1st Edition
Authentic Secondary Art Assessment Snapshots from Art Teacher Practice
Offering a contemporary overview of how visual art teachers assess learning in their classrooms, this book provides an outline of the role of assessment in reporting not only student achievement but also how student assessment ties to the intrinsic and external assessments of teacher performance.
Compiled using stories from the classrooms of 19 visual art high school teachers who share their approaches to benchmarking student success, the text encourages teachers to consider assessment both for guiding their students to achieve artistic goals and for re-envisioning their own curriculum and instruction. The featured assessment snapshots fall along four strands: Visual Narratives and Visual Literacy; Capturing Empathic Understandings and Social Engagement; Measuring Risk-taking and Ingenuity; and Assessing Collaborative and Integrated Learning Outcomes. Across these sections, teacher contributors offer different perspectives for student assessment, capturing a snapshot of the work of skilled practitioners and focusing on various aspects of what can be evidenced and analyzed through formative and summative evaluation. The voices of university level art educators are also included to expand the range of context from curriculum and instruction content that is covered in pre-service art methods courses. All sections also conclude with a summary, questions, and discussion points.
Including diverse teacher voices as well as presenting assessment perspectives with an eye to the National Core Art Standards (NCAS), this book is ideal for pre-service and in-service secondary art educators, as well as for use in art education teacher certification courses that focus on secondary methods, and art education graduate classes in assessment.
Introduction: Authentic Secondary Arts Assessment: Snapshots from Art Teacher Practice SECTION I: Overview of Assessment 1. Art Education Assessment and the Industrial Educational Complex 2. Educational Aims, Goals and Objectives: Balancing Instructional Objectives and Expressive Outcomes 3. Contemporary Dilemmas in the Assessment of Art Learning: Promoting Creativity, Assessing Teachers, and “Doing” the Standards SECTION II: Models of Assessment 4. Commentary Section II—Standards and the Assessment of Competencies 5. Can’t You Just Give Them a Quiz? Resistance as a Means to Promote Authentic Assessment 6. The End Justifies the Means: Assessment and Backward Design 7. Advanced Placement in Studio Art: Assessment and Advocacy 8. International Baccalaureate: Art Educators as Leaders in Models of Student Thinking and Assessing What Matters 9. Studio Thinking and Assessment in High School Visual Art 10. Assessment Literacy and edTPA: Seeing the Bigger Picture 11. The Danielson Framework for Teacher Evaluation and Student Assessment 12. Section II Summary Section II Questions and Discussion Points SECTION III: Assessing Visual Narratives and Visual Literacy 13. Commentary Section III—Visual Narrative: Assessing How We Tell Our Stories 14. Beyond the Color Wheel: Assessing for Habits of Mind in the art classroom 15. Authentic Assessment Through a Summative Bookmaking Unit 16. Expressive Portraits: Visual Narratives of Affective and Technical Assessment 17. Drawn Personalities 18. Section III Summary—The Role of “Context” in Assessment Section III: Questions and Discussion Points SECTION IV: Measuring Risk-taking and Ingenuity 19. Commentary Section IV—Nurturing and Assessing Risk-Taking in the Art Room: A Framework for Teachers 20. Assessing the Student Over the Work: Grading with Studio Habits of Mind 21. Holistic Assessment through the Photographic Lens 22. Risk and Chance: Portrait Lessons for Advanced Students from Rural and Suburban Communities 23. Risk-Taking and Empowering Students with Interdependent Artmaking 24. Section IV Summary Section IV Questions and Discussion Points SECTION V: Capturing Empathic Understandings and Social Engagement 25. Commentary Section V—Empathy and Socially Engaged Art 26. Starting a Conversation: Student-Directed Projects Designed to Engage the Community 27. An Evolution of Assessment in the Wake of a Cultural Revolution 28. Building School Community with Artist Trading Cards 29. What Breaks Your Heart? Socially Engaged Artwork in the High School Art Classroom 30. Section V Summary— Assessing Socially Engaged Art Education Section V Questions and Discussion Points SECTION VI: Assessing Collaborative and Integrated Learning Outcomes 31. Commentary Section VI—Integrated and Collaborative Assessments 32. Sculptured Landscapes: Art Lesson and Assessments 33. Ceramic Whistle Sculpture 34. Critique as Assessment 35. The Art Throwdown: Process and Production in Interscholastic Competition 36. Summary Section V—An Assessment: Art Integrated Instruction and Collaborative Learning Section VI Questions and Discussion Points SECTION VII: Closing Thoughts 37. Conclusion 38. Afterword: Addressing Social Issues and Mental Health as Contemporary Culture 39. Afterward: Rethinking Assessment – Post-Pandemic
Biography
Cathy Smilan is a Professor of Art Education and the Master of Art Education Graduate Program Director at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She serves a reviewer for the International Journal of Education through Art, and the Journal of Visual Culture and Gender. Dr. Smilan served as a member of the NAEA Professional Materials Committee and as a permanent editor of the IJETA IMAG.
Richard Siegesmund is a Professor Emeritus of Art+Design Education at Northern Illinois University. An elected Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association, he is also a recipient of the organization's Manuel Barkan Memorial Award for significance of his published research on the 1997 NAEP Arts assessment.
"The National Art Education Association is proud to support the integrity and diligent efforts of Cathy Smilan and Richard Siegesmund in bringing this book to light. We are also honored to serve and promote the industrious nature of the visual arts educators who shared their knowledge and experiences to make this work possible. The tireless commitment of these art educators not only shaped the context of this volume, but also the learning outcomes of countless students who received guidance—as well as creative and artistic success—under their instruction."
-National Art Education Association (NAEA)
