Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Blog Entry #4 - Overview of Art Education
Reading Assignment: Assessment in Art Education, Beattie
Chapters 1, 3, 7
Response Questions:
How will you know what your students have learned? What does successful learning look like? What kinds of evidence and feedback do you and your students need and
how can you get it? What different assessment strategies will you utilize in
your unit plan?
Assessment is "The method or process used for gathering information about people, programs, or objects for the purpose of making an evaluation... [classroom assessment] is an integral component of quality teaching. Pre-assessing for prior knowledge through instruction, reassessing, reteaching based on assessment findings, and final assessing are all part of sound classroom teaching practices."
Based off of the information in Chapter 1, I believe the best way to know and understand what your students have learned, to identify successful learning, and to attain evidence and feedback of student learning is by drawing from the Principles of Quality Classroom Art Assessment. Principles of Assessment I will be sure to implement in my classroom are:
1) Assessment is student-oriented and teacher-directed - Be sure to encourage student participation in the conception and crafting of the assessment tools
2) Assessment supports, rather than interferes with, instruction and course objectives
3) Assessment is multi-layered - No single assessment criterion or strategy will give the art educator the breadth of information he or she needs in order to ascertain a student's artistic progress
4) Assessment is continuous
5) Assessment is authentic
6) Assessment focuses on both products AND processes
7) Assessment provides opportunities for students to revise and make changes in products and processes
8) Assessment is responsive to different types of knowledge and to expanded notions of intelligence and creativity
9) Assessment is concerned with student's preconceptions and misconceptions - "In order for the art educator to build on students' prior knowledge and mediate appropriate instruction, information needs to be gathered concerning what misconceptions and preconceptions students currently hold. Such information can be gleaned from pre-assessments, assessments implemented before an art program begins."
10) Assessments are crafted to ensure fairness for all students
11) Assessment is criterion-referenced and compares students' performances to past performances
12) Assessment is responsive to collaborative and cooperative learning - "In the art-making process, teacher and student both actively participate in decision-making, and students frequently help each other rethink and rework images."
Chapter 3 discusses different TYPES/STRATEGIES of assessment. Drawing from my own experience as a student, I would implement a few of the discussed forms of assessment in my classroom, some of which I felt I best learned from as an art student and art-history student.
1) Web questions - I believe it is important for artists to make connections and meaning between topics and ideas. Webbing and mapping can be successful tools in which students write open-ended responses to a specific topic that allows the student to make connections and the teacher to better see the students' brainwork and learning style. I believe it also alleviates the pressure of a right or wrong answer and perhaps allows the student to feel less prohibited.
2) Interpretive Questions - These types of questions require that students explain the meaning or significance of information. Students are given introductory material followed by a series of questions or tasks based on the material. This can be presented in the form of block questions. These are questions that can assess a wide variety of sills in a sequential and cohesive manner.
3) Essay questions - As much as students generally dislike essays, I believe they are important because they ensure the student fully understands the material. When a student has to answer a question drawing from their own knowledge without being given pieces of the answer, it means they have to form an answer by drawing connections of what they have already learned and present this knowledge in a well-thought out cohesive format.
4) Questionnaires and Inventories - I believe that this type of assessment can be successful in assessing art-making processes and techniques.
Overall, "Assessment initiates change in that it evaluates student progress and points out areas in need of improvement," which makes it a necessary tool for successful classroom learning.
Chapters 1, 3, 7
Response Questions:
How will you know what your students have learned? What does successful learning look like? What kinds of evidence and feedback do you and your students need and
how can you get it? What different assessment strategies will you utilize in
your unit plan?
Assessment is "The method or process used for gathering information about people, programs, or objects for the purpose of making an evaluation... [classroom assessment] is an integral component of quality teaching. Pre-assessing for prior knowledge through instruction, reassessing, reteaching based on assessment findings, and final assessing are all part of sound classroom teaching practices."
Based off of the information in Chapter 1, I believe the best way to know and understand what your students have learned, to identify successful learning, and to attain evidence and feedback of student learning is by drawing from the Principles of Quality Classroom Art Assessment. Principles of Assessment I will be sure to implement in my classroom are:
1) Assessment is student-oriented and teacher-directed - Be sure to encourage student participation in the conception and crafting of the assessment tools
2) Assessment supports, rather than interferes with, instruction and course objectives
3) Assessment is multi-layered - No single assessment criterion or strategy will give the art educator the breadth of information he or she needs in order to ascertain a student's artistic progress
4) Assessment is continuous
5) Assessment is authentic
6) Assessment focuses on both products AND processes
7) Assessment provides opportunities for students to revise and make changes in products and processes
8) Assessment is responsive to different types of knowledge and to expanded notions of intelligence and creativity
9) Assessment is concerned with student's preconceptions and misconceptions - "In order for the art educator to build on students' prior knowledge and mediate appropriate instruction, information needs to be gathered concerning what misconceptions and preconceptions students currently hold. Such information can be gleaned from pre-assessments, assessments implemented before an art program begins."
