Rubrics, Clickers, Inspiration & Art Classrooms

I absolutely love the use of rubrics. I would have loved to have known what standards my work was being graded against when I was in high school and the first time round in college. Even my time at the Community College in the past couple of years did not see the use of them neither have I seen them in any of my other classes here at Commerce. Imagine my surprise at the beginning of this class to actually know how I would be graded. The various rubric sites with generators or samples are a great resource and I bookmarked a number of them for the future. But, if you find one or two samples with a format you like, it would be easy to alter them to meet current needs. I plan to use them on a regular basis when I begin teaching. I think Scott Utley’s idea about posting a rubric to a class blog or website is great (Utley, 2010). I will probably do the same and maybe post the rubric on a bulletin board in the classroom as well. A completed rubric handed back with a graded work to give feedback will also be used especially on major art projects. It is nice to be able to “learn by doing” with the rubrics, as we experience using then and see how beneficial they are for us we will then transfer the use to our classroom and students. They may take time to create, even just tweaking something already available but I think the time would be worth it for learners. I always liked including the objectives of a lesson for the learners, but rubrics take it a step further.

Clickers are something new to me. The schools in Winnsboro do not have this technology as of yet so I have nothing to compare to. I would expect they would be advantageous in classes where facts are an important part of the subject, history, math, science and the like. I would have to ponder more on whether they would useful in a “hands on” studio art class or how beneficial they might be if used. I would like to some day be in a class using this technology to actually experience it first hand.

I perused Inspiration and looked at some of the ways it could be used, the thinking and planning sessions and the multi-media/website mapping sections might be useful in an art classroom. Thinking and planning could be used for individual and group art projects especially planning an e-portfolio. The multi-media/website mapping would be useful for a Design Communications class working on learning about designing websites; it might also be useful if students are using websites for e-portfolios ("Integrate inspiration® into," 2010)  . I have created and maintained many websites over the past 8 or so years and it can be a real pain to keep an accurate map by hand as the site gets larger and larger. If there was money in a budget for the art department to invest in software this might be a possibility, however there might be more pressing needs as well. I’m not sure if I would use this in class or not, it would depend on financing.

References:

Integrate inspiration® into your curriculum. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.inspiration.com/Examples/Inspiration

Utley, S. (2010, November 24). Week 13 [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://sutleyetec424.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-13.html