Revised APPR Assessments Part 2: 1st Grade

In my last post, I told you about my revised assessment for Kindergarten, which is serving this year as my LLO portion of my APPR.  In this post, I'll share how I changed the rubric for my 1st grade assessment and why.

Last year, 1st grade served as part of my SLO and while the assessment itself was a great thing, the rubric I had created was just too simple and hard to get a good, accurate measurement of growth out of.  You can see the post I did at the end of last year here.   This assessment involved asking the students to draw 6 things in 6 squares.  They were to be assessed on the subject itself, use of a horizon line, use of colors, and craftsmanship, but because of the way the rubric read, it was very difficult for the other art teacher who assessed my tests to give an accurate grade.  For one drawing, a student might have received a 4 for one aspect of their drawing but a 1 for another, which made it difficult to give a solid score for each drawing.

It was also hard to assess the "draw anything you want" square because let's face it, a lot of the 1st graders just drew "scribbled abstract art".  In the end, I didn't meet my 80% mark of students who met or passed my goal...I only had about 65% of students meet or exceed the goal.  So, here is how I changed this assessment for this year.

The first thing I did was change the six items students need to draw.  Now, they have to draw a fuzzy dog, a rainbow, a tree, a landscape, a self-portrait, and a still life.  I like the change in the last three options because now they have to prove that they learned content as to what those three subject types are.  I also changed my rubric.  It's a little bit more complex now, but I think it will be a lot easier to grade these drawings and get a more accurate show of growth.  

1^st Grade: 6-Square Drawing Test

Fuzzy Dog	Texture & Color    Student used appropriate colors for the subject and details drawn.  Student made object look like it has the appropriate texture.	4        3       2       1       0
	Dog Body Dog body is drawn accurately and looks like an actual dog.	4        3       2       1       0
	Background Student included appropriate details in the background for the subject, including a horizon line.  Sky is colored all the way to the horizon line.	4        3       2       1       0
Tree	Texture & Color Student used appropriate colors for the subject and details drawn.  Student made object look like it has the appropriate texture.	4        3       2       1       0
	Tree Structure Tree contains all appropriate parts (trunk, branches, leaves and possibly roots).  “Cloud tree”=3, “ice cream tree”=2, “lollipop tree”=1.  No tree=0.	4        3       2       1       0
	Background Student included appropriate details for the subject in the background, including a horizon line. Sky is colored all the way to the horizon line.	4        3       2       1       0
Rainbow	Color Order Correct colors ROYGBIV & order = 4 Correct colors ROYGBV & order = 3 (no indigo) Correct colors but not in order (or missing 2 colors) = 2 Did not use correct colors but has 3 colors present = 1 Used 1-2 colors (or no rainbow) = 0	4        3       2       1       0
	Background Student included appropriate details for the subject in the background. Sky is colored all the way to the horizon line (if one is included).	4        3       2       1       0
	Craftsmanship Student used neat coloring.  Colored the entire square.  Sky is colored all the way to the horizon line; ground is colored from the horizon line down to the edge of the square.	4        3       2       1       0
Landscape	Type of Art Student correctly drew a landscape.  Included images from outside where the nature is more important than man-made objects.  (Mountains, sky, sun, grass, weather, animals, etc.)	4        3       2       1       0
	Details Used appropriate colors for the subject and details shown.	4        3       2       1       0
	Craftsmanship Student used neat coloring and colored everything.	4        3       2       1       0
Still Life	Type of Art Student correctly drew a still life.  Drawing is of inanimate objects such as a vase of flowers, plants,  fruit, cups, dishes, etc.	4        3       2       1       0
	Details Used appropriate colors for the subject and details shown.  Included a horizon line.	4        3       2       1       0
	Craftsmanship Student used neat coloring and colored everything.	4        3       2       1       0
Self-Portrait	Type of Art Student correctly drew a self-portrait.  Student drew a picture of him or herself.	4        3       2       1       0
	Details Used appropriate colors for the subject and details shown.  Included all appropriate facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair, eye brows, freckles, glasses, etc.).  If a body is included, student has shown all appropriate limbs (neck, arms, legs, feet, hands, torso, etc.).	4        3       2       1       0
	Craftsmanship Student used neat coloring and colored everything.	4        3       2       1       0

4=Advanced                  3=Satisfactory             2=Improving         1=Needs Improvement            0=Incomplete

________________ / 72 points = __________________ %

Revised APPR Assessments Part 1: Kindergarten

I didn't really share the outcome of my post-assessments last year, mainly due to the fact that there was some confusion around them with calculations.  In the end, I "passed" and did all right, but my results weren't exactly where I wanted them to be for the post-assessment scores.  Thus, I revamped two of my assessments.  Last year, I did my SLO assessments in 5th, 2nd, 1st and Kindergarten.  My LLO was in 4th grade.  Lucky for me, I have one less to do this year!  This year, my SLO assessments are with Studio Art, Art 7, and 1st grade and I chose to use Kindergarten for my LLO so I could revamp my rubrics.

