Art Assessment

When I hear the words assessment and art in the same sentence it makes me cringe. I feel like I have always been creative but I have never been very artistic, especially when it comes to realistic work. I’m fine being abstract. I have never been too keen to someone critiquing my artwork. I really don’t like even showing my art. As I was reading I found some ways that I would like better then other ways to assess and be assessed considering artwork.

The article, “Assessment in Art”, It states a list of ways that you can assets your students. These include portfolios, journals, integrated performances, group discussions, exhibitions, videotapes and computers. I want to go over a few that I really like along with a few that I don’t really agree with.

I really like the idea of a portfolio. The students don’t have to share with anyone else but their teacher and they are able to describe their work. The article had a checklist that the students would do. Some of the things to include in their portfolios would be and introduction, a table of contents, the process of how they got their final product and of course the final project with self evaluations and the students feelings about the artwork. I think this is really effective because it allows the student to explain their art and the thought process they went through to get it.

Another assessment that they described is a journal/sketchbook. This method is still going strong in college. I think it is a very effective way to have students show their work. I was previously studying landscape architecture and in most of my classes we had to have a sketchbook that we were constantly using to show our process of thought and how we got our ideas. It was easy for me as a student to use it because I always had it with me and at anytime I could pull it out and write or draw something that I had just thought of.

I guess when I heard class discussion I was thinking that the students would stand in front of the class and show their work which is what I thought was not right at all. As I was reading I realized that I was totally off. The class discussion would include talking about what the requirements should be on a certain project and peoples feelings on them.

I don’t really agree with exhibitions. It would include a students showing off their artwork to other students. I think it is great if there is a student that really wants to show off their work but what about those who are embarrassed about what they did cause they can’t draw as well as their neighbor.

I think the idea of using computers is a great idea. I had to make a digital portfolio here at college and I really enjoyed it and it looked so clean and nice. It might be hard for a kid to learn but all they would need to do is scan their work into the computer to create a portfolio.