10) Assessments are crafted to ensure fairness for all students
11) Assessment is criterion-referenced and compares students' performances to past performances
12) Assessment is responsive to collaborative and cooperative learning - "In the art-making process, teacher and student both actively participate in decision-making, and students frequently help each other rethink and rework images."
Chapter 3 discusses different TYPES/STRATEGIES of assessment. Drawing from my own experience as a student, I would implement a few of the discussed forms of assessment in my classroom, some of which I felt I best learned from as an art student and art-history student.
1) Web questions - I believe it is important for artists to make connections and meaning between topics and ideas. Webbing and mapping can be successful tools in which students write open-ended responses to a specific topic that allows the student to make connections and the teacher to better see the students' brainwork and learning style. I believe it also alleviates the pressure of a right or wrong answer and perhaps allows the student to feel less prohibited.
2) Interpretive Questions - These types of questions require that students explain the meaning or significance of information. Students are given introductory material followed by a series of questions or tasks based on the material. This can be presented in the form of block questions. These are questions that can assess a wide variety of sills in a sequential and cohesive manner.
3) Essay questions - As much as students generally dislike essays, I believe they are important because they ensure the student fully understands the material. When a student has to answer a question drawing from their own knowledge without being given pieces of the answer, it means they have to form an answer by drawing connections of what they have already learned and present this knowledge in a well-thought out cohesive format.
4) Questionnaires and Inventories - I believe that this type of assessment can be successful in assessing art-making processes and techniques.
Overall, "Assessment initiates change in that it evaluates student progress and points out areas in need of improvement," which makes it a necessary tool for successful classroom learning.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Artistic Thinking -- Week 7/8
iBrain Read and React
Due to the technological
revolution, our brains are evolving at a faster pace than ever before. Technology is changing how we think,
feel, act, and the way in which our brains function. “This evolutionary brain process has rapidly emerged over a single generation and may represent one
of the most unexpected yet pivotal advance in human history.” While technology produces many positive
changes within our culture, it hinders others. The focus on the Internet and other forms of technology is
causing a drift in the brain away from fundamental social skills. “With the weakening of the brain’s
neural circuitry controlling human contact, our social interactions may become
awkward, and we tend to misinterpret, and even miss subtle, nonverbal
messages.”
As
an art educator is important to note that young minds, the minds of students,
are at the most malleable state.
While they are the most exposed and impacted by digital technology,
their brains are also in a state of growth that allows them to absorb that
which is around them. The young
brain has the ability to be ever changing in response to stimulation and the
environment. “This plasticity
allows an immature brain to learn new skills readily and much more efficiently
than the trimmed-down adult brain.”
Young minds are morphing in response to their environment, which will
eventually have a lasting impact on future generations through evolutionary
change.
Today’s young people have been
labeled as “Digital Natives.” These digital natives have grown up never knowing
a world without computers, Television, Internet, cell phones, video, cameras,
text messaging, etc. “Young people
eight to eighteen years of age expose their brains to eight and a half hours of
digital and video sensory stimulation each day.” Due to the development of this new standard, “the neural
networks in the brains of these Digital natives differ dramatically from those
of Digital Immigrants: people—including all baby boomers—who came to the
digital/computer age as adults but whose basic brain wiring was laid down
during a time when direct social interaction was the norm.” This difference in the evolution of the
brain has led to a brain gap between
younger and older minds, in just one generation. What exists now is the formation of two separate cultures:
“The brains of the younger generation are digitally hardwired from toddlerhood,
often at the expense of neural circuitry that controls one-on-one people
skills. Individuals of the older
generation face a world in which their brains must adapt to high technology, or
they’ll be left behind—politically, socially, and economically.”
The way in which younger people
express and project themselves is evolving. Instead of writing down personal thoughts and feelings in a
diary or journal, many young people are writing these thoughts and feelings on
the Internet for anyone to see. Is
this because they feel there is enough distance between them and their reader
to keep them from vulnerability?
Is this because sharing facts about personal lives and personal thoughts
has become the new social norm?
“Natural selection has literally
enlarged our brains. The human
brain has grown in intricacy and size over the past few hundred thousand years
to accommodate the complexity of our behaviors.” While the digital revolution and its effect on our brains
increases social isolation and decreases interpersonal relationships, “it may
well be increasing our intelligence in the way we currently measure and define
IQ. Average IG scores are steadily
rising with the advancing digital culture, and the ability to multitask without
errors is improving.” However,
with an increase in multitasking comes an increase in stress and attention deficits,
as well as a decline in work efficiency.
With the technological revolution
come both inevitable positives and negatives. Understanding and bridging the newly developed brain gap is
an important step we must take that will require two major interventions: “We need to help Digital Natives learn
to advance their interpersonal skills and teach Digital Immigrants to hone
their technology skills. However,
both generations must maintain and enhance their abilities to talk face to
face, understand subtle nonverbal cues during conversations, and build empathic
ways of relating to one another, off line.”
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Blog Entry #3
Why teach art? Why is it so important that all students have a Visual Arts and Visual Literacy education?
