Art Education: What Matters Should Count How Rich Tasks can bring arts assessment to a new level.

Approach: Is there a way to measure learning in a way that is meaningful and can be “standardized”in an effort to prove learning in the arts?

The Arts: important but not THAT important…? 1. Gallup poll 1997 (US) A. 5% regards art, 3% regard music basic subject to be taught (1997) 2. Some people get it A. Psychologists and educators view a. Dewey: progressive education “children need education that is authentic and allows them to grow mentally,physically, and socially by providing opportunities to be creative, critical thinkers.” B. Edvantia “The Arts in Education “students perform better on standardized tests when highly involved in the arts.

“As the education system has stressed the importance of developing mathematical and linguistic intelligences, it often bases student success only on the measured skills in those two intelligences.” Amy C. Brualdi Reference: Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

Purpose: education as economic well being and growth…..Yes the arts fit that requirement! One example: “ None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me and we designed it into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.” Steve Jobs Commencement address Stanford University 2005 BUT…. o Some colleges don’t count arts courses in students GPA. o In 1998 only 10 Colleges required art credits for acceptance o In 2008, fifty-seven percent of eighth-graders attended schools where music instruction was offered at least three or four times a week, and 47 percent attended schools where visual arts instruction was offered at least as often.

Initiatives that affect arts education 1. Federal Goals 2000 Act “By the year 2000 all students will be able to demonstrate competency over challenging subject matter including English, Math, Science, Foreign Languages, Civics and Government, Economics, Arts, History, and Geography.” 2. NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act 2001) Goal is to improve outcomes in education for Students thru Standards Based educational reform. Two areas that states must test and report on in order to receive federal funding……. Math and Language Arts. 3. National Art Education Association Voluntary Standards for K-12

Oh by the way….. 1.McMurrer 2008 (Since NCLB Act 2001) A. survey of 349 public schools districts:  58% of school districts increased instruction time in Reading and Language Arts  45% increased instruction time for math  16% DECREASED instruction time in art

High Stakes Standardized Test Include the Arts: Good or Bad?

Testing for the Arts Standardized testing and the Arts: o Including the arts makes the arts important 1978, 1997, 2007 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) includes art on standardized tests Sample: 2008 = 3,999 eighth graders tested in art 33,000 students in grades 4, 8, 12 tested in math and language arts.

The Results of Nations Report Card Arts 2008: The average responding score for visual arts was reported on a NAEP scale of 0 to 300 with scores ranging from 104 for the lowest-performing students to 193 for the highest-performing students. The average creating task score for visual arts was reported separately as the average percentage of the maximum possible score from 0 to 100 with a national average of 52. In general, students who performed well on the responding questions also performed well on the creating questions.

Equal opportunity?

This is Jessica. She went to a school that offered art 4 times per week. The college she wants to go to doesn’t count art classes towards Her GPA. This is Jack. He’s an athlete and he Loves art. His school offers art at the same time as gym. He can’t do both, but they count as the same credit areas: enrichment. This is Jacob. He went to A high school where arts classes weren’t offered. The job he wants requires knowledge of design concepts…….

The Unevenness of Art Education Policy Thomas Hatfield Some schools implementing standards…..which ones?? Art teachers vs general ed. Teachers Substantive learning required to make progress in arts NEAP makes objective info. about student performance available to policymakers at national and state levels. Arts Report Card: Sampling not adequate Some students who were tested did not have a single art class Others tested had three to four per week “Most of the leading doctoral programs in art education do not require K-12 teaching experience for entry.”

Elliot Eisner “National Assessment of the Visual Arts” What’s good about the test: o Areas being measured: creating and responding o (comply with National Standards) Problems with NEAP test and Nation’s Report Card on the Arts unknown selection criteria for which questions were chosen. 2. unclear expectations for performance 3. reporting procedures did not indicate what excellence signifies 4. sample size 5. written responses Inequalities in sample: outliers and the mean…..

Reinforcing Art Education through Assessment: Not Just Right or Wrong But How and Why….

Proving the Arts… “Rich Tasks: A Unit of Instruction, A Unit of Assessment” District wide state based assessment o “Cumulative, originates in the schools, requires significant involvement of the teachers, school administrators, and communities of vested participants and is applicable for high stakes testing because moderation processes are built in to make scores valid and reliable.” o Students are assessed continually on not just final product but on learning process o Portfolios, journals, sketchbooks prove learning progress o Standardized rubrics o Item bank of rich tasks = build curriculums

Rich Tasks Relevant Requires higher order thinking Requires self assessment Greater depth of knowledge and mastery Comprehensive teacher strategies Standardized scoring rubrics should be used as often as possible to allow for reasonable objectivity Utilizes teachers who can assess students directly and who have deepest understanding of what learning in the arts entails

Qualitative and Quantitative Rich Tasks can be assessed in multiple ways, but one important method is the use of a standardized rubrics which measures learning based on a comprehensive art paradigm which includes art history, art criticism, aesthetics, art studio, and visual culture. If this method of assessment is used for each Rich Task as a final assessment module, each student will arrive at different levels of understanding for his or her own practice within each module but a cumulative mean score can be used to infer overall student learning. This is not new idea but a standard scoring system based on the rubrics can be determined district or even state/nation wide and this could be used to measure learning in arts education.

A Solution. With a comprehensive system for curriculum development and assessment, we can prove learning in the arts which standardized tests do not do adequately. In order to secure a place for the arts as a core area of study, measuring progress is critical since our nation values that which can be measured. Using a qualitative approach to quantify learning is well suited for the arts. This system can build existing curriculum, inspire new ideas in the classroom and beyond, and push the arts into the position it deserves!