Critique

    In thinking about Critique in the classroom, I realized I don’t have any experience leading a critique as the educator, but only my experience participating in critique as a student.  This lead me to think about the variety of experiences I have had over the past years, and, as I just responded to Moana, I also believe the good and bad experiences are equally as valuable to me at this point.

Overall, I remember my most positive critique experiences to be the ones in which myself and other students could share constructive criticism and observations of each other’s work, in an environment in which we were not worried about what we said or being too critical.  In these classrooms, the goal of critique seemed to be both appreciation of the work we had done by our classmates and maybe our teacher, as well as critical viewing and suggestions for how we could push our work further.  While I don’t remember explicitly being told how the critique should occur, I’m sure I was given some general guidelines at one point early in college.  In researching critique online, I came across the website of Marvin Bartel, (a veteran art educator) who has written about critique, provided a Student Critique form that can be printed and used, and also provided many other links to topics related to art education.

As I read over this Marvin’s student critique form, I decided I liked the idea of a form to help students organize their thoughts during critique.  As a student, I had never used a physical form like this in my classes, but I could see it being very useful, especially with high school students, an audience that would likely use critique in class, but also that would be fairly new to it.  What I liked best about Marvin’s form was that it stresses what the student sees, not what they like or dislike etc.   For students who are new to the process of critque, I think it would work well to hand out these sheets ( or something similar) and give them about 5 minutes to look at the artwork in question and fill them out.  It would be a way for them to have notes for discussion, and also could provide some written documentation of peer observations for the student artist whose work is the subject.  I am curious to hear what others think about using a form like this in critique.   Do you think it would be useful for students or just get in the way of discussion?  Would you only use it with a certain age group?

Marvin Bartel also has a page on “Successful Art Class Critique” which has some interesting ideas.   Overall, his ideas are helpful to me, especially since they address holding a critique directly from the educator’s point of view.  He details exactly what he does in critique, including using his form.  One thing I questioned was when he says he tells students to remember, “ The Platinum rule is: ‘Try to write what you think that person wants to hear‘.  The Golden rule would be nearly as good, ‘What you would like to hear.’ “  I don’t understand why you would want your students only to say/write what others want to hear.  That may be very encouraging, but how would we ever progress?  I am kind of hoping that I am misunderstanding Marvin a bit, because I like his other ideas.  For example, in the next sentence, he says, “ I ask students to avoid all judgmental comments.  I stress description, analysis, and interpretation.  These are comments that say what we see, why it makes an impression, and what it might mean or how it makes the viewer feel. No one is say, “I like . . .”  or,  “I don’t like . . . “  I ask them to simply say, “The first thing I see is . . . “  “This ____ stands out for me because of the . . . . (size, color, brightness, placement, subject, etc.) contrast.”   I think this is great critique form to stress with students.  For many students, I imagine it is hard or unnatural for them to refrain from value judgements.

I think successful critiques can lead to constructive criticism on student work, valuable peer evaluation, and eventually, a mindset better trained to view art in general.  If students get used to viewing art and thinking and talking about what they see instead of what they simply like and don’t like, they can apply this to all art they encounter.

article link

On a side note, I read an article in the Washington Post Magazine this weekend that some of you might be interested in. It was written by a high school English teacher from Thomas Jefferson HS in VA. It is really about his quest for National Board Certification, but also includes a lot of his thoughts on assessment, specifically assessing and documenting “real understanding” among his students.

GRADING (assessment special blog)

As I began to think more specifically about grading, I recalled our discussion in class last week about pre-assessment and post-assessment.  In the future art class I imagine teaching, I think pre-assessment would be an essential element in the grading process.  While I can see pre-assessment being fairly informal, I do think it is important to determine each student’s artistic ability and history as best one can at the beginning of a class/semester etc.  In reality, this could happen through sitting down for five minutes with each student, discussing past work, and viewing a few examples if they were available.  Obviously, a focused pre-assessment like this would also depend on the grade level/student audience one is teaching.  I don’t see it being as important with younger students, below middle school, for example.  I also think pre-assessment could become more useful the older and more mature students become.  The older a student is, the more chance there may be for varying artistic backgrounds and experience within a class population.
This idea of pre-assessment precludes a grading philosophy that is based not just on final product, but on progress and improvement over the course of time.  While I think pre-assessment of a student’s level would be valuable to a teacher in general, it could be used to form a concrete course grade based on several factors, specifically including student growth.   Obtaining some knowledge of a student’s ability and past work would also help a teacher form a better idea of how much effort was put forth by the student.  While effort level can also be determined from a teacher’s observation of class work, attendance, and class participation, possessing at least an informal idea of where individual students is valuable information.
All this talk of pre-assessment leads to the idea that I am much more comfortable giving a grade in art class if I know how far a student has progressed.  I would make it clear to students at the beginning of a class that the final grade would not be solely a reflection of a final project/work, but rather a combination of different elements such as effort, craft, thoughtful reflection and response.  As a teacher, I think the things I would be most concerned about achieving in the art room would be related to student growth, creative problem solving, and critical thinking.  A final product will not necessarily be a good indicator of a grade in these areas.  I would try to incorporate my own pre-assessment of student ability/history, as well as have students complete written work at the beginning and end of a project, as appropriate.  I think students should learn to write about art and what they are trying to communicate/achieve with their pieces.  While these written pieces can be short, they should provide a tool to assess both student progress and student understanding.  I would also use critique to assess and help formulate grades, though I also think it is extremely important to always have a clear rubric to accompany a critique that leads to a grade.  If student’s are presenting their work to their teacher and classmates in critique, comments should clearly reflect how a piece was or was not successful in terms of rubric criteria.  I believe this puts a more even responsibility on the student to earn his/her grade rather than to feel like a teacher is the ultimate, subjective decisive power in grading.  In the art class, where questions of subjectivity always have the potential for blurriness, I think clarity from the teacher on what s/he is expecting can help eliminate feelings of unfairness.
I am curious as to what others think about using the student progress or growth factor as part of a final grade.  Do you think this is fair, as it would place less emphasis on final product?  Do you envision is at being too hard to carry out and/or justify to curious students/parents?