As one of the images on the NAEA advocacy page states, "Art teachers nurture 6 senses in developing Visual Literacy: The ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning."
Considering that in our world today, images and video are literally everywhere, one would think that the ability to view and respond critically to these surrounding images would be of the upmost importance. Furthermore, I believe it is important for students to gain knowledge in how to not just view the images and video, but participate by creating original images and video of their own.
However, in our education systems in seems that programs for the arts are often the programs that are the first to go when funding runs short. While I would hate to see any program cut that can help reach kids where they are and incorporate their individual interests into the classroom, I find it a travesty that Art is the first to go. Art is often misconceived as an unnecessary hobby. Rather, I believe it is a tool that can be used to conceptually connect the different areas of disciplines: Science, math, reading, writing, etc. Educating students to thinking critically and conceptually, as they do in Art, would lead to gains in other areas as well.
Ultimately, I believe teaching art is a job just as necessary and important as any "core" education position. I personally have found meaning in it, meaning that I hope to translate to my students when I have my own classroom.
As one of the images on the NAEA advocacy page states, "Art teachers nurture 6 senses in developing Visual Literacy: The ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning."
Considering that in our world today, images and video are literally everywhere, one would think that the ability to view and respond critically to these surrounding images would be of the upmost importance. Furthermore, I believe it is important for students to gain knowledge in how to not just view the images and video, but participate by creating original images and video of their own.
However, in our education systems in seems that programs for the arts are often the programs that are the first to go when funding runs short. While I would hate to see any program cut that can help reach kids where they are and incorporate their individual interests into the classroom, I find it a travesty that Art is the first to go. Art is often misconceived as an unnecessary hobby. Rather, I believe it is a tool that can be used to conceptually connect the different areas of disciplines: Science, math, reading, writing, etc. Educating students to thinking critically and conceptually, as they do in Art, would lead to gains in other areas as well.
Ultimately, I believe teaching art is a job just as necessary and important as any "core" education position. I personally have found meaning in it, meaning that I hope to translate to my students when I have my own classroom.
Parents Night Handout Example
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Week 6
Week 6 Read and React
Seven Principles for
Visual Culture Education
Paul Duncum
Duncum suggests seven principles
for examining various forms of imagery.
These principles are: power, ideology, representation, seduction, gaze,
intertextuality, and multimodality.
They are not intended to be fundamental truths, rather, sources from
which “to create curriculum commensurate with the extent and complexity of
today’s’ visually mediate world.”
Power is the overarching principle
that connects the others. Power
raises questions of “Who exercises power through imagery? How, when, and why is it
exercised?” Due to the
hierarchically ordered societies across the world, different groups display
different degrees of power.
Therefore, images represent different agendas.
Ideologies are represented through
images. This refers to ideas,
ideals, beliefs, and values. “It
is a characteristic way of thinking, a style of thought, and interpretive
scheme employed by people to make the world intelligible to themselves.” Therefore, every image contains an
ideology; even if that ideology is that there is no ideology.
“Representation is closely aligned
with ideology because it refers to how ideology is presented in visual
form.” It is important to look at
not only what is represented in a piece of art, but also what is not represented. For what is left out can be just as
important or problematic as what is put in.
Seduction is used in a variety of
ways. “When images offer arguments
that reflect back our own views, our own ideological positions, they offer the
pleasure of confirmation… images are also seductive because they are
sensory.”
“The gaze concerns how we look at
images and the circumstances under which we look. It refers to our predisposition to see things in certain
ways, what we bring to images, and the relationships we form with them.” In the same way gaze can give power to
viewers or subjects, it can also render them disempowered just as easily. We must take into account who is doing
the gazing, for what purpose, who knows about it, and who has the power because
of it? “Considering the gaze is a way in which to understand ourselves as
individuals and as a society.”
Intertextuality is the idea that
“images draw from other sources, copy them, parody them, and, in turn influence
other cultural texts.” It is
important to be able to make connections and associations from one idea to
another, in order to understand the interconnectivity underlying bigger
ideas.
“Multimodality refers to the fact
that there are no purely visual images; images never appear without words,
music, or other sounds.” Therefore
we must take into account how our view of a visual image is being influenced by
other forms of artistic expression at the same time.
Digital Diet Chapter
2-3
Chapter
2 discusses the importance of advanced search tools when using the Google
search engine. Using the general
Google search only reveals those pages that have the highest PageRank, that is,
they have the highest number of web pages that link to that page. This creates to broad of a search. Advance Search allows the searcher to
narrow down exactly what it is they are searching for. In the classroom, this would allow
students to find up to date, relevant research.
Chapter
3 explains the importance of social bookmarking sites, such as Delicious, and
how to set up an account for further use.
Using this tool in the classroom not only helps students remember
important URL locations, but can also allow students to collaborate. “If students are working together on a
class project, they could all be required to contribute information they have
researched and the sources they have identified… the teacher and the students
can create class and personal Delicious accounts, and then share these accounts
with one another.”
PINTEREST INSPIRATION BOARD:
INSPIRATION SOFTWARE:
POPPLET:
INTERTEXT:
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