I strongly believe that students themselves are young artist and my role as an art educator is to help students discover, develop and refine their artistic and creative behaviors. Before developing a lesson plan, I take into consideration two crucial points.
1. Creating relationships and getting to know my students. 2. Assessing where my students are skill based before and after the lesson through formative and summative assessments
Developing relationships with students plays an important role in how I instruct my students and what lesson the students will be learning. Knowing what interests my students and skill level they are at assists me in creating lesson plans that are catered to that specific group of kids I teach. Assessing where my students are skill based helps me as a teacher know what my students are capable of technically.
Teaching at the high school level has taught me that in order to help students discover and develop their artistic skills, they must first be interested in what they are learning in. This is where incorporating balanced “choice” is beneficial. To expand upon this concept of instruction and assessment, I’ll share a unit that I’m currently teaching my Drawing and Painting 3 students where they’re learning how to oil paint. To assess where my students are regarding oil painting, I pre-asses my students and ask a variety of questions: ‘has anyone used oil paints before?’ ‘if so, what did you notice that was different with using oils rather than acrylic?’ ‘why do artist still use oil to paints with today’ etc. This helps me gauge where the students are at in regards to the new medium.
To begin the unit, the students are required to create 2 8”x8” paintings consisting of 1 still life object (plant, fruit, vegetable) and 1 bone element (animal skull, animal backbone etc). After the students complete their 2 exercises, they move on to their final oil painting which can either be a surrealistic “bone scape” (zoomed in bone or reference to bones in form of a landscape with added surrealistic elements) or a still life bone with a “surprise” element (necklace, shoe, snake, compass, etc). By providing students with the initial guideline of either creating a “bonescape” or “still life bone with a surprise element”, the students have an idea of where to start; eliminating the anxiety that comes with where to begin on a blank canvas. I believe in maintaining a balance of choice and instructional guidelines that I give to my students. The students’ choice is event in the aspect that they get to choose what surprise they want to incorporate into their bone or what surrealistic world they wish to create in their “bonescape”. The reason why I chose bones and still life items for their first exercise was to create a distance between the subject matter and their painting. I’ve learned that in the beginning stages of learning a new medium or skill, students tend to get frustrated when their artwork doesn’t look exactly like their reference, reason being why I chose benign, organic objects. For this lesson, I wanted students to learn the skills of oil painting before they were allowed choice and freedom in painting something they cared about.
Through out this lesson, I formatively assessed where my students were at by providing Kahoot quizzes (regarding the painting process and steps, vocabulary, safety and clean up), requiring students to use the new terminology and reading the room. Reading the room has become a very important role in the way that I teach. While assisting students with their artwork, it came to my attention that many students were having issues with properly blending their grisaille still-lifes. After noticing this issue, I quickly got the classes attention and asked, “how many of you are struggling with blending your paintings” … a huge portion of the class raised their hands. I then instructed those who had problems blending to come to the front where I would go over additional tips and tricks to blending.
For further understanding of where my students are at, I use summative assessment specifically apropos reflection. After class, I require my students to reflect on their learning by proving an exit ticket on their way out answering: 1. What are 2 new discovers I made today and 2. What are 2 questions I have about oil painting or difficulties I have with my specific painting. This exit ticket has been additionally been applied to my other drawing and painting classes.
By embedding authentic pre, formative and summative assessments, I can ensure that my students being assessed and learning the skills and framework needed to discover and become young artists of today.