Today is our first Staff Development day and luckily, I have no place to be except in my classrooms working on my SLOs and LLO, which are technically due today!  In the next few posts, I'm going to share with you my old assessments from last year and what I plan on doing differently this year.  I'll also share with you how I am setting my goals, as I am doing something completely different this year as well.

Last year I did a cutting and gluing rubric and I had a 97% success rate at students passing, which was great, but made it seem as though the assessment wasn't quite as rigorous as it should have been.  So, this year, I changed up my plans for the Kindergarten assessment, and I've actually changed my mind twice about the pre-assessment.  Back in September I shared a post with my ideas for this year, which you can see here.  I originally gave students a shape sheet with fewer shapes and then a quiz that quizzed them on shapes, lines and basic color theory.  I was struggling to figure out how I would make sure those kinders could read their color words by the end of the year to take a "quiz" (since I would essentially have to create a test bank), and then I decided to scratch that idea, after I had already given out that assessment.

Now, I've decided to continue using the shape sheet for cutting and gluing but also the Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cow project we just did.  This way, I am still assessing their cutting and gluing skills, but also their ability to draw shapes, their use of crayons and how they color.  As I looked at all of these projects, I realized that even though I was trying to teach them how to use the shapes and how to color properly, it's going to take a while for them to improve, so I should still be able to show growth.

  

These are the two activities being used for the kindergarten pre-assessment...

And these are the two rubrics being used for the kindergarten pre-assessments...

At the end of the year, students will then be assessed on cutting & gluing, as well as their coloring and shape skills all in one project...the primary playground project!  In that project, students have to cut out their own shapes and create a playground.  It will assess their ability to cut out shapes that are discernible from one another, how well they glue the shapes down (still using the dot glue method), and how well they utilize their entire paper.  Last year I did this as a review projects for primary colors and shapes, but it'll make a great end of the year assessment, I think.  Instead of having the students do it on 9"x12" paper, I'll give them the bigger sheets like I did for their pre-assessment cows.

 

Two kindergarten examples from last year, done back in February.

And this is the revamped rubric for assessing the post-assessment.

I know these rubrics are hard to read...I'm doing this at school right now and don't have a nicer way of taking a screen shot, so you can find them on the SmARTteacher.

High School Observational Drawing Rubric

Taking a break from my curriculum planning, I've been working on my pre- and post-assessment plans for my high school SLOs for this year.  I've decided it's going to be a two-part assessment.  Although I was lucky enough last year on the elementary end to not have to incorporate any writing pieces, I'm being asked to incorporate a writing component on the high school end, so here is my plan.

The first part will be an observational drawing of some sort.  I plan to use the same observational drawing rubric for both 7th grade and Studio Art.  At this point, I'm not sure if I'll have them do the same subject, but I do know that I want the Studio Art students to draw their hand.  (The teacher I graded post-assessments last year did this and I liked it!).  The first drawing will be a one-day drawing and the post-assessment will probably be a 2-3 day drawing, where hopefully the students will incorporate more creativity in the pose and background of their hand.  I'm debating about having 7th graders do their hands as well, or a still life, or quite possibly their shoe (or maybe even a self-portrait!).

Here is my preliminary observational drawing rubric that I've been working on today.  It is a combination of ideas taken from the regional art assessment rubric that we created last year at Boces, and some of my own ideas.

