SELF ASSESSMENT-PEER ASSESSMENT- TEACHER ASSESSMENT

THE GARGOYLES COMMENTARY
YEAR 7 Art Making
I have been reflecting on a recent art making lesson with Year 7 titled, The Gargoyle's Commentary....Sacred Art in Profane Times.
The aim of the lesson was for the students to explore art making including a basic understanding and small exploration of the ways we look at and interpret art. Students were asked to investigate ways to develop and document their emerging ideas in a visual arts process diary. The task was to assemble an installation comprising ready made objects that gave representation to a personal alter or shrine. There were three forms of assessment: self assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment.
1. Self Assessment- Students were asked to describe and evaluate their artwork. Here students develop their ability to think critically and reflectively about their work.
2. Peer Assessment-Students were asked to look at another students work and describe what they could see and apply analysis, interpretation and judgement. Peer assessment can be used to develop in students the ability to work cooperatively, to be critical of others work and receive critical appraisals of their own work.
3. Each students work was critiqued by a practicing artist. This was the highlight of the lesson for most students. They really enjoyed hearing feedback from an expert and then measuring this against their own ideas and interpretations.
I was really impressed with the maturity of the students and their application to the various forms of assessment. Although they were able to do assessment 1 and 2 they really flourished with assessment 3. This reinforced to me how important the teacher is in the validation of student work and how positive it is for everyone in the learning environment to have experts on hand.