking than my first try, I still left a bountiful room for improvement.  

    When drawing a face from a photograph, go with the grid system.  I was impressed with how much my finished drawing looked like my photo when going square by square not concentrating on drawing features, but focusing on lines as well as positive and negative space.

     What I feel turned out the best was the hair actually.  Just by using line and shading I was able to capture the body of it instead of just strands.  I'm pleased with the outcome and hope I never have to do anything of this caliber again, because it's just out of my league.

Picasso Head

    "Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it"

-Pablo Picasso

      Here one can see that I made eight different designs.  Two designs that would show texture, complementary colors, analog colors, cool colors, warm colors, and the last two: wild and creative designs.  I received inspiration from everyday objects such as my coat, my niece's quilt, and my embroidery floss made bracelet, as well as animal planet.  Our ever day is filled will fun designs. The project was not complete here.
     Part two was a contour line drawing of a friend.  What can I say, I'm really good at not looking or lifting my pencil from my paper because the above is practically a photo of Peter.
     Part three was to implement the designs into the face.  The part I was most pleased with was the hair which I used my small texture design (coat inspired).  Over all, I thought my Picasso Head turned out really well.  I loved the colors as well as the designs I was able to pull together.

Reflection: Why Teach Art?

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life"

-Pablo Picasso     

     Close your eyes and imagine school without art.  All I can see is  anything positive from my educational experiences as a child slipping away.  It a horrifying thought to me, as you so have imagined.  The authors of Emphasis Art, Robert D. Clements and Frank Waschowiak state it perfectly in their first chapter. "Art education fulfills many important functions of schooling.  Learning-and producing-art is a critical part of what our children need to be doing as they develop their awareness of the world around them".  And with ten very well thought out reasons Clements and Waschowiak bring truth to their above statement.  I'd like to bring those ten to light. 
     Why teach art?  Art, according to Clements and Waschowiak, brings: cultural understanding, national needs, making the ordinary important and special, personal communication and expression, general and artistic creativity, vocations, aesthetic awareness, literacy and cognition, a core participant in learning in school, and a different way of learning and communicating in school.
     It is this last reason that really strikes my fancy.  Art is important to teach because it is a different way of learning and communicating in school.  I couldn't agree more.  As important as the core academics are we sometimes intensify and pressurize them to much.  Among the arithmetic, science, and reading let us teach these kids to create with their hands.  Use their minds to discover and work though their very own masterpiece.
      In the book The Creation of Mind, this is illustrated perfectly when the author explains that we solve problems all too neatly in school, unfortunately this is not the way the world solves them.  "The implementation of means might lead to unanticipated effects that may be more interesting, promising, or problematic than the ones originally sought.  In such cases, and especially so in the arts, the individual takes his or hear lead from the work.  The work, so the speak, also speaks, and at times it is the artist who listens.  The work in progress begins to look more like a conversation than a lecture".   I think this is a great way of saying that an art piece is as unpredictable as life, and it needs to be figured out as you go.  One has to improvise and go where the decisions you've made lead you.  That is something that isn't learned though text or memorizing the times tables, it's a gained understanding that can be developed though art.  After all, in the words of Sir Ken Robinson (author and expert in creativity and innovation), "children have extraordinary capacities for creativity".  Let us teach them effective ways to express it and give them every opportunity to do so.

Reflection: What is Art?

     The World Book Encyclopedia defines "in a broad sense, art is skill in making or doing".  I had never thought of art in this light before.  When asked "What is Art ?" I was stumped.  The only answer I could come with was that art is an expression that may or may not speak to others.  It isn't that simple however.
     Wikipedia has art widdled down to a the definition of "the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects the senses, emotion, and/or intellect".  This sounded very scientific to me.  I don't consider myself an artist, but I most certainly would never make Wiki's cut as one.  Would Jackson Pollock or Margret Burke-White?
    No matter where one goes to define art there is no black or white answer.  As vast as the art works created centuries ago to the even more vast of today, the definition of art is as complex and as dimensional as art work in and of itself.  Like reading into a painting or taking it at face value the definition of art is what you make it.
     Through all of this, I've discovered my very own personal definition of art.  Art to me is a creation.  Weather it is the art of hitting a home run, to the art of making a quilt, to a painting, to the creation of canyons...I view it as art.

Mandala

Mandala: 

Oriental Art . a schematized representation of the cosmos,chiefly characterized by a concentric configuration ofgeometric shapes, each of which contains an image of adeity or an attribute of a deity.

Dictionary.com

     Here is my little Mandala.  Now, I realize that the things that make up my life are no "deity", but they are a part of my universe, so that makes them important none the less.  So, If you're curious as to who "Haley" is, all one needs to do is simply take a closer look.  I know my drawing abilities are sorely lacking in skills so I'd like to offer a little bit of an explanation.

     The camera represents my love for photography.  I first fell in love with photography when my sister brought home here black and white prints from a photo class she was in in high school.  I followed tradition and sought out such a class upon entering high school.  From inserting the film, to clicking the button, to reeling my film, though development, to printing I feel in love with making my own photos.  I now continue to pursue photography as a hobby and I dream of one day having my own dark room.

     I love to ski!  The ski snowflake is how I decided to portray this very time consuming love of mine.  I have been skiing Utah since the age of 3 and intend to do so the rest of my life.

     When it's not ski season...get out and road bike.  I am a more recent convert to road biking, but when I'm riding (especially in Cache Valley) I enjoy every minute of it.  My bike's name is Sandra, or Sandy for short.  We've had some great times together.

     Gilmore 4 Life.  I am an avid "Gilmore Girls" fan.  I cried when it ended.  I am a proud owner of all the seasons and I am constantly cycling though them time after time.  And in now way is that sad.

    The muddy shoe print expresses my love of hiking.  The greatest way that I know of to get away from the demands of the day-to-day and clear ones head is to get into the mountains.  Hiking provides a refreshing escape for me.  Nothing can compare to fresh mountain air.

     Hello Kitty's face.  Need I say more?  If the mere sight of Hello Kitty does not make you smile then...I can't even come up with a situation for that.  She's great.  I love Hello Kitty.  I have always been a fan and always will be.  She adorns my apartment in ever room.

     A good old fashioned vanilla ice cream cone.  Definitely my favorite dessert.  I'm never not in the mood for an ice cream cone.

     If you couldn't already tell from the above, I love Utah.  It's nerdy, but I genuinely enjoy living in Utah year round.  I love all four-seasons and everything they have to offer.  I'm also Utah born and raised.  I think that's kind of cool.  I don't know where life will lead me, but I hope to end up back here.  Utah is home to me.

     Admit one!...I love movies.  I love going to them, renting them, buying them, having nights dedicated to viewing them.  I love movies.

     That completes my Mandala for now.  But as you know, as I grow so will my Mandala.  It's something I'll be adding to for the rest of my life.