Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Assessment in Art
At first I was thinking that assessing art would be almost insensitive. To me, art is so personal that to grade it is almost like grading the person. Yet, if I’m going to teach art, I’m going to have to grade it somehow right?
The thing I liked most from the textbook was this passage:
“Don’t apologize for making suggestions to children, initiating projects, and emphasizing art fundamentals. Where promising sequential , imaginative and qualitative art programs exist, the classroom or special art teacher is organizing, coaching, motivating, questioning, demonstrating, evaluating, approving and advising – in other words, TEACHING (R. D. Clements & F. Wachowiak, 2010, p. 52).”
For some reason in my mind I was thinking real artists would let students discover art on their own by almost letting them roam free. This passage really made the structured teacher inside of me breathe a sigh of relief. The idea of students roaming free with markers, paint, crayons and scissors if frightening to me. It’s nice to know that I can be a teacher and an artist at the same time.
Since I determined guidelines were a must, I needed to find out how to assess if students met those guidelines. In Assessment in Art, it talked about many different ways to assess art. My favorite was portfolios. The book described the portfolio as a story, something that showed the growth of the student (D. K. Beattie, p. 15). I think the best way to assess students in any subject is to look at their progress and using a portfolio is one way to do that.
On a website it suggested that a rubric be used in order to grade art. This is because they take out much of the subjectivity (Art Teacher Toolbox). I think it will be important to use rubrics as well as have students complete a portfolio. This way I will be fair and be able to assess their progress. Overall, I think assessment in art will be manageable.
References
Art Teacher Toolbox, Assessment. Retrieved from: http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/toolbox/assessment.html
Beattie, D. K. Assessment in Art. Retrieved from: https://online.uen.org/webct/urw/lc129121021.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct
Clements, R. D. & Wachociak, F. (2010). Emphasis Art. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Integrating Art Into the Classroom
In the school world, where so much focus is put on reading and math, art seems to be the last thing on a lot of teachers’ minds. Integrating it into the curriculum seems to be the only way to fit it into the day but the questions are why, when we have so much more to do? And how?
The first question is answered in Emphasis Art. In chapter six it discusses three domains that when all in place help students to remember what they learned. The three domains are cognitive (facts), psychomotor (body movement) and affective (emotions) (C. Wachowiak, 2010, p. 69).When art is integrated into a subject, they will be experiencing all three domains. This means they are going to better retain the information! C. Porter, an arts educator, said, “Educators who integrate the arts into their classroom's core curriculum find inspiration for new teaching methods and experience deeper learning from their students” (C. Porter)
Incorporating art into social studies is something quite easy. A lot of the time we can use art in order to understand a person’s culture. The art has a cultural meaning (Art and Visual Culture). Using this, along with other strategies, students will be able to visualize what a past culture was like. It also helps us see how others perceived their own world. This always brings to mind political cartoons. While they are considered art, they tell a lot about the artists own beliefs and what is going on in their world.
Other subtracts also integrate with art, making all types of learning very engaging for students. For math, I am teaching students strategies to figure out multiplication problems. One of the strategies we use is drawing pictures. This visual concept helps them more than anything. I also found many lesson plans where art and language arts are integrated. One example was of the story of the gingerbread man. After reading the story, students were instructed to use paint to make a gingerbread house as well as gingerbread men (Zakowski, 2003)
Integrating art in the classroom is painless and productive. It’s something I hope to do as much as possible.
References
Art and Visual Culture. Retrieved from http://www.students.sbc.edu/lollis04/ArtandVisualCulture9.htm
Porter, C., Bringing Arts Into the Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.neohiofamily.com/articles/index.php?view=viewarticle&id=256
Wachowiak, C., (2010) Emphasis Art. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Zakowski, (2003). Gingerbread Man. Retrieved from http://cfschools.net/schools/ch/heazak/ginger/ginger.html
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