Hello and Welcome to Episode 2 of our Fine Arts Educator Coaching Clinics. 

I am your host, Eric Sanford.  Thank you for joining me on this episode about wonderful, inspirational, thought-provoking data in the fine arts!  

As you contemplate what you got yourself into, follow our socials Twitter and TikTok @faecchost, and on Facebook, FAECC. If you are interested in collaborating on an episode or have a topic request, send an email or use the comment section on your podcast app to make your suggestions.  

Check the website for all the information about today’s podcast, social media links, email address, resources and templates at Faecc.org 

Well, You are either really curious or still not quite sure about today’s topic, so I want to begin with a question - What is the center, the focal point, of your teaching?  What is the driving force that gets you up every day and into the classroom?   

Okay, that was two questions, but I’m hoping they have the same answer - for the students.  

If you joined to improve the student experience, then this episode is for you.  We may explore a few concepts uncommon in many fine arts classes.  You might completely disagree with these suggestions.  And that is okay.  There are many roads that lead to amazing fine arts programs.  My goal today is to show how collecting and using data actually helps us become more effective and efficient teachers.

Before we start this winding path, I want to mention Artistic Literacy.  Artistic Literacy is the balance between demonstrating an artistic skill, and comprehending the concepts about the artform.  Basically, it’s the balance of Doing and Knowing the artform.  

I mention Artistic Literacy first because it is within that balance, between the Knowing and the Doing, that we find opportunities as educators to assess our students, and what direction we must go to improve the student experience.  

I won’t lie and say there aren’t other motives behind collecting data in fine arts classes.  Many of our teacher evaluations have sections about student data.  Many campuses have professional development days that are spent disaggregating student data to develop plans for student improvement.  All too often I joined a non-fine arts group during those PDs, so I could experience the same professional development.  But it wasn’t the same.

It wasn’t music student data, or any other fine arts student data.  Honestly… we usually didn’t have data collected in the same method as all those other academic classes.  

For this episode, I will be appealing to the educator side of what we do.  There is a balance for us there as well - between the educator and the artist.  Those two concepts do not need to be independent from one another.

Let’s start with something we are probably fairly familiar with - collecting data on Student Performance.  

So how do we collect data as the students practice, improve, and perform?

Let’s start first with a priority lesson objective.  A priority lesson is when you introduce a new concept in class.  The knowledge is transferable. It might be countin a new rhythm, learning a new dance move or pencil technique, or moving to stage directions.  Whatever the fundamental skill is, it influences the greater goal, not only for one performance, but every performance or product after that as well.  

Let’s look at one of your lesson plan objectives where you taught a new demonstrative skill.  First, write down the skill or objective.  

If you need more time to write during this section, press pause on the podcast.  Press play when you are ready to continue.  

After you have written your lesson objective, write what criteria lets you know each student was successful?  What is needed to demonstrate mastery of that one skill?

Now that you know what is needed for each student to succeed at that skill, share that information with the students so they have a targetable goal.  

The next step - what is needed to assess each student at that skill?  What time or space constraints do you have? Is your class structured for independent or small group practice while you check in with each student?  Identifying all the components that must be in place for this to work could be exhausting.  

If you find yourself hitting a brick wall, check out episode 1 of the Fine Arts Coaching Clinics podcast where we discuss and plan class agendas.

Let’s assume you’ve overcome that brick wall and you are ready to assess students.  You’ve established criteria for success, also known as CFS, you shared that with the students so they know what to do to succeed, and your class is structured to observe each student demonstrate that skill.  

It’s time to collect data!  A very efficient and useful way to collect data is by using a chart.  You can find a template for this on the website faecc.org, free to use and modify.  The link should force you to make a copy of the Google Sheet.  You can use it as is, import to Excel, or print it out if you prefer pencil and paper.  

Across the top on the Horizontal I list the demonstrated skills and date of each assessment.  Along the left side vertical, I copy and paste student names from the roster.  I might also suggest color coding or assigning a symbol to students who are English Learners or have accommodations.

