Class Take-Aways

This year’s class gave me a lot to think about and many new ideas to try.  A lot of issues discussed in both books help reinforce what I already do in my classroom.

My biggest take-aways

A Repair Kit for Grading:

1. I already don’t penalize for late work.  I also allow students to resubmit projects for a higher grade.  I believe students should get credit for their work, no matter when it is done.  On the other side of the coin, I don’t permit them to choose a zero for a grade.  If they are far behind, they need to come in outside of school to work.  I also have no problem calling coaches, advisors, and parents to communicate with them that the student is missing work.

2. I have been modifying my grading policies to not include grades for formative assessments and practice.  It becomes very difficult to elicit participation from students when things are not graded.  This generation has next to no intrinsic motivation.  I have stopped telling them if the assignment is going to be graded until after it is handed in.  Sometimes I give check marks so they can track their progress.  Often I will hand things back with comments and no grade.  This drives students nuts!

3. The idea of not factoring effort into my grades has been a difficult concept.  A huge part of completing an art project is effort.  I have stopped calling it effort and now tell my students to focus on “craftsmanship”.  To me, this is the same thing.

Formative Assessment:

I have gotten so many ideas from this book.

I have really strived to give my students feedback that is specific and timely.  I already spoke to my students a lot during class to find out how they are progressing.  What has changed after reading this book?  I plan more of the questions that I am going to ask and record the results.  I also utilize weekly reflections to communicate with my independent study students.  They answer about 5 questions and I respond to what they write.  The feedback has been very positive for using Edmodo.  I am going to incorporate it into my advanced class next fall.

I track more evidence based on my formative assessments and use that in planning for my classes.  This has created a little more work for me, but at least I know how my students are progressing.  I adjust my lessons for reteaching and/or expanding on things that the students are really interested in.

I have also tried to vary the formative assessment activities that I do in my class.  I have been trying to use the internet to find different activities.  Some of them go over really well, and some are not so popular.  I just tell them that we are all learning.  Most of the students have really enjoyed the new activities.

Ch.3-4

Chapter 3: Clarifying, Sharing, and Understanding Learning intentions and Success Criteria

This was an interesting chapter to read for me.  I find it hard to believe teachers are not doing this.  Maybe it’s because I teach art, and my lessons are set up differently, but I almost always do this in my lessons.

I start out a lesson with a slide show about the project we are going to do.  We look at professional, successful student, and unsuccessful student examples.  We discuss the objectives and the procedures for the assignment.  Throughout the assignment they do reflections and discussions on work related to the project.  I will ask them questions about how a specific piece could be improved, what they think is most successful, what advice would they give to the artist, what are the strongest Principles or Elements, etc.  The students reflect about their projects with me and with other students.  The chapter did briefly talk about this having already been done in some of the specialty classes.

When I thought back to when I was in school, most of my teachers never did this.  There were many times that I sat in class and wondered what I was supposed to be learning and why.  When I was going to school for my first bachelor’s degree you could find some of this information on the syllabi, but it was often not discussed.  When I went back for my art ed degree in 2007 this was becoming a much more popular practice.  They encouraged us to create handouts at the beginning of projects that explained the objectives, procedures, and grading criteria for each project.  I did this for a while when I first became an art teacher.  What I quickly learned was that my students were not using the information on these handouts and it was a huge waste of paper.  I now have the students take notes while we go over a new assignment and write the main objectives and procedures in their sketchbooks.  Their daily reflections also go in their sketchbook.  They are not quite so bombarded by the information.  At the end of the assignment I have them fill out a reflection and rubric about their project.  It is always interesting to read about what they learned through the process of creating their piece.  Areas that I feel are very strong in their piece are often viewed as an area of difficulty for the student.  I can see by their reflection how they identified problem areas and worked through the issues.

Another new tool I have started utilizing are visual rubrics.  I have a few for my 3D classes.  It shows examples of work for each level of my rubric.  We have discussed why each piece received their score.  It has shown me when I need to be clearer about what I am looking for.  They often don’t understand the differences between a 3 and a 4 until we discuss it.  I leave this poster up while they are working on their projects so they can check their progress.

Chapter 4: Eliciting Evidence of Learners’ Achievement

This chapter really made me look at the way I phrase the questions I ask my students.  When I was taking the class on developing my art curriculum, we discussed essential questions for units rather than unit objectives.  This spurred a whole new conversation on how to talk about art.  One of the class participants talked about using Visual Thinking Strategies.  I had never heard of VTS.  I went to their website and found it very interesting.  The teacher basically sticks to three questions: “What's going on in this picture?” “What do you see that makes you say that?” and “What more can we find?”  The videos showed teachers using VTS in action.  I think it worked great for lower levels, but thought that high school students would find it very frustrating if I kept asking the same questions.  I began doing more research on effective questioning.  Once I started changing the way I asked my questions, I began to receive much more detailed and supported responses.  The students’ sketchbooks have served as an invaluable tool is gauging student comprehension and growth.  The have also looked back at their reflections and jumpstarts to measure their own growth.