“Authentic” Assessments…

After reading UbD and the assessment article online, I am most interested to talk about authentic performance tasks.  While everything I have read so far this semester on assessment has stressed the importance of these “authentic” tasks which ask students to relate learned material back to real-world situations/applications, I cannot recall many wonderful authentic tasks in my past education (pre-college).  I am particularly interested in this topic because I often feel that schools do not do enough in the way of preparing students for the “real world.”  For example, I graduated high school, having taken math through AP calculus, yet don’t believe we were ever asked to apply math to situations we might encounter in our future (credit cards, loans, mortgages etc.)  While this might seem basic and obvious, I think it would benefit the majority of students to have practice and instruction in such realistic applications.  How many students get to college and start racking up bills on credit cards, not fully realizing the consequences of their spending and high APR’s?

I am also interested in authentic assessment because it seems like an aspect of assessment that may at first seem easy to incorporate or design, but upon closer examination, I believe true authentic assessment that shows deep understanding and application is more difficult to create.   I am thinking of assessments that may at first sound good and appealing, but do not really test much depth of knowledge and understanding.  This is similar to the example cited in ch. 8 of UbD, when the teacher is asked to self-assess her civil war task for validity.

In specifically thinking about the art classroom, I think authentic tasks would certainly be easier in some mediums than others.  I initially think about digital media and art and the myriad authentic tasks that could branch from that field, as it is can be closely related with design.  As I think about painting, printmaking, or ceramics, it becomes somewhat harder to think of authentic tasks that are directly related to how a student might apply these to real-world situations.  In terms of yielding data that you need, authentic tasks in the art class would still have to be accompanied by specific rubrics and clearly explained so that students know what is expected of them.

I am curious to hear other ideas about authentic tasks specifically in the context of the art class.  Do these types of tasks have equal importance here as in other subject matter, more, less?  Would creating and assigning authentic tasks take anything away from certain art lessons?

Student vs. Teacher-Centered: the big debate

The main article for this week focused on the difference between teacher and student centered education philosophies and really helped to clarify the two for me.  In an effort to try and prove how the progressive/contstructivist (student-centered) philosophy that dominates schools of education does a poor job of equipping future teachers, author George Cunningham manages to paint a clear picture of both cultures.  There is much discussion about the downfalls of a student-centered classroom, with particular emphasis on how poorly reading and math skills are affected.  While I appreciate Cunningham’s thorough examples that helped me to understand different teaching approaches to both reading and math, I was left wondering about the implications of a student vs. teacher-centered philosophy in the art classroom.  The other main question that kept returning to me during this article was:  Do certain students learn better in a teacher-centered class while others, in turn, function better in a student-centered classroom?  My instinct is to immediately say yes, among the range of learners in this world, there are certainly some who would function and perform better in one type of learning environment over the other.  I am interested to know what you all think about being able to group learners into either category??  While there is an obvious debate over student or teacher centered philosophies and which is better, I have not yet heard talk of accepting a mixture of the two.  Is it simply not feasible to blend the two in the classroom?  It doesn’t seem like a novel idea to me, so I am interested to hear more from actual teachers who are implementing a student-centered classroom and how it is working.
In one of the shorter articles from this week, a chemistry professor writes about changing over to a more student-centered teaching method and specifically, suggests how to incorporate this method gradually.  This leads me to believe that many teachers out there are indeed using some kind of blend of these two education approaches.  I would love to observe a classroom that is truly student-centered and see how I feel about the approach after witnessing it in action.
At this point, I realize I have completely digressed from what we are really supposed to be addressing in response to this article.  Regarding Cunningham’s main points, I disagree.  I do not believe that the progressive/constructivist viewpoint of the majority of education schools is the wrong theory to promote and teach.  While I found his arguments about the documented progress (or lack of progress) in the subjects of reading and math to be particularly thought provoking, I was not wholly convinced that education schools are in the wrong in promoting a student-centered approach, as he repeatedly declares.  While I feel unqualified to comment much on the teaching of reading or math, I think I might feel uncomfortable for example, teaching the approach Cunningham describes in place of long division.  Again, I find myself wondering why a blend of two approached cannot be used here.  Why not teach traditional long division, while also incorporating more applicable “authentic” problems for students to solve.  Apparently, in the debate over teacher vs. student-centered education, one should choose one side or the other.  Cunningham makes it clear he is against the “radical constructivism” of most education schools.  I have to admit, I was somewhat disturbed to read several of his recurring comments that degrade education schools for promoting “critical” and “reflective, democratic teaching”.  He seems to hold student achievement so high that he denounces what I felt was one of the most important things I learned before graduating from high school—how to think critically about information we receive.
I found his extreme criticism of the theories promoted in education schools very problematic.  While Cunningham alludes to his disdain for such theory throughout his article, it became almost comical when he launches into his criticism of the classes at UNC-Greensboro.  After describing some of their courses on critical pedagogy, all I could think was that I wanted to take something like that!  In disagreement with Cunningham’s view, I would ask him for what purpose is higher education, if not to challenge our minds with such ideas as described in the UNC-G Critical Pedagogy course (education and power, crisis of democratic culture etc.)  While these ideas may not be DIRECTLY applicable in the classroom, as he states, they are important issues for future teachers to explore as elements of our larger national education system.  I agree that education students need practical experience and teaching as well, but why isn’t a melding of the two acceptable or even most desirable?  To me, it is.  If we had education schools that adopted strict teacher-centered pedagogy, as Cunningham suggests, we would be giving future teachers prescriptive plans for the classroom, effectively crushing all opportunity for creative, unique, and dynamic teaching.  This is not the teaching environment that I want to inhabit, and I hope most students of education value their future professions enough to disagree with many of Cunningham’s ideas as well.

