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 8th 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.>
