Action Research Reflection

Action Research Reflection

My mini action research question was: How can I create more meaningful assessments in my visual arts classroom?  As I began my research on this topic, I soon realized that there are so many variations of assessment and I really had my work cut out for me!  The first change that I made in my classroom was to provide my students with more formative assessment - I had been doing this beforehand, however, once I learned more about formative assessments and how to use them effectively in my classroom, I began utilizing them more often.

Some examples of formative assessments that I have begun using throughout my research are: exit slips, table/group worksheets, partner questions, group discussions, fist-to-five, among others.  With the use of formative assessments, I am able to gain important information about my students in a rather short amount of time.  I have started using a worksheet with my fifth grades students to complete in their table groups during our color theory unit.  I introduce and review a lot of material in this unit and I was searching for a way to help students through this learning process.  I use the worksheet to get students thinking and talking about the material with their peers, without the pressure of answering questions out loud in front of the entire class.  I purposefully added questions that force students to really think back on the material discussed the previous day, and ensure to them that if they cannot answer all of the questions, that’s okay.  I am able to see what material students are struggling with by looking at the questions that they are unable to answer.  I have found it very beneficial to use formative assessments with my students so that I can learn where they are at: what they still need help with and what they know well, in a short amount of time (not to mention I don’t have to add another grade to the grade book!).  

Summative assessment is also an important aspect of the art grading process and I spent a lot of my time researching various ways in which to do this in my art classroom.  One way I attempted to make my assessments more meaningful to my students was simply to explain the grading rubric to them and allow them time to ask questions.  There are times that I forgot to do this step and if students had had at least one rubric explained to them prior, they understood it better.  On the other hand, if they did not have a rubric explained to them prior, they didn’t understand it as well therefore it didn’t mean much to them.  Based on a student survey I gave to one of my fifth grade classes, 85% of the class found it helpful to hear about the grading rubric ahead of time; 10% of the students didn’t mind either way, and 5% of students did not respond.  

Data collection was a struggle for me during this research, so this is an area that I would definitely like to improve on in the future.  I plan on continuing this research topic into the beginning of the 2014-15 school year and I would like to continue to collect data with all of my middle school classes (grades 5-8).  One way in which I hope to collect data from my classes is to get their input on what type(s) of summative assessment they prefer (percentage, total points, letter grade, checklist, rubric).   I will need to decide what other data I will collect throughout a more extensive research on this topic as well.  Another aspect of this research that I would like to explore more deeply is the importance of formative assessments - I did not conduct much research on this topic of assessment, however I feel that it is a very important type of assessment to use in my classroom, so I would love to learn more about specific formative assessments in the art room.

Although I feel that I learned a great deal about creating more meaningful assessments for my students, I have decided that I will continue with this topic for the upcoming year.  I have been doing a lot of reading on this topic and have learned much more since the completion of this mini action research and I am looking forward to taking time this summer to conduct additional research on this topic and create some surveys for the kids to get their input.