Post-observation reflection

Can my students articulate what success looks like?

I recently had an observation of my middle school class. Overall the feedback was positive. My observer agreed that I was creating a positive atmosphere in my classroom, with the students energized about their learning and able to articulate the kind of feedback and feedforward they had been receiving.

However, a few were unable to articulate what the 'final destination' was with the art unit.

While I loathe for the learning to be completely linear and think it is important to maintain some flexibility and room for individualized learning plans, this made me realize that the classroom korero and student reflection in their visual diaries need to focus more on the big picture.

While the outcomes might look different for various students, it is important that they are able to articulate what success looks like.

With this in mind, I set up a google form for my junior class to capture what they thought success would look like for their art unit. This gave me insight into the overall understanding of the class. Some gave me multi-structural (Pam Hook) responses, listing art elements which we had been working within the class, and a few were able to give more relational answers making connections to the ideas and techniques of the artist model.

This made me realize that I need to review my learning design to cover the 'communicating and interpreting' strand of the visual art curriculum in more depth.

This will be a challenge though given the size of our junior classes and the short amount of time I get with them.

I am going to try a similar approach with my middle school class and see whether the extra period I get with them makes a difference in comparison with the junior cohort.