Like students working in a formative assessment process, teachers implement formative assessment in their classrooms, document, reflect upon, share the results, plan improvements, and make revisions.
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Fauvist Portrait Painting1/9
“How can formative assessment tools facilitate independent learning and reflection on process?”
In 2010, teachers Jason Rondinelli and Emily Maddy pursued this inquiry with their 6th – 8th grade visual arts students at Brooklyn IS 233.
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Ms. Maddy and Mr. Rondinelli were surprised by their students’ growth in some unexpected areas.
“Although this particular project focused on self-assessment, we found our students always talking about their work with each other… They can have meaningful discussions.“
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Initially, students reacted defensively to peer assessment. That changed as the co-teachers taught and modeled protocols for giving and taking advice.
The overall culture of the classroom became more constructive, and students’ own emotional barriers to learning began to transform.
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To view critique as helpful, and be able to verbalize it, students needed shared goals and a common language. Teachers engaged them in developing the criteria for success. Students became equipped with self-determined goals, and assessment became everyone’s activity.
““What do you think counts? What is our criteria?”
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Focusing on one criterion at a time, Ms. Maddy and Mr. Rondinelli created and then discussed rubrics with the class. Students grew able to compare good technique with room for improvement.
They became skilled observers, their interaction elevated, and their awareness of process opened up.
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Students not only grew in critiquing and improving their own work, but also in aiding in the artistic processes of their peers.
The co-teachers encouraged this growth with graphic worksheets, word banks, and other tools that reminded students of their own criteria for success.
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Where students had once resisted critique, they’d become open and fascile giving and receiving it.
They recognized its constructive purpose, developed listening skills, and gained confidence in determing their own artistic responses. Assessment had become an ongoing practice, and students welcomed it.
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Formative assessment transformed the way that students saw themselves, their work, and their artistic community.
At the end of the project, Ms. Maddy and Mr. Rondinelli were amazed to see their students so able to describe their artistic processes, and to see them so clearly documented. Students were also surprised. They took pride in making and reviewing each other’s work, and they became appreciative of each other’s assistance.
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Fauvist Portrait Painting: Self & Peer Assessment
With Emily Maddy and Jason Rondinelli, Brooklyn IS 233-
“It was amazing to see the artistic process that my students go through in such a clear & documented way.”
–Emily Maddy, Visual Arts Instructor
This unit spanned around 4 months, and was carried out in two phases, focusing on one group of 7th grade advanced student artists. Our goal was to develop and implement visual assessment tools to support student independence in assessing, revising and reflecting on their self-portrait paintings. Students learned the language of critique and how to give effective feedback using graphic organizers. We utilized peer and self-assessment using graphic organizers based on group-generated criteria checklists and visual rubrics.
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