Authentic Art Assessments

I think Fine Artist - Art Educators are reticent to administer traditional assessments. However art teachers can get a really good grasp on student growth and development with the data gathered from pre, post and benchmark data. In fact data collection really does mesh with creativity in the classroom. Nowadays there are really efficient web tools to use with your students to administer authentic summative and formative assessments, that will also help you analyze the data for instruction.

What are authentic assessments?"...Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field." -- Grant Wiggins -- (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229).

There was once a time when I would give every student a 6-page paper test; I would manually grade them; I would analyze trends - what standards students mastered what standards, and which standards students needed more emphasis on. It took a while to do, a long while. The assessment informed my instruction, for example if 90% of all students demonstrate mastery of color theory in the formative assessment, I'll know that when I start teaching that unit, I should have a great deal of understanding, and not so much re-teaching of the concepts/elements.

Then to prepare for our Quarterly Data Presentations, I would import the numbers into MS Word graphs or PowerPoint to get some cool graphics (Not cool). That was after I add up all the test scores, divide... you know the drill. It was time consuming, and it was stressful! Stressful or not, doing this. . . collecting the data allowed me to advocate for my art program by sharing the legitimacy of standards-based Art Ed. We all know how important it is to advocate for Art Ed.

Use RUBRICS with numeric values to collect data. 
Each student gets a rubric at the beginning of a project and I'll review it with them, so that they're aware of what the mastery criterion is, and can be more in charge of their educational choices. I like to have them tape it into their sketchbook/journal for regular reference. The project rubric data should have some correlation to the pre and post data. If not you may have to look at your instructional strategies. Imagine, it's like a road map to your students.

With all that said, here's what I've learned:
So... I get excited about sharing this... I create my assessment in Google Forms, which is FREE and so easy to use (GF). See image right. Students can take the assessment right on their smart phones, or in a lab if you have access to one. During it you can see right away which students have completed it and submitted it. After you have them all, GF will give you a whole class analysis with color pie charts and all right in it. See image below left. BUT THE AMAZING PART IS: that GF has an Add-on called Flubaroo. Flubaroo analyzes all the data for you! Student by student, it colors it and everything. This is a game changer. Get ready to be a 21st Century Learning Art Educator, and to move your students into the 21st Century as well.

I hope this helps you with assessments, and data collection in your Art Ed classes.