For the chart template itself, you can add more classes to the tabs by selecting “Duplicate” on the tab.  You can also add more columns for “Skill and Date” by right clicking the “O column”, then choose “Insert 1 column right”. It should keep the same formatting as the previous columns.  

As you collect the data, work out a consistent system that you can follow to know if a student was successful at the check in, not quite there, or really struggling.  

At the end of the class or day, review how students did in each class.  What percent were successful and mastered the skill? What percent were almost there?  And which students will need more time, or possibly more instruction?

When evaluating the effectiveness of your lesson, consider the difficulty of the skill, previous student experience, and the more personal - was your teaching effective?  More on this in a few minutes.

Let’s discuss some data collecting best practices.   

If you have a smaller class size or assistance with classes, it is possible to visit every student twice within one class period.  It takes careful planning and sticking to a timeline, but it can be done.  

For larger classes, you may need to schedule 5 to 10 minutes in your agenda and plan on checking a portion of your students each day, rather than checking an entire class for 45 minutes.

When assessing students, it is effective to recognize that if a student is making several attempts, you can always say “It’s okay! I’ll be back around again after you’ve had some time to practice.”  

This isn’t a failure moment, it’s just one of those “Not everyone gets it the first time” moments.  This is why we visit multiple times to assess student progress.  

A common trap I fell into was reteaching individual students when I visited them, when I should have been only collecting data.  Reteaching individual students in the moment took time away from assessing every student in a timely manner, and extended data collecting much longer than I anticipated for the lesson.  

During data time, you are just there to get the data.  After you collect the data, you can reteach and address the issues you noticed and observed.  You will also have data to base your reteach decisions and next steps. Instead of reteaching students one at a time, you can get a small group together to address similar misunderstandings - saving you class time.

Sometimes students just need more attempts.  Sometimes students are missing an important component and need more focused instruction.  Checking in with each student is a great way to determine which scenario you should address.

I should also mention that you probably don’t need to collect data every class, only the priority lessons that teach new concepts or next level skills.  

Whatever your situation, having data available helps you be more efficient and effective with your instruction.

Now is a great time to make suggestions,  questions, and comments.  You could write in using your podcast app or by emailing faecchost@gmail.com.  

As you are writing, I will say that collecting data on priority objectives has a much larger impact on the greater product or performance.  You as a teacher will know what skills your students need more support or practice.  Your students will also know what skills they need to improve.  In the end, your class will work collaboratively to improve and succeed. 

And now, for something a little different - Assessing student comprehension of fine art concepts.  

Consider any fundamental idea, terminology, or history important for your content.  In a lesson, You explained it to the students, you explored how it impacts your current project or goal, and then you applied it with the full class with a demonstrative skill.  The next day you approach the class with enthusiasm only to discover that very few students remember the lesson objective or the information you shared. 

Frustration, an entire class period… seemingly lost.

This scenario pushes us to reflect on our teaching practices to ask - what works best for the students?  

The uniqueness of fine art classes creates several scenarios- 

One - a student can demonstrate the skill, but cannot explain it.

Two - a student can explain the skill, but cannot demonstrate it.

Three - a student can neither explain nor demonstrate the skill.

Four - a student can both explain and demonstrate the skill.  

The goal for all students should be the fourth example - a student that can both explain and demonstrate the skill.  At that level, a student can apply the necessary skill at other opportunities, and know why they are doing it.  

So How do we get all students to that point?

The answer involves teaching the method that students learn best - and it’s never just one way.  The key is to differentiate the learning process so students receive the information in multiple formats.  Students writing it down, student discussions, student activities, including real world examples or similarities - all these are necessary to reach the multiple and diverse ways students learn. 

Introducing new or next level fine art concepts in this way opens up another way to assess students.  

This type of assessment could be five or less multiple choice, true/false, matching, or fill in the blank questions.  The most important part - does the assessment reflect the objective of the lesson and is it aligned to how the students learned it?

