Artistic Vision
Art Education. Straight Up.Archive for Education
Managing Student Clean Up
I shall state my case forthrightly—I have yet to solve the issue of student clean up. It’s been a perennial problem for me.
This year, things culminated about half way through the year in my painting class and I refused to clean up after my students any longer. I was done with constantly feeling like I was always behind schedule due to my students sneaking out leaving brushes and palettes in the sinks.
Don’t misunderstand, at the beginning of the year I teach all students what set up and clean up looks like (unique for each class, of course). For my painting class that translates into cleaning brushes and palettes and wiping down tables. Once I demonstrate clean up, I dirty a spot in front of each student and monitor their clean up of each table. Of greater importance, I dirty brushes and make each student clean it properly in front of me. I use this opportunity to teach brush anatomy, proper brush loading and brush maintenance.
You may call my efforts overkill, but I thought it was a worthwhile endeavor in keeping with my regular classroom teaching methods of demonstration and practice. Well, it didn’t yield much long term. I spoke sternly to the class on a couple of occasions, reteaching brush cleaning accordingly. But, to little avail.
In the end, I informed the class that I would no longer clean up after them; if they left the brushes dirty they would stay dirty. And, so, the number of brushes dwindled.
I decided to purchase a 20-brush set from Michael’s for $4.00 (normally, $5.00) and sell them to the students. Many students jumped at the opportunity while others balked (some shared against my wishes). I’ve since told students that if they keep these brushes well, I will repurchase them for $2.00 and sell them again next year. We’ll see how that goes.
So, how do you do it? Art teachers speak! Please, let me know what strategies you use for managing student clean up.
Stories Through Art: Our Quilting Story (Part 1)
Click to Enlarge
I met Trish Maunder a couple years back when I attended the Art Educators of New Jersey (AENJ) Fall Conference. I loved the concept and began thinking of ways to incorporate a quilt project into my curriculum for later that year.
A Little Background
Stories Through Art is an educational organization Trish founded. One of the primary goals of the organization is to educate young people about the artwork of Faith Ringgold, particularly her story quilts. The program Trish and I worked out was very flexible. For my initial quilt, I did a bit of preliminary work with the students about Faith Ringgold. Additionally, my class and I worked through the topic our quilt was going to be on: equality. Students were then tasked with developing a design for their canvas panel which would be pieced together to form the “quilt.”In addition to the visual component, students were also required to come up with a literary piece. So, they needed to find a famous quote or poem. Of course, they could also write something original.
How It Works
You see, the “quilts” created during our time with Trish are not traditional hand-sewn quilts. That would require much more time and specific expertise in needlework.
Rather, each student is given a small canvas panel. On this panel a student transfers his/her design. (In the beginning of the project, the class works out the theme for the class’s quilt.) Once copied, the student’s design is painted by them using acrylic paints. For writing on the panels, we used a white fabric marker or Sharpees™. When the panels are all completed they are assembled by gluing them onto a larger canvas panel that has been gridded out so they all fit properly. A border is also left for special treatment at the end.
A select group of students (who usually finish early) use strips of ribbon to hide the space between the students’ painted canvas panels. Fabric pieces are assembled around the edges to create a border or frame for the finished quilt. We also used beads and other decorative elements as finishing touches.
It’s an awesome project. Normally, the project is to be completed in 3 hours, but our quilt took longer (my students have two speeds—slow and somewhat-fast), but the added time made it more polished. My school had it custom framed and put behind glass for display in the entry way at the high school.
Grading Student Art (Part 2 of 2)
In my last post, I addressed the issues I am having with a new system I started working with the other month. In this post, I’d like to touch on the other issue I’m coming across with my new system.
After I have entered the grades in my Excel spreadsheet, I convert those grades to fit in my school’s grading structure. I then finish things off by putting comments in for each student’s grade. I comment on each of the five categories used to calculate their grade to provide them with feedback to improve their work. So, the student sees the following in the comments area for each of their project grades:
(SAMPLE)
Grading Scale: 1-5
—
Composition: 3.5 – Move arrangement down and to the left; overall your work should not be “kissing” the edge of your canvas–either fit the subject comfortably within the four sides or have it go off on the top and either side.
Drawing: 4 – The angles on your boxes look good except for the top box; use the “perpendicular and parallel” technique we learned in class to keep your focus.
Values: 3.5 – Your values are all over the place-your darks are too dark and your lights are too light which means you are missing your middle values; start with your darkest dark and then progressively work up to the lightest value-it looks like you jumped from dark then light and didn’t consider the whole piece
Technique: 4.5 – Your lines are crisp and clean; watch the streakiness of your paint application
Ontime: 5
It is here that I’m finding it taking quite a bit of time. The amount of time it is taking me to reflect on each aspect of my student’s work is draining me; every night I’m begrudgingly grading. To make matters worse, I’m finding many students are not bothering to read the feedback—unless they are failing.
