Grading
in the art classroom. Touchy subject for some, for others it’s a place where
they as well as their students might protest too much, and for others they have
it down --- but I wonder if they are sharing how they do this grading thing.
Grading. We, in my school district are standards based in our application of
content. We as teachers are given the professional judgment to develop rubrics,
which assess these content standards with in a criteria structure. Currently I
am sitting on a task force, which has the job of creating school wide
assessment guidelines. One of our first tasks in our discussion was to submit a
draft of what might become our school’s Philosophy of Assessment. Here’s what I
came up with – and really if you read my teaching philosophy they are pretty
much the same --- maybe with a few words changed around.
Our Philosophy of Assessment is centered on
communication of skills, works habits and knowledge, which engender a depth of
understanding in content standard area for the student. This assessment practice is anchored to
the beliefs that the classroom operations are: To give the student a variety of
situations, structures and skills sets within which to demonstrate their
knowledge of the content standard; to develop an environment of problem finding
as well as problem solving through the learned skill of critical thinking. The
practice of transferring as well as applying understanding of the content
standard through a clear grasp of the content standard knowledge is the taproot
for all other activities in the classroom.
The students are given assignments, exercises,
and skill sets to facilitate the development of their content
standard vocabulary to the extent, which it is fluidly and confidently
articulated through a given format as well as across disciplines. Assessments
are created to further the students’ content standard knowledge, application
and critical thinking depth to the place of mastery within the content
standard.
The idea
of standards based learning is that all children will reach proficient and then
move on to mastery. Good. This is what we want right? And standards based grading is not a list of behavior descriptors that are in place to
manage and control the art classroom but there are work habits that are
criteria for application and process. I am all for standards based grading. It is a scary for some because
it is no longer about the teacher creating the project descriptors which are heavy on the behavior of the student and light on the skill development and application of the content. Rubrics
become too elaborate in how meaning is to span so many areas.
Guess I've just played the grading game too long, but I don't ponder it all too deeply anymore. Hurts my head and makes it go all squishy.
Posted by: the swede | February 23, 2010 at 09:45 PM