[MUSIC] Assessment can be a complex matter. Especially when you are looking at students' creative work to better understand their grasp or interpretation of a particular idea, concept or lesson. In this video, we'll share with you some strategies we have for using activities as a means of assessing students' understanding of works of art. I will also share with you some tools for looking at students' work, from drawing, writing, and other activities to assess their comprehension of the task itself and the content addressed in the activity. Now we'll discus some ways to assess student work that might be produced from activities similar to the ones we shared in weeks two and three. At MoMA, when we do an activity in the galleries or in the classroom, we always pay attention to how students respond once we give them a task. Do they begin right away? Do some students need individual brainstorming time? If multiple students are confused, were my instructions clear? When looking at the results of student work from these activities, it's important not to focus on the right answer. If the activity task was truly open-ended, and allows for divergent outcomes, how do we as educators assess whether the student really got it? There are a couple tools we use to pair the final result with student feedback. These things will help us in assessing whether the students were using their imagination, understood the task, and if they're making connections to the artwork or artist process. Sharing is a huge part of assessment. If you give students a task that involves drawing or writing, hearing them discuss what they did with their peers tells you a great deal about their creative choices. If you have time, you can share as a large group. Younger students are often very eager to share their work. Each student can stand up and briefly discuss what they drew or wrote. You can ask questions like, how did you come up with the idea of drawing this figure at the beach? Or, was it difficult to imagine what this character might do next? Or, can you tell me the three biggest choices you made in creating your work? Why do you feel these were important to your final creation? You can also students share their work with a partner. You can walk around the group and listen closely to the kinds of things they're sharing about their work with each other and the choices that they've made. This also gives students a chance to see how their partner solved the same task in a very different way than they did. After a partner share, you can also ask the children to present their partner's work. This adds another layer of assessment, when students have to learn about and then shares someone else's ideas. It might sound obvious, but use some strong open-ended discussion questions with students to gauge to their understanding and depth of meaning making with works of art. Have students write down one lingering question that they have after exploring work of art. Does the question show that they're trying to take their understanding to the next level? You can also ask them what do you wonder? Or, what's one unanswered question you have about something you saw or heard today? Another tool we often use in our teaching is to ask the same question at the beginning of a discussion or activity, and also at the end. Pay attention to differences in responses. For instance, if I ask the students to explore the concept of identity through works of art, I might start by asking something simple, like, what does identity mean to you? If you asked this question after the lesson exploring identity in art, you often see a big difference in their responses. Look for the use of new terms and concepts. Look for the level of richness in their descriptions, their abilities to make connections to their own life experiences and the authority or confidence with which students speak. Another similar activity we might do involves word lists. Before a discussion or activity around a work of art, we might ask students something like, what do you think of when I say the word modern? As a group, I hear everyone's association with the word and create a master list. At the end of the lesson, we'll revisit the list and I might ask students, would you change what your initial answer was? Why? Is there anything missing from this list? Does the list give a full story about the topic or theme? Another helpful tool can be to ask students to compare and contrast two works of art students have already looked at. Through a compare contrast discussion, you can assess their understanding of big ideas around each work, as well as see what new terms or ways of describing students might have gained from their experience. Also it provides a good opportunity to see if their confidence in talking about art has increased. Notice physical changes in students. Are there certain students who are quiet in the beginning of a discussion who then become more talkative? Asking questions at the end? When you ask questions as part of a discussion, notice how many hands go up. Take notice of how many students are looking intently at the works of art, and how many are being attentive when their fellow students are speaking. Sometimes paying attention to the smallest physical cues can give you a great deal of information about your students. Just as all of the activities we discussed involved many senses, so does the act of assessment. Thank you for participating in Art and Activity. We hope that the content of this course empowers you to start incorporating activities when teaching with objects. >> We encourage you to modify these activities to make them your own, so don't be afraid to experiment with new ideas and variations. >> And last but not least, make sure to have fun learning beside your students, good luck. [MUSIC]