	4	3	2	1	0
Technical Accuracy _____	“Draw what you see, not what you know.”  Accurately drew shapes, proportions, contours and details. Drawing is expressive and detailed.	Attempted to draw what was seen.  Attempted to draw proportions correctly and points of overlap.  Drawing is expressive and somewhat detailed.	Somewhat drew what was seen however proportions are not exact; student did not observe and draw points of overlap.  Drawing is somewhat detailed.	You can tell what the student was observing in the drawing, but proportions are not correct.  Did not observe and draw any points of overlap. Drawing lacks almost all details.	Student did not do an observational drawing.  Drawing has no details.
Shading/Value _____	Student successfully incorporated all 8 ranges from the gradient scale with smooth transitions. Student used at least 3 shading techniques to create value. Student accurately observed and shaded highlights and shadows, and the direction of the light source is apparent.	Student incorporated 6-7 ranges from the value scale with smooth transitions.  Student used 2 shading techniques to create value.  Student observed and shaded highlights and shadows.  Viewer can see where the light source comes from.	Student incorporated 4-5 ranges from the value scale with rough transitions.  Student used 1 shading technique. Some highlights and shadows are observed, but not very accurately and they do not match the light source.	Student incorporated 2-3 ranges from the value scale with very rough transitions.  Only used 1 shading technique.  Very vague representations of highlights, shadows and light source.	Did not create value in drawing.  No transitions.  Only black and white.  No shading techniques used.  No highlights, shadows are light source are drawn.
Elements of Art _____	Student understands and uses the elements (line, shape, form, space, texture, value, & color) to create a successful and interesting artwork. Student has a strong sense of line, both real and implied.	Student uses the elements to create a successful artwork. Student understands the basics but has not experimented.  Student uses real and implied line.	Student attempts to use the elements.  Student shows a minimal understanding of the basics of the elements.  Student uses real line.	Student unsuccessfully uses the elements; shows a very minimal understanding of the basics. Student uses real line.	It is clear that the student does not understand how to use the elements. No attempt at organizing the elements.
Composition _____	Student understands and uses principles of art (rhythm, movement, balance, proportion, variety, emphasis, harmony and unity) to create a strong and interesting composition.  Utilized the positive and negative space extremely well on the paper.	Student used the principles of art to create an interesting composition.  Utilized the positive and negative space well on paper.	Student attempted to use principles to create a composition.  Attempted to use the positive and negative space well on paper; drawing takes up ½-3/4 of the paper space.	Student did not use the principles well to create an interesting composition.  Did not use space well; drawing only takes up ½ of the paper space.	Student did not use the principles of art to create an interesting composition.  Did not use space well; drawing is very small and/or takes up less than ¼ of the paper.
Creativity _____	Student has taken the technique being studied and applied it in a way that is totally his/her own.  The student's personality/voice comes through. Everything is original.	Student has taken the technique being studied and has used source material as a starting place. The student's personality comes through in parts of the painting. Everything is original.	Student has copied from another source. There is little evidence of creativity, but the student has done the assignment.	Student has not made much attempt to meet the requirements of the assignment. A majority of the assignment has been copied from another source.	No creativity attempted.  Artwork is a direct copy from another source.
Craftsmanship / Presentation _____	Utilized time appropriately.  Artwork is created and maintained in a professional manner.  No tears, smudges, or stray marks.  Artwork is neatly signed in the appropriate spot.	Utilized time appropriately.  Artwork is created and maintained fairly neatly.  No tears, minimal smudges or stray marks.  Artwork is neatly signed in the appropriate spot.	Could have utilized time better.  Artwork is created and maintained with an attempt at neatness.  Artwork may be torn, smudged or have stray marks. Artwork is signed.	Did not utilize time well.  Artwork is poorly created and maintained.  Artwork is torn, smudged, or has stray marks that distract from the image.  Artwork is sloppily signed.	Artwork is not finished, was folded, crumpled up, ripped, etc.  No signature on artwork.

I'm not sure if I'm going to keep the elements and composition descriptor...I might combine them into one?

I think I was having a brain fart during this rubric creation because I was really struggling on how to word some of these descriptors, so I headed over to RubiStar for help.  Have you used this site before?  It's really great for making rubrics for any subject area.  You don't have to create a log-in to use it, but if you do, you can save your individually created rubrics to your account.  There are seven rubric types to choose from for art.  You can choose and edit the descriptors, edit the grade numbers and descriptor titles.  You can even add your own.  

The second part of my pre- and post-assessment will be an art quiz.  At the end of the year, I am expected to give a final exam like all other subject areas, so instead of bombarding the students with a second post-assessment type exam, I'll just make the final exam the post-assessment.  Hopefully using eDoctrina will make this exam generation painless and easy, as I plan to enter in all of my unit quiz questions into a test bank.  I'll give the students a brief quiz at the beginning of the year and couple that score with the observational drawing for my pre-assessment score for each student.

The quiz portion will also include the written portion.  Again, RubiStar already has a rubric for artwork analysis so I pulled that rubric directly from the website to use.  The only thing I will be adding is a descriptor for grammar and sentence structure.

