From Child Art to Visual Language of Youth: New Models and Tools for Assessment of Learning and Creation in Art Education

From Child Art to Visual Language of Youth: New Models and Tools for Assessment of Learning and Creation in Art Education Karpati, A , & Gaul, E , Editors (2013) From Child Art to Visual Language of Youth: New Models and Tools for Assessment of Learning and Creation in Art Education Chicago, IL: Intellect, The University of Chicago Press ISBN 978-1-84150-624-1Those of us in the art education field have long struggled with how to assess student learning in the arts Today, more than ever, in light of the critical importance placed on assessing student learning in all content areas of preK-12 education and for the arts to have a continuing place at the table, we must find ways of capturing that learning so it can be measured and reported across the country in some kind of standardized way Not only is this discussion of critical importance in the United States but, all across the world, countries are grappling with similar issues as standardized testing becomes the norm nearly everywhere How and what can you assess with consistency and validity when you are dealing with creativity and individual ability?A recent publication focusing on just these issues presents an international perspective on how to and what to assess in the visual arts From Child Art to Visual Language of Youth: New Models and Tools for Assessment of Learning and Creation in Art Education, edited by Andrea Karpati and Emil Gaul, is an outgrowth of the 2011 International Society for Education through Art (InSEA) World Congress pre-conference research session The hope is that this book will inspire the kind of debate on assessment, art, and education that will become an important springboard for "animated discussions around child art, program reform, curriculum development, visual literacy, aesthetic judgment, visual culture, political agendas, and cultural traditions/innovations, among other important ideas on evaluation and assessment" (p vii), as Rita L Irwin, President of InSEA states in the Forward The chapter authors are drawn from all over the world representing visual art education in Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the US The first part of this book focuses on the history and current perspectives of assessment in the visual arts through a look at national studies in five different countries The next section examines new assessment practices, and the last third of the book deals with research paradigms on evaluation and assessment in current art educationIn his chapter on the status of assessment in the visual arts in the US, Stanley S Madeja, Northern Illinois University, presents the history of assessment with the intention of contributing to the discussion on how and why visual arts assessment must be improved if we are to continue to be relevant in this age of high stakes accountability Madeja draws from more than 53 years of experience He acknowledges that assessing visual arts learning in the US poses many problems, most notably the lack of any one governmental authority to compel accountability to a national standard While the National Art Education Association and a number of state departments of education have established standards and defined learning outcomes, there is a cacophony of voices from artists, art teachers, college instructors, and state and district arts administrators as to what constitutes quality arts instruction, let alone how to assess it According to Madeja, the "body politic in each state or district defines the content for the art curriculum This variance in each state is the greatest deterrent to developing effective national assessment instruments in the visual arts" (p 7) Furthermore, while the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 included the arts as core content, the funds earmarked for it were cut in 2003 as part of a Bush Administration policy of terminating "small category" programs with limited impact so that the money could be used for higher priorities (p 15) This, coupled with the 2007-2009 Great Recession, nearly saw the demise of arts programs in preK-12 schools as high stakes testing and limited funding resulted in the elimination of many programs especially in elementary schools attended by underserved and at risk populationsWith the national concern for test scores, the federal government has taken a more interventionist position in the education of our children by withholding federal funds from individual states as a way to bring them in line To Madeja, this phenomenon has produced "frightening" results Since instructional goals are limited to improving state standardized test scores, there is real danger that this approach "diminishes content, abridges subject matter, and demeans the historical concept of a liberal education" (p 27) Madeja calls for reinstituting the importance of the visual arts by aligning it to the new domains of inquiry such as information technology, imaging technology, educational delivery systems, and visual culture He refers to this as the "greatest paradigm shift in education and communication since the inventions of the alphabet and the printing press" (p 27) To him, this means that art programs and assessment in the arts should be defining what is meant by visual culture and the responsibility we all have to educate the public to be visually literate in a society in which imagery impacts every facet of our lives and our understandings as humans in our worldIn the second part of this book, New Assessment Practices, Douglas G Boughton's (Northern Illinois University) chapter speaks more directly to experiences in the US He argues that one of the most important and most difficult outcomes of art programs to assess is creative thinking He reiterates Madeja's argument that assessing the creative endeavor has always been a dilemma for educators and will continue as long as we value imagination as core to the art making experience Boughton further states that it is not the creative individuals who present art teachers with their greatest challenge but how to promulgate creativity in non-creative studentsProminent researchers in the field of social psychology contend that what is important is not an individual's disposition (talent) toward creativity, but rather the context in which it is approached According to Boughton, research by Csikszentmihalyi and others (as cited in Karpati & Gaul, 2013) note that determining whether an artistic product is creative or not is a matter of judgment, and is, therefore, an issue for assessment Consequently, Boughton proposes that art teachers can promote creative behavior by helping students develop "curiosity and interest, cultivating 'flow' in everyday life, and ways of thinking creatively" (p 125) Boughton believes that designing authentic assessment tasks and using portfolios based on holistic assessment criteria and the moderation process-which ensures equivalent work done by students in different classrooms and different schools is rated equally-will lead to best practices in student assessmentPerhaps the most interesting chapter to this reviewer, Development Self-Assessment in Art Education, by Diederik Schonau (Cito Institute for Educational Measurement, Arnhem, the Netherlands) describes an assessment methodology in which the student plays the central role as the individual in charge of what he wants to show through his artwork This approach not only extends to content, but relates also to the means that the student will use to convey that content and its meaning Current best practices require the student to be informed about the characteristics of the task and what the intended outcomes are as well as the criteria that will be used to judge its results Instead, Schonau proposes an approach based on the "concepts of personal standards and growth: developmental self-assessment" (p 151) In this methodology, the student has more freedom and responsibility to interpret the assignment and to develop the criteria on which he wants to be judged While this freedom is limited by the general goals set by the teacher, the student must define the meaning of the work of art, decide on the visual qualities, on what tools and techniques he will use, his goals for improvement, and finally, the criteria on which he wants his work to be assessed This constructivist approach, based on Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development" encourages student learning by asking them to strive "for the "next" level of skill or accomplishment, using the skills as mastered in the preceding phase" (p 152) This approach is a truly authentic way to engage students in their own learning and to promote creativity in their thinking, problem solving, and art making The Netherlands uses a comparable approach as part of their national system of final examinationsFinally, the last section of the book is devoted to research paradigms on evaluation and assessment at schools and beyond What are basically profiled in this section are recent academic research studies on a variety of art education topics and issues This least resolved section presents the research data in academic detail Little or no attempt is made to convey meaning and the usefulness of this data to those in the field who are art teachers and art educators in search of authentic ways of assessing student learning in the visual arts that are meaningful, user friendly, and impact the field of art education from the ground up and not a somewhat esoteric top down As Sir Francis Bacon (1625) said, "Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but some few only to be chewed and digested" (p 154) This book makes the case for grazing. …