Action Research Update

Action Research: How can I make more meaningful assessments in my middle school art room?

This week was 'clay week' for the middle school students, so they were busy learning various clay building techniques!  The difficulty for me during 'clay week' is definitely assessment!  I did use some formative assessments with each class - checking for students that needed more time and information about certain processes.  I always find it very difficult to get around to each student that needs help within the class time, so I spend the majority of my time working one-on-one with them during class.  One thing that I tried this week that seemed to help students (and myself) was that when a student had a question with their project, I would ask the rest of the class if anyone else had the same question.  If there was a small group with the same question(s) I had them come over to the table I was at and watch a demonstration - I then had them go back to their work and try it on their own project.  Some students still needed help, but it seemed to help the majority.  If I had a large number of students with the same or similar question, I did a demonstration at the front of the class using the iPad and iServer to project what I was doing.  I always try to get students to try the techniques on their own before calling me over to them, and showing them more demonstrations seemed to give them a bit more confidence to try things on their own.

Not all students have finished their work so they will continue to work when we go back to school on Tuesday.  I will conduct the first part of the clay assessment on Tuesday, before the clay projects go in the kiln.  I do not think I will have students conduct a self-assessment until the projects come out of the kiln, because they will be very fragile in the bone dry stage and I would like to prevent any accidents that I can!  This time, on the rubric, I will ask students questions about the clay processes that they used for their particular project.  I will be able to assess student learning through the use of these questions.  I have not done this in conjunction with the grading rubric before, however I think I will do this more often - I feel that this will get students more involved with the rubric, hopefully making it more useful and meangingful to them.

I will post examples of student work and rubric/questions next week once I assess them.