What will students learn? How will they be assessed? How will they know criteria for success?

After a very thought-provoking conversation at this morning's staff meeting about the power of making learning intentions clear and visible to all of our students, I realized that I have found success in making my learning intentions clear to my students, but I have failed in educating my parents about learning intentions in the art room.

What are the learning goals in art?

This year, all of the activities within my "How to be an Explorer" curriculum revolve around 9 different learning goals (which were adapted from the Columbus Museum of Art's nine habits of thinking like an artist). In art class, we call these 9 learning goals our "destinations". They are posted on the board and discussed every lesson. You can see the ways in which the learning goals and the ways in which they are linked to the Ohio Visual Art Standards and DCS's 6 Habits of Thinkers below.






Why are these goals important?

Having my students know why they are working towards a certain goal is even more important to me than having my students be able to identify the goal. Each time that a goal is posted, we also discuss the importance of the goal. These explanations are posted under the question "why".





How to the students know the criteria for success? 

With each of the 9 learning intentions, I have created a student rubric with the steps that students can take to achieve the learning goal. These rubrics are used in many ways throughout the curriculum, such as tools for setting goals before starting a project, mid-project self assessments, and rubrics for me to generate student report cards at the end of each trimester.



How do I assess my own pedagogy to help students achieve each goal?

This year I have also developed rubrics to assess myself with each class. I am keeping these rubrics posted on my cabinet doors and marking where I am at as a teacher with each class. This lets me know where each class is at and identifies areas that I need to focus on growing as an educator.