Student assessment in the Elementary Level Arts Education curriculum is based on the foundational objectives and related specific learning objectives in each strand for each grade.
Assessment involves collecting information on students' learning. Evaluation involves using the information collected to make a judgement about the extent to which students are achieving the learning objectives. Assessment and evaluation of student progress is as essential in arts education as it is in other school subjects.
Teacher Note:
To reinforce to students, parents, administrators, and the general public the importance of arts education in Saskatchewan 's Core Curriculum, the program must include ongoing assessment of student learning based on the foundational and related specific learning objectives.
Teachers need to be aware of four categories of student learning in the arts that include perceptual development, procedural understanding, conceptual understanding, and personal expression. These four categories are encompassed by the foundational and related learning objectives of each strand.
While some aspects of the arts program include the development of a concrete product (such as a collage in visual art), many products of learning in the arts are actions or behaviours that take place over time and are not easily captured for later reflection and appraisal. Two major challenges of student assessment in the arts education program are determining observation criteria and recordkeeping. It is important to involve students in the development of assessment criteria. It should be noted also that student, peer, and self-evaluation are essential to developing students' abilities in the arts program. Students should learn that artists reflect on their work throughout the creative process and that ongoing informal assessment is an essential part of development in the arts.
Teachers need to develop appropriate observation checklists and other instruments to record student progress. Sample recordkeeping forms are included in this section of the curriculum guide and in each sample unit.
Evaluation includes assessment of the students' creative and responsive processes, as well as assessment of any culminating products that may result from their arts experiences.
Artistic products or other final projects give only a partial view of each student's experiences, understanding, and development in the arts. Ongoing observation is essential to achieving a complete and balanced assessment of the student's overall learning. The teacher observes each student's struggles with creative problem solving, willingness to try new things, and application of knowledge, skills, and critical and creative thinking.
Teacher Note:
Artistic products or presentations are not to be evaluated in isolation, but must always be evaluated in conjunction with the students' creative problem-solving processes, their intentions, their previous work that year, and the arts education objectives.
It is important to note that this curriculum recognizes that challenging oneself personally and exploring new ideas and ways of working are essential factors in artistic development. This way of working presents a risk to the students in that the final product or presentation may not turn out as well as it might have if they had “played it safe” and worked in a more repetitive or familiar way.
Students may be reluctant to challenge themselves or take risks with their work if students know that all their work will eventually be on display or presented to others publicly. Because much of their daily work in arts education will be process-oriented and of a problem-solving nature, it should be made clear to students that all of their work will not result in a public presentation. Should a teacher or the students themselves desire, on occasion, to show some of their work to others, it is essential to involve the students in this selection and decision-making process.
It is very important for both teacher and students to note that while students must be encouraged to take pride in their artistic products, the creative process is equal in importance to the resulting product.
A variety of strategies is required to assess and evaluate student progress in both process and product in arts education. One effective approach used in dance, drama, music, and visual art is portfolio assessment.
Artists were among the first people to make extensive use of portfolios to maintain and present work. Portfolios have been recognized as an excellent method of accumulating and presenting students' work in the arts for many years. Students who use portfolios learn that reflection and revision are important aspects of the creative process.
Portfolios help students become independent learners who are responsible for setting their own goals and for reflecting critically on work and progress. Students need to be involved in developing the criteria by which work and portfolios will be evaluated. Portfolios may contain:
Portfolios need not include only students' best work; rough drafts and early versions are excellent vehicles to spark dialogue during teacher-student conferences and to allow for reflection upon personal growth and development.
Discussing works in progress with others helps students refine their arts expressions. Refer to the section in this curriculum guide entitled Responding to Student Work.
By considering portfolios when teaching and assessing, teachers encourage students to develop critical thinking and creative abilities similar to those used by professional artists, and motivate students to take responsibility for their own learning.
Reviews of student work can occur during the creative process itself, where drafts and other first attempts at creation or production may be included as works in progress. These sketches, drafts, or preliminary recordings and videotapes may be housed in each student's working portfolio. Students might periodically select items or exhibits from their working portfolios to place in a presentation portfolio. Both types of portfolios are to be included in the assessment process.
Individual portfolio review sessions are an integral part of ongoing assessment practices throughout the year. Portfolio conferences may be used in many ways and are a good focus for discussion between and among the following:
Teacher Note:
Portfolio assessment takes time and requires commitment from teachers and students. It is important to remember that the time students spend helping to develop criteria, selecting work to include, and discussing their creative process is time well spent. Rather than being time lost, critical reflection is an important part of each student's learning and creative process.