ED 6150: In response to a Baldrige classroom culture…

As we already established in class last week, much of the text on the MCPS website we are looking at has a very business-like tone. As I read on, I found even further evidence of this. In the section entitled, “An Introduction to Baldrige,” we discover that these educational theories are based on business criteria developed by former Secretary of Commerce, Malcolm Baldridge. Apparently, someone decided to adapt them for an educational setting at some point, though the connection is fairly unclear. There is one sentence in particular that is rather disturbing. In describing the origination of the Baldrige initiative, the website says, “Designed to help American business and industry gain a competitive edge in the global market, the Criteria reflect current best thinking on organizational practice.” I couldn’t help but be bothered by this correlation between business organization and education. In a way, I guess this viewpoint makes sense, however, if one accepts that the American public school system is designed to churn out a very specific kind of student. Students that unquestioningly accept American ideals and learn to promote them are the gems of a public school system in a country that uses its’ schools to manufacture consent. While this sounds extreme, it is important to question what is being taught and promoted in public schools. On this MCPS website, there is a mixture of governmental agenda and student friendly, “learner-centered” jargon that sometimes disguises it. What at first appears as forward thinking and even somewhat progressive educational ideas are countered with idealistic and unrealistic claims about what Baldrige will do for students.

In thinking specifically about “classroom culture”, I think there are some valuable points within this Baldrige system. It stresses the importance of creating a classroom culture that best fosters students learning needs, and also about establishing this culture from day one. I agree with this idea, but can also see how it might be hard to tell teachers so prescriptively how to manage their classes. I think much of the classroom culture must begin with and come from the teacher. Being that every teacher is different and has his/her own distinct ways of managing a class, there will be very different ways in which classroom culture is established and maintained. In its’ discussion of establishing ground rules, there is a link to a picture of ground rules for an art classroom. It seems to be an elementary classroom, from the looks of it, and includes classic rules such as: treat others as you would like to be treated, listen carefully when the teacher is talking, follow directions etc. While these are fine rules, what about the Baldrige system guarantees that students will follow these rules more than in a “normal” classroom? Is the idea that if the students are asked to come up with these ideas in collaboration with the teacher at the beginning of the year, they will be more likely to follow them? On a smaller scale, this was implemented at Cook last semester when the students were asked what we needed to have in a successful classroom, and rewarded when they followed those rules. Their behavior did not seem as perfect as the MCPS website alludes student behavior to be under such a system. That is one of the biggest criticisms I had with this website. It seems to sugarcoat everything in order to make the Baldrige system appear to be the perfect solution to all classroom woes. There is a link to a word document that covers some basics of establishing ground rules that I found pretty straightforward and helpful. I appreciated this part of the website simply because it was realistic; and while I appreciated some of the ideals of classroom management that the MCPS site emphasized (classroom that fostered trust etc.) as a future teacher, I could not relate so well to its’ failure to acknowledge an imperfect system.

As a government run site promoting a public school system, I have to admit the overall tone makes sense. I wouldn’t expect a site like this to highlight problems or failures of a district, so the optimism has a place. I am curious to look around now and compare this to other school district sites. I don’t know that many other sites will really go into this much detail and depth about a learning initiative or mission such as Baldrige. I’ll report back any interesting findings…