Title: Art I Foundations Common Assessment
Name: Alison Bennett
Affiliation: NKCS
Position: Art Teacher
Background: I am currently an art teacher with North Kansas City Schools who teaches all Art I Foundations classes at one of the high schools. This past year we have developed common assessments to test ALL Art I Foundations students in the district on if they are learning required content for upper level classes. These assessments have had many problems with validity, discrepancies, and usefulness. They also provided no feedback to students, little to teachers, and were extremely time consuming both to give to students and grade. Completing this research will provide my students with meaningful assessment opportunities where they can learn from feedback provided. It will also create a more efficient system that will improve validity, discrepancies, and take less class time to implement/grade. The feedback will be more clear for teachers to better understand what needs to be further addressed within each separate class thus improving learning.
Research Question: What assessment method can be used to test Art I Foundations students across the district while providing rich learning and feedback opportunities for all
student, teacher and administration in a timely manner?
- Art I Foundations students: freshman through seniors in the intro to visual arts class
- the district: North Kansas City High School, Staley High School, Oak Park High School, and Winnetonka High School
- rich learning opportunities: an experience for the student use knowledge gained over time simultaneously in hopes of reinforcing connections between knowledge taught in class
- rich feedback opportunities: information that can be immediately applied to both student and teacher reflection to improve classroom knowledge and experiences
- teacher: instructor of the Art I Foundations course
- administration: Principles, Ass. Principles, Art District Coordinator, Superintendent
- timely manner: less than 5 day turn around for results
Related Research: http://www.theartofed.com/2010/10/17/assessment-resources/
Jessica, a teacher and blogger from The Art of Education website has gone through the steps of implementing a new assessment plan for her district. Looking at her gathered information, findings, and overall process will help guide me through my own journey.
http://cfaefl.org/assessmentproject/userfiles/envisioning_arts_assessment.pdf
Linked here is a PDF to "Envisioning Arts Assessment A Process Guide for Assessing ARts Education in School Districts and States"
This is essentially a guide on how to set up and implement arts assessments within your district or state.
http://www.angelamaiers.com/images/2011/01/ArtsAssessments.pdf
Linked here is a PDF to "In Art Education Assessment How are the top schools assessing visual arts?"
This is an overview of different assessment methods and how they are being used in schools across the nation.
When looking at related research I need to remember to note the following:
- trainings on common assessments
- how to create common assessments
- what other districts are doing
- what other assessment methods have been used in the past in my own district
- trial and error of new methods
List of permissions required:
- Administrations approval for creating new assessments
- Districts approval of new assessments
- Colleagues approval of new assessments
- Permission from students/parents to use any of their work/words
Data Sources: I plan on collecting data through the following:
- student writings
- class records
- work of experts
- similar studies
How will I collect the data?
Through documents, observations, Web citations and any other means that seems appropriate as I progress.
Methods and Analysis: I plan to develop methods for assessment, set goals for this assessment, implement the assessment to my students and give them a feedback sheet. Between their own feedback along with my own recorded reflections I will be able to build data. The demographic information will be filled out on the assessment information page where students fill out their name, gender, grade, etc. I plan to gather data from now until the end of this semester and perhaps even continue into the next school year.
Time Line: I will begin to carry out my research plan in March with the building of the assessments. I may be able to implement a couple of these before the semester is up. If not, I will have to wait to implement them until next school year. With this plan I can spend all the first semester collecting data, winter break to analyze what I have found and the spring semester for a more polished second attempt. Final decisions for assessments to be adopted will not realistically be embedded into the district until winter of 2014 or possibly even spring 2015.
Possibly Findings: I think there will be many assessment methods tested and failed. I think each attempt will lead to a new beginning and new potential for success. I think by the end there will be an assessment method that is accepted by the district with results that are understood/accepted by people outside of the art world. The assessment will give quality, rich feedback to both student and teacher on the learning occurring in a timely manner. My hopes are to come up with an assessment method that provides students an opportunity to use creativity in their problem solving.
Dissemination: I plan to share the results of my study through a multi-modal text. (a mix of text, documents, quotes, video, images, and sound) I'd like to broadcast my results to my administration and even my district officials, parents, students, and other teachers outside of my content area. I'd love for the results to bring greater respect to our arts department in our district. I think the students would benefit from outsiders learning more about what the arts are about and what we instill in our students through the curriculum/assessment methods we choose. After all, they are the number one priority.
Budget: I would like more training on creating common assessments, particularly in the arts. I do not foresee many costs in this particular research journey, but if there was a professional development opportunity I would set aside a couple hundred dollars to make it happen.