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Description	Makes a complete and detailed description of the subject matter and/or elements seen in a work.	Makes a detailed description of most of the subject matter and/or elements seen in a work.	Makes a detailed description of some of the subject matter and/or elements seen in a work.	Descriptions are not detailed or complete.
Analysis	Accurately describes several dominant elements or principles used by the artist and accurately relates how they are used by the artist to reinforce the theme, meaning, mood, or feeling of the artwork.	Accurately describes a couple of dominant elements and principles used by the artist and accurately relates how these are used by the artist to reinforce the theme, meaning, mood, or feeling of the artwork.	Describes some dominant elements and principles used by the artist, but has difficulty describing how these relate to the meaning or feeling of the artwork.	Has trouble picking out the dominant elements.
Interpretation	Forms a somewhat reasonable hypothesis about the symbolic or metaphorical meaning and is able to support this with evidence from the work.	Student identifies the literal meaning of the work.	Student can relate how the work makes him/her feel personally.	Student finds it difficult to interpret the meaning of the work.
Judgement	Uses multiple criteria to judge the artwork, such as composition, expression, creativity, design, communication of ideas.	Uses 1-2 criteria to judge the artwork.	Tries to use aesthetic criteria to judge artwork, but does not apply the criteria accurately.	Evaluates work as good or bad based on personal taste.

4th Grade LLO Results

For the local portion of my "grade", I used my 4th graders.  Again, as with the 1st grade, I will opt to give individual goals for each student rather than saying "80% will reach...".  It's easy to see that EVERYONE definitely improved but I ended up falling short with the number of students reaching the goal.  In a lot of case, students were only 1-3 points off from reaching my goal!  Oh well.

For this assessment, I had students do a still-life drawing from a white still life.  At the beginning of the year, I gave them two days.  Everyone finished well within that time frame.  At the end of the year, they received 3-4 days.  Even the early finishers needed at least 2 1/2 days to do theirs, so this made me happy that they weren't rushing!

For the final assessment, students could shade their still life with pencil or they could paint it with acrylic, depending on which they preferred.  All year long we did a variety of projects to reinforce using value, such as the value cities, pastel poinsettias, the fall drawings with leaf prints, and the still life practice just before our post-assessment.  We also did a lot of drawing from real life this year to reinforce observational skills.

Here are the results!  Pre-assessments on the left, post-assessments on the right!

(Please pardon the junky photos of the pre-assessments...those were done at the beginning of the year before I got my new camera!)

Drastic improvement, just in this student's willingness to participate!

Great improvement in shading skills...as well as this student's self-esteem in art.  It's always amazing once a student can do once they realize their confidence!

My private lesson student.  She lost some of her value in the foreground bottles, but none the less, did an AWESOME job mixing paint on the canvas.

Awesome value improvement.

1st Grade Post-Assessment Results

For this particular group of students, my SLO stated that 80% of students would reach a satisfactory grade on their post-assessment (which was a range of 72%-80%).  Most of the students scored below a 65% at the beginning of the year on their pre-assessment.  Unfortunately, I did not reach my goal with this SLO, despite the fact that each student did in fact improve.

I have definitely learned a bit about writing my SLOs for next year.  One thing I learned is that I think it may be more realistic to set individual goals for each student, and then state that 80% of the students will reach their goal.  I also realized that I need to make sure I take the time to clip together each individual pre- and post-assessment.  I didn't have time to do that before I swapped with the other art teacher, and she did not take the time to go back and look for the pre-assessments to make a comparison to.  Therefore, some of her scores were probably a little lower than what I would have given the students.

In the end, I'm not worried about how these SLOs will affect my final score for APPR.  Since I had to do 4 SLOs (and other teachers only had to do 1 or 2), mine will all be weighted differently for that portion of my score.  And also... this is just a test year for our district!  I've learned from my mistakes and now I can fix them in order to succeed better next year!

So, without further ado, here are some of the examples of the pre- and post-assessments from 1st grade.  Students had to do a 6-square drawing test.  They had 5 minutes for each square to draw the subject given, show good craftsmanship and a good composition (meaning, have a horizon line, sky colored to the ground, good details, fill the square, etc.).  Students had to draw a rainbow, a fuzzy dog, a flower, a tree, their family and anything.  These were a little hard to grade using a 24-point rubric (4 points per square) so I think if I use this assessment next year, I will make more of a checklist for the drawings (i.e. a check if the dog looks fuzzy, a check if their is a horizon line, a check if the sky is colored all the way down to the ground, etc.).

Pre-assessment on the left, post-assessment on the right.

This student improved DRASTICALLY this year.  This student is very much behind the others maturity wise and also cognitively due to a health issue when younger. It's so great to see them draw people with bodies instead of arms and legs coming out of the head!

Nice improvement with color choice...this student is starting to recognize specific color choices instead of using one color.

Love seeing the sky colored all the way to the horizon line...and also when they stop writing words with arrows above their subjects!

Great improvement!  People are wearing clothes!

Love the details on the tree and rainbow for this one!