The other part of this chapter discussed finding out what your students know and have learned about what you are teaching.  I think one of the biggest mistakes we make as teachers is assuming students already know something.  When we find out that they don’t, we get upset, rush through it, and feel like we can’t/shouldn’t have to slow down to make sure the prerequisite skills are mastered.  How can we ask our students to learn what we are teaching when they don’t have the foundational skills needed?  Do I find it insane when some of my 8^th graders don’t know how to mix green?  YES!  To me, I think they should know this by the time they reach me.  The reality is that they don’t have an art teacher in the elementary school.  There are no art standards for grades k-7.  I have to review the basics before we can start painting.  When I was writing the standards for grade 8 and beginning art, I used sample standards from k-4 curriculum.  Unfortunately, that is the level my students are at.  They are complete beginners when they get to me.  I, the teacher, am the one who needs to adjust, not the students. <I’ll hop down off my soapbox now.>

Formative Assessment

One of the major concepts that I teach in my class is how to look and respond to art using the Art Elements and Principles of Design.  I introduce the Elements and Principles in eighth grade.  As a formative assessment to see how they respond to art, I put up a work of art and ask them to tell me about the strongest Element or the strongest Principle.  They need to write a minimum of five sentences.

When reading the responses, I look for the use of art vocabulary and the strength of their reasoning behind their opinion.  I constantly tell them to back up their opinion.  I track the students' progress on a spread sheet.  When they respond using very few art vocabulary words, name more than 1-2 Elements, and/or don't back up their opinion, they get a minus sign.  When they begin to grasp the concepts and back up their opinion using some art vocabulary words, they get a dash.  Once they have mastered choosing one Principle or Element and full backing up their opinion utilizing art vocabulary they get a check mark.

When reteaching and expanding on these concepts, I do a lot of it through discussion.  We do whole group discussion and one on one.  I use my spread sheet when speaking with my students one on one.  Throughout the quarter, the majority of the students are at least to a dash mark.  I plan on using this information when students take art at the high school level.

A Repair Kit for Grading...My Takeaway

I’m going to talk about the fixes that stick out the most to me and how they fit into my educational philosophy.

Fix #2: Don’t reduce marks on “work” submitted late; provide support for the learner.

I have gone round and round with my colleagues about late work and the multiple policies that teachers use.  I am a firm believer in not penalizing for late work.  I am going to give them full credit for the work they do.  You get a lot of arguments about this.  Some teachers say that we have to teach them the responsibility of handing work in on time.  I agree, but my primary goal is to teach them the content.  Finishing the assignment to show their growth is my primary goal.  If I deduct points for lateness, how is that motivating the student to complete the assignment?  They don’t see the point in handing it in, only to get half credit.  They settle for the zero.  How is that helping?

This brings me to…

Fix #12: Don’t include zeros in grade determination when evidence is missing or as punishment; use alternatives, such as reassessing to determine real achievement, or use “I” for Incomplete or Insufficient Evidence.

I try not to allow my students to get zeros in my class.  Yes, this initially created a lot of work for me.  I will pull them in before or after school, during SRB, I call their coaches and parents, whatever I have to do to get the assignment done.  Eventually the students realized that they might as well do the work because I make them do it either way.  I don’t give “busy” or fluff work.  The assignments I give them are essential to measure their growth and skill level.  I need that data.  I cannot let them choose not to get it done.  I also agree that adding a zero to the grade book creates an inaccuracy in their final grades.  It is not a true reflection of their progress.  Many teachers think that chasing students down to recover missing assignments is too much of a hassle.  I think that it comes with the territory.

Fix 11: Don’t rely only on the mean; consider other measures of central tendency and use professional judgment. 

Fix 13: Don’t use information from formative assessments and practice to determine grades; use only summative evidence. 

Fix 14: Don’t summarize evidence accumulated over time when learning is developmental and will grow with time and repeated opportunities; in those instances, emphasize more recent achievement.

I’m going to address these all together.  I don’t think grades should be determined using “practice” work.  This defeats the purpose of letting them practice.  It shouldn’t matter WHEN they master the concept, as long as they eventually do.  I think sometimes teachers get stuck focusing on all the questions students get wrong, rather than looking at the ones they got right.  I never really thought about this until I taught first grade.  I noticed that I could give a spelling test on short a in week three and the student would miss 5 out of 7 words.  They just didn’t get the pattern.  By week five, their reading and writing showed that they understood the short a pattern.  Why would I give that student an F because they didn’t get it in week three?  I started tracking the major concepts in my classes and when students became proficient in them.  The next year I took this data to the principal and owner of the school.  I made my argument for standards-based grading.  We transitioned first grade to standards-based that year and grades 2-4 the following year.  It was the best thing for all involved.  Students were a lot more confident after we did this.  They were not afraid to make a mistake.  They knew it was ok.  We stressed that through mistakes is how we learn.  You shouldn’t be punished for learning.