Name: Alison Bennett
Affiliation: NKCS
Position: Art Teacher
Background: I am currently an art teacher with North Kansas City Schools who teaches all Art I Foundations classes at one of the high schools. This past year we have developed common assessments to test ALL Art I Foundations students in the district on if they are learning required content for upper level classes. These assessments have had many problems with validity, discrepancies, and usefulness. They also provided no feedback to students, little to teachers, and were extremely time consuming both to give to students and grade. Completing this research will provide my students with meaningful assessment opportunities where they can learn from feedback provided. It will also create a more efficient system that will improve validity, discrepancies, and take less class time to implement/grade. The feedback will be more clear for teachers to better understand what needs to be further addressed within each separate class thus improving learning.
Research Question: What assessment method can be used to test Art I Foundations students across the district while providing rich learning and feedback opportunities for all
student, teacher and administration in a timely manner?
Muddy words and phrases defined:
- assessment method: the design, function and outcome of a test- Art I Foundations students: freshman through seniors in the intro to visual arts class
- the district: North Kansas City High School, Staley High School, Oak Park High School, and Winnetonka High School
- rich learning opportunities: an experience for the student use knowledge gained over time simultaneously in hopes of reinforcing connections between knowledge taught in class
- rich feedback opportunities: information that can be immediately applied to both student and teacher reflection to improve classroom knowledge and experiences
- teacher: instructor of the Art I Foundations course
- administration: Principles, Ass. Principles, Art District Coordinator, Superintendent
- timely manner: less than 5 day turn around for results
Related Research: http://www.theartofed.com/2010/10/17/assessment-resources/
Jessica, a teacher and blogger from The Art of Education website has gone through the steps of implementing a new assessment plan for her district. Looking at her gathered information, findings, and overall process will help guide me through my own journey.
http://cfaefl.org/assessmentproject/userfiles/envisioning_arts_assessment.pdf
Linked here is a PDF to "Envisioning Arts Assessment A Process Guide for Assessing ARts Education in School Districts and States"
This is essentially a guide on how to set up and implement arts assessments within your district or state.
http://www.angelamaiers.com/images/2011/01/ArtsAssessments.pdf
Linked here is a PDF to "In Art Education Assessment How are the top schools assessing visual arts?"
This is an overview of different assessment methods and how they are being used in schools across the nation.
When looking at related research I need to remember to note the following:
- trainings on common assessments
- how to create common assessments
- what other districts are doing
- what other assessment methods have been used in the past in my own district
- trial and error of new methods
List of permissions required:
- Administrations approval for creating new assessments
- Districts approval of new assessments
- Colleagues approval of new assessments
- Permission from students/parents to use any of their work/words
Data Sources: I plan on collecting data through the following:
- student writings
- class records
- work of experts
- similar studies
How will I collect the data?
Through documents, observations, Web citations and any other means that seems appropriate as I progress.
Methods and Analysis: I plan to develop methods for assessment, set goals for this assessment, implement the assessment to my students and give them a feedback sheet. Between their own feedback along with my own recorded reflections I will be able to build data. The demographic information will be filled out on the assessment information page where students fill out their name, gender, grade, etc. I plan to gather data from now until the end of this semester and perhaps even continue into the next school year.
Time Line: I will begin to carry out my research plan in March with the building of the assessments. I may be able to implement a couple of these before the semester is up. If not, I will have to wait to implement them until next school year. With this plan I can spend all the first semester collecting data, winter break to analyze what I have found and the spring semester for a more polished second attempt. Final decisions for assessments to be adopted will not realistically be embedded into the district until winter of 2014 or possibly even spring 2015.
Possibly Findings: I think there will be many assessment methods tested and failed. I think each attempt will lead to a new beginning and new potential for success. I think by the end there will be an assessment method that is accepted by the district with results that are understood/accepted by people outside of the art world. The assessment will give quality, rich feedback to both student and teacher on the learning occurring in a timely manner. My hopes are to come up with an assessment method that provides students an opportunity to use creativity in their problem solving.
Dissemination: I plan to share the results of my study through a multi-modal text. (a mix of text, documents, quotes, video, images, and sound) I'd like to broadcast my results to my administration and even my district officials, parents, students, and other teachers outside of my content area. I'd love for the results to bring greater respect to our arts department in our district. I think the students would benefit from outsiders learning more about what the arts are about and what we instill in our students through the curriculum/assessment methods we choose. After all, they are the number one priority.
Budget: I would like more training on creating common assessments, particularly in the arts. I do not foresee many costs in this particular research journey, but if there was a professional development opportunity I would set aside a couple hundred dollars to make it happen.
I am so happy to hear that you are working on an investigation that is authentic to your professional practice and that you are producing a product that has relevance for your students, school, and school system. I applaud this effort:
ReplyDeleteI plan to share the results of my study through a multi-modal text. (a mix of text, documents, quotes, video, images, and sound) I'd like to broadcast my results to my administration and even my district officials, parents, students, and other teachers outside of my content area.