Looking for Test Subjects

I am currently in a course that follows the Stanford Design Thinking Model; CEP 817 Learning Technology through Design. I decided on the problem of proactive (PoP): Elementary art teachers are struggling to use technology in meaningful ways. After getting feedback from other elementary art teachers, I decided on a solution that involved offering professional …

Final FAD 3.0

In my district, the art teachers have 3 assessments tools that we use; a color theory test, that is a pre-and post-assessment used to collect data on student growth, a common assessment for ceramics and an overall portfolio assessment used to give report card grades. While we have 5 units of study that we teach …

Google Classroom and Assessment

My last post was about google classroom and its features. Well, since then, I was added to the Beta Classroom test group, and I am testing out the new version of Classroom. Today, I am only looking at an assessment that I created for fourth grade. Every year they learn a new color theory concept …

Portfolios as Assessment

Using a portfolio to assess an artist, is the most popular form of assessment in art. From a teacher stand point, the teacher periodically looks at the student’s portfolio, which contains all their artwork, and assesses their growth as an artist. Each teacher may be looking at a wide variety of skills/concepts/themes that they are …

PQ and CQ in the Art Studio

During Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk Do Schools Kill Creativity, he said, “My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” For me this line, really resonated with me, and connected all my learning from CEP 812, CEP 811, and CEP 810. …

Ill-Structured Problems in the Art Studio

For my first assignment in CEP 812, we learned about the various structures of problems in education; well-structured, ill-structured and wicked problems. For this weeks learning, we focused on ill-structured, or complex problems. An ill-structured problem includes many variables and has more than one way to get to an answer. Depending on the age of …

Assessing Creativity

One would think that assessing creativity would be a natural component of an elementary art room. When it comes to assessing student artwork, for grading purposes, our district assesses the student's growth through a portfolio. We assess the proper use of materials, the use of the elements and principles of design and behavior. When discussing …

A 21st Century Lesson

Over the last week, I explored several new technologies that could be used by my students in the art studio. After this exploration, I built upon a 21st century lesson to include two new technologies that I believe my students will be able to use successfully. The lesson that I remixed, is an Animal Habitat …

Art Studio Redesign

I have a beautiful art studio, especially for a k-4 building. The room is large; it offers a lot of in-studio storage space, a large storage closet, a kiln room and a teacher's office. I have 10 large table, and 30 chairs for the students. I currently have seven tables set up for students to …

A Maker Lesson

This week for CEP 811, we were challenged to create a maker lesson. I decided to build upon my repurposing project, of the stop action animation, using the 3Doodler create pen. In fourth grade, students learn about animals and their habitats. This is a natural connection to the Frog animation, that I created for the …