How do you grade your student’s work?
Do you incorporate much feedback?
Is your feedback written or verbal?
Grading Student Art (Part 1 of 2)
I switched over to a new way of assessing my students’ work the other month. Previously, I never formally recorded notations about my students’ work. I had a generic rubric in front of me that considered three categories:
- Creativity/Originality
- Effort/Perseverance
- Craftsmanship/Skill
With those three categories listed vertically on the left, I have five columns running horizontally across the top that cover the numeric grade values for “A” through “F.” Bullet points under each numeric grade value correspond to the category along the left. Therefore when grading, I start with the first category on the left and slide my finger across considering the bullet points under each numeric grade value. I would assign a grade for each category and then average them together for a composite.
From the general to the specific
I began wondering whether my generic rubric was not giving sufficient feedback to my students so I moved to what I am doing now: a unique rubric for each assignment. Presently, I start with an Excel file where I set out five characteristics and then measure each student piece based on a scale of 1-5. I set up Excel to average the totals. This allows for students who may struggle with one aspect of a project but still do well overall.
Yet, I’m finding a couple of difficulties with this new system. The first I’ll address in this post. Presently, my school’s grading structure reads like this:
- A (100-95)
- A- (94-92)
- B (91-86)
- B- (85-83)
- C (82-77)
- C- (76-74)
- D (73-70)
- F (69-0)
Such as it is, when a student earns a 3.5 (out of 5) on one of the five project-specific categories, she would receive 87. I calculate that by starting with an 82 (top of the scale C) and then move five points up the grading scale.
The issue I’m running into seems to be on the lower end of the scale. Students who earn lower numbers on all five of the project-specific categories are receiving nearly the same as students who are getting middling scores. And, while I am not seeking to punish students with a bad grade, I certainly do not want to reward their poor effort and/or “I-don’t-care” attitudes. I want to devise a system to help me be as fair as humanly possible at all grade-point levels.
To address this concern of mine, I thought about changing where on the grading scale I should start my grading. If I move to the middle of each grading scale, a student who receives a “3″ would receive an 80 instead of an 82. Likewise, a “3.5″ would now become an 83 vs. an 87 which seems more in keeping to what I am getting in quality on that level.
Unfortunately, this adjustment doesn’t fix the problem alluded to previously because of the incredibly large range for an F (69-0). I certainly can’t begin at the middle point for students who receive a “1″ because that would mean I would need to start at 34. Generally speaking, the lowest grade I have given in that range is a 1.7. My old system which would start me out at 69 would push this student all the way up to a 76 (C-) which is much higher than she deserved given her final product. In the new system, she would earn a 41 which I’m not sure she would be able to recover from.
Obviously, I need to solve for this scenario. Should I start at the middle-point of a 100, namely a 50? I’m frankly kinda stumped here. How do you grade your students’ work? Do you use a generic rubric? A specific one? Do your students even earn F’s?
Your recommendations and thoughts would be appreciated.
Pleasing the boss or, the pain of overcommitment
Last year, I did a “quilt” project with Trish Maunder, who works with the Faith Ringgold Foundation. Trish does her own story quilt idea in school classrooms. During that time she also educates students about Faith and her story quilts.
Students pick a theme and then each student translates that theme into a personalized image. They also need to pick a famous quote or write a poem to accompany their image. The pieces are glued onto a larger piece of canvas with fabric strips covering the seams and then a fabric border is set around the whole thing. They turn out really well.
Well, the founder of my school saw the quilt my class did and wanted another one to auction off at an annual fund-raising event. Long story short, I exploded the original idea into a series of smaller quilts based on the founding principles of the school’s charter IN ADDITION TO the large quilt that would document the school’s growth from conception to fruition. It’s moments like that where I think to myself, “I know, let me put this bag over my head so you can all beat me with a stick.”
Well, the students let me down at the end of last year and I didn’t get much done. So, I ended up having to hijack my two painting classes to complete the work. It’s going to take the entire quarter to get all of the quilts done. I’m just hopeful that when they are all put together that they are strong pieces. Of course, they better sell too! LOL!
Friends tell me they get roped into doing things like this too. Why do we, as art teachers, fall for this stuff? I know on some level I liked the original idea and wanted to see it come to pass. In the end, though, I need to remember my ADD tendency to over-commit. It’s during those moments that I need to remind myself to be practical and realistic. In the end, I know my students better than any administrator because I work with them every day.
So, lesson learned. In the end, though, I’m thankful to 1) have a job and 2) have a job teaching art.
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