Some schools are making a regular practice of maintaining student portfolios over a number of semesters or years. This practice allows students, teachers, and parents/guardians to see compiled evidence of growth that can be a source of satisfaction as progress is observable for every student.
Digital portfolios are a practical way to demonstrate student growth over time. Space is often a problem for storage of visual art works and students' portfolios. As music, dance, and drama rehearsals and performances are fleeting, they are not as easily captured for analysis and reflection. Audio recordings, videos, and digital portfolios can help students recall and evaluate their work, alleviate the problem of lack of space, and provide for short- and long-term storage of evidence of student work.
The portfolio may contain print, photographs and other graphics, and video. Younger students may need assistance from the teacher or older students to enter work in their portfolios. Teachers may plan to have students collaborate with other technology-oriented classes to create these types of portfolios.
As with a traditional portfolio, students need to determine what works to include and what they could tell the reviewer about the creative process used. Naturally, students are involved in the selection process to encourage personal responsibility for learning. In addition, students should, whenever possible, help to establish rubrics or lists of assessment criteria for items within the portfolio, based on the specified learning objectives.
Rubrics are useful tools for assessing and evaluating to improve student learning. They describe levels of performance qualities ranging from beginning to excellent levels for a lesson, unit, project, or portfolio.
The purpose of a rubric is to help make expectations clear, to give students feedback about their work in progress, and to clarify the criteria upon which work will be evaluated. Rubrics can be used to provide students with specific information about their strengths and to highlight areas in need of improvement.
Rubrics can be useful in peer and self-assessments and can encourage students to reflect critically on the qualities of their own artistic processes and products. Students and teachers may work together to create a rubric for the assessment of one small task, a performance, or an entire portfolio or major project.
The following steps for designing a rubric have been adapted from Andrade, 1997.
One way to transfer the information within a rubric into a grade is to change each level on the rubric to a word or number that represents the range for a particular grade. For example, level 4 on the rubric might = excellent or 85, level 3 = good or 75, level 2 = satisfactory or 65. Circle the level that the student has achieved for each objective listed on the rubric, average the scores, and assign a result for the rubric.
One project may require more than one rubric. In those cases, the rubrics are added together to come up with a numeric score. The teacher may decide to assign more weight to some criteria or specific rubrics. Such weighting needs to be discussed with students in advance.
Students and their parents deserve to know the objectives and assessment criteria upon which an evaluation was made. It is important to develop a composite profile of each student's progress for each reporting period in order to provide concrete information to students and parents.
Report cards and parent-teacher interviews provide excellent opportunities to increase parents' awareness of the substantive content of the arts education program and of the benefits derived from student involvement.
Observation forms, portfolios, and other pertinent material should be maintained whenever possible for reference and discussion. This is particularly valuable when reporting student progress that was not assessed through more familiar methods such as written tests or essays.
It is imperative that reports to students and parents are based upon evidence. In order to develop a comprehensive record of growth, teachers have to rely upon a wide variety of assessment techniques and upon accurate observation and recordkeeping.
It is the responsibility of the school division, school principal, and teaching staff to establish student evaluation and reporting procedures consistent with the philosophy, goals, and objectives of the curriculum.
Teacher Note:
Evaluation and grading criteria are derived from the foundational objectives and the specific learning objectives that are encompassed.
It is important that teachers make clear to students, in advance, the purpose of the assessments and whether they will be used as part of a final grade or summative comment. Students need to know what is being evaluated as well as how it is being evaluated.
Evaluation criteria, based on curriculum objectives, needs to be discussed with students throughout the year - before, during, and after each unit of study so students may be active participants in their own evaluation process. In fact, the students themselves may help to set the assessment criteria once students understand the objectives.
The reporting of student progress may take the form of descriptive reports in addition to a final grade. When translating assessment data into marks or summative comments, teachers should ensure that the foundational and related learning objectives have been assessed over the course of the year.
At times during the year, teachers may place more emphasis or weight on certain objectives depending upon the particular activity, project, or experience in which the students have been involved. The final mark or summative comments should reflect a balance among the foundational objectives. The year's experiences should also reflect a balance among the three components of the curriculum. The three components (creative/productive, cultural/historical, critical/responsive) are described on page 3 of this curriculum guide.
The teacher and the report card must indicate clearly to both students and parents that arts education is a Required Area of Study that is developing important understandings, abilities, and attitudes.
This section contains sample assessment checklists, recordkeeping forms, and rubrics. Teachers may adapt the examples to meet the needs of their students and to assess student growth in achieving specific learning objectives required for each strand.
For more information on assessment and evaluation, refer to Student Evaluation: A Teacher Handbook, Saskatchewan Education, 1991.
Checklists that I plan to either view or download and print, and adapt for use in my classroom include: