Assessment

Assessment is an important tool for any teacher in order to gage students' understanding of what is happening in the classroom.  Assessment can be used a step towards evaluation, or a way to gather information that will allow the teacher to see which students understand the basic themes, goals, and requirements of the lesson or not.  An important note made by Beattie in this week's readings from Assessment in Art Education is that assessment should not interrupt one's teaching process, but rather be implemented into the lesson as further support for instruction.  While many art teachers may find it daunting to have to make an assessment strategy, it really is a worthwhile and important tool to help the students and to help improve the lesson for the future if the teacher was the one being unclear.  Two types of assessment discussed in the readings and in our class are formative and summative assessment.  Formative assessment deals with work that is in process, for example a teacher may walk around the room during an activity and get to talk one-on-one with her students about their ideas and what they understand so far.  Another type of formative assessment that Beattie describes is a simple, quick writing activity, called "Half Minute Note Cards," where students write down what they have learned so far and what still needs to be answered.  Any type of writing activity allows students to structure their thoughts and lets them, as well as the teacher, see what is being understood and what is not.  A summative assessment is usually more serious and deals with the final outcome, or the resulting grade, of the lesson.

In either assessment strategy, it is important to make the instructions and expectations very clear to the students from the start, so they know what they are going to be evaluated on.  In my fieldwork, I wrote out an extensive rubric as a summative assessment tool for my lesson plan, and my mentor stressed the importance of writing the rubric in a more student-friendly manner so they understood exactly what was being asked of them.  I therefore re-wrote my rubric in outline form, using bullet points with specific things I would be looking for to support my initial instructions for the lesson.  Assessment strategies are very important to plan ahead and they are a good support system for a lesson, as both an in-progress strategy or a final evaluation that will result in a grade.  These strategies allow both the teacher and students to really see if the lesson was understood.