Ms. M and Assessment

For another journal/blog assignment, we asked Ms. M how she assesses art work. It was very interesting to see how she finds what works best for her in order to stay organized and in line with the school assessment criteria.

At the elementary school, a revision of the assessment tools in each class are being integrated. The new assessment coordinator is changing all of the rubrics to have four or more levels in order to better assess each child. By doing this the students will have options like, poor, adequate, good, and great instead of low, medium, high and so on. Ms. M uses rubrics to assess each piece of art according to the objectives of each lesson. Although she doesn't use written lesson plans, she always has certain objectives and outcomes that the students will be graded with. Right now she has a three level system of assessment which earns the students 0, 3 or 5 points. These criteria levels often are associated with 5 - All the time, 3 - Most of the time, and 1 - Rarely. These types of points coorelate to objectives stating:

• Completed Assignment: Assignment shows undertanding of concepts covered
• Effort and Participation: Student had good work havits, stayed on task, put in effor, not rushing or lagging
• Creativity: Took risks, work was original, innovative and daring
• Followed Directions: Solved provlems outlined in assignment, variations are valid
• Behavior/Use and Care of Materials: Followed classroom rules and procedures, did not inhibit others with behavior
• Total Points

I like the way that Ms. M uses the headings to further break down what was expected from each part of the assignment. Children in her classroom really respond to her well and know what is expected of them. Because Ms. M has had many of them since they were in kindergarden, by the sixth grade, they know what she expects and how she grades.

Ms. M is a firm believer in rubrics in order to organize points earned, but she also has a variety of assessment tools she uses. These include:

• Project rubric
• Portfolio rubric
• Self-evaluation
• Peer review "show your neighbor"
• Demonstration
• Group Presentation
• Multi media (power point)
• Mini-drama
• Quiz/pretest
• Written test
• Oral explanation/conference
• Written Artist Statement
• Games (Jeopardy)
• Class critique
• Line up - ticket up
• Class call/ask a friend
• Visual Journal
• Class/Group assessment
• Visual Assessment
• On-going progress sheets

Although my partner and I were unable to go through an assessment of a project by the students, she gave us many examples of what she uses for grading rubrics and assessment ideas. We didn't get to go through a true assessment because she assesses the art work before parent teacher conferences as a portfolio. After each project, Ms. M keeps the art work and displays it in the halls and on her classroom walls. This gives her a chance to fill out a project rubric. After each section she compiles each students art work together and assesses it all at once, which is then used for the portfolio rubric.


I really enjoy some of the ways that Ms. M incorporates activities into the assessment process. With Jeopardy, students play the classic game show with a power point presentation Ms. M prepares ahead of time. The students can use a "help" like in the Millionare games on T.V. as well. They can call a friend in the classroom or poll the audience as their two helps. When students use a lot of helps, it is a red flag for Ms. M. She often uses this game before a written test or quiz as a review. Only if the students are lacking in knowledge will she add in a written test.

Below are scans of some of the documents that she supplied us with. I really enjoy the assessment document that gives examples of all of her different ways of assessing art work. It also explains each tool and how she uses it in the classroom. She is so creative!

This is an example of a self-evaluation for younger students to fill out, older students can write their own answers.