Evaluating Art Learning

As teachers plan art learning activities, they should consider what students know about various art concepts and processes in order to develop useful experiences for them. Should thieve art tests? If so, what should they look like? A drawing test? An art history quiz? That sounds pretty intimidating. And, it probably goes against our very ideas about art. What about individuality, anyway? 
Many times when we think of evaluation, our thoughts turn to papers and pencils, stress, and percentages. Actually, there are any number of ways to figure out where students level of art learning is without all the anxiety and averaging. If you want to know what students know and can do, why not ask them? Or, better still, let them show you.  
Evaluation is all about collecting evidence of learning and assigning some “value” to it. We usually place value by comparisons. Some basic comparisons in art education are, product or performance against: 

1. A group average 
   

1. A personal best  
   

1. Any past product or performance 
   

1. Learning criteria (either in-progress or pre-set).  
   

The first comparison is not really useful for determining a give student’s increase in knowledge of art concepts and skills. It is sort of like seeing how much weight you have gained by weighing yourself and then comparing the poundage to an insurance company’s “normal weight” chart. You still will not know if you gained or lost weight. It might be better to compare your weight today with . . . what you want to weigh . . . how much you weighed last week . . . what your doctor said you should weigh in terms of your health. In other words, “b” through “d” above seem most useful for weight management and for evaluation of art learning. The educational term is “criterion referencing.” 
Basically, what you as a teacher need to do for sound evaluation in art is to clarify what you want your students to know, figure out what your students could say, make, or do (your “criteria”) to show you they know, and then compare what they actually say, make, or do to your criteria. How much did each student change? Write it down in a short description. Don’t bother with a grade! That way, when parents come, you (and your students) will have something to tell them, and probably something to show, too!