If this type of questioning or assessment is different than your usual, students may ask why quite a bit.  After all, this is starting to resemble a…well, a science or social studies class.  The answer can be as simple or as complex as you wish, but overall, it’s so we can be more effective teachers, and for students to receive a higher level of fine arts education.  

The unique ability of fine art classes is that we transition into the demonstrative as a means of reinforcing the conceptual learning.  In other words, we move from the Knowing to the Doing to enhance both.  

If our goal is to have all students at that fourth example - able to explain and demonstrate the concept, then we must promote a healthy balance of both the Knowing and the Doing.  THIS is Artistic Literacy.

Now that we’ve established why, let’s go through the process together.  

At any time, feel free to drop a comment or question in the podcast feedback or through email.  You are also welcome to press pause between steps to create these documents.

First, create a lesson objective that you can measure through a questioning format.  This could include vocabulary terms and definitions, steps to demonstrate a skill, conceptual knowledge of the fundamentals, or any number of objectives that test student comprehension

Second, create 1 to 5 questions based on the content of your lesson.  Create questions aligned to the format that you used during the lesson.  If you write vocabulary together, include vocabulary.  If you created a step by step guide, that sequence could be on the assessment. 

To create the actual assessment, I prefer Google Forms just because it is easy to navigate and see the question data and responses.  Whatever platform or method you choose, I hope the responses are clear and easy to track.

Third, Students should complete this assessment as an Exit Ticket, an end of class closing that gives you data on student mastery.  Did students understand the concepts? Can they tell you exactly, word for word what you want them to know?

Remember, this is not a skills demonstration. This is a comprehension assessment. 

If you’ve never done this before, it could be quite an eye opening, and possibly humbling, experience.  Because this may be a new format in your class, I recommend letting the students get adjusted for 3 to 5 attempts.  The data you collect the first few times may not be usable just because the students are not as familiar with the written format in a fine arts class.  

So far you’ve created several comprehension questions based on the lesson objectives, tested the students on those questions, and you have usable data… Now what?

It’s not enough that we collect the data.  We must also use that data to inform our teaching practices.  This will be the extra step that impacts your teaching and the student experience the most.  

I want to share with you a Response Analysis Template on the faecc.org website.  You can find the link with the episode 2 resources.  This is free to use and modify.  It should force you to make a copy in google sheets.

The template has a “Start Here” page that explains How to use the data and how to complete the chart.  

You are always welcome to reach out via email, faecchost@gmail.com, if you have any questions.

To begin, we look at Data Question 1 with the question students missed the most.  What percentage of students answered correctly? What percentage of students missed the question? Which answer did most of the students choose if they chose incorrectly?  

Compare the actual answer with the answer most students chose incorrectly.  What do you notice about the two options?  Where did students get confused?  Where did that question appear in the lesson?  All these are part of the Student Misconceptions.  

Our Goal is to discover - Did Students misunderstand the concept?  Did they get confused about the answer choices? Was it a difference in the academic language from the less formal, every-day vernacular?  Was it affected by a cultural understanding or mis-interpretation?  

Identifying the misconception helps us as teachers know what to address in the next class.  It helps us realize what needs to be retaught, and what doesn’t.  We have actual data that proves where students got lost.  

By identifying when students get lost, you can focus your reteach on those unlearned concepts.  Your fine art program will flourish because more students get a chance to access those misunderstood ideas.  It may look incredibly different than your current class.  But then again, this is about improving the student experience, and change is not comfortable.  

Moving on - Let’s talk about when to reteach.

If you notice more than 30% of students missing a question, that is an indicator that a re-teach lesson will be needed for those students.  

Any questions with more than 30% incorrect answers should definitely be added to the Data Question section.  If there are multiple questions more than 30% incorrect, use Data Question 2, 3, and 4 to complete that data.

If most of the students answered correctly, it may still be useful to find out which incorrect answer choice was chosen to address any misconceptions or identify opportunities for a small group reteach.  It will pop up again in the future.

Most of our artforms have little room for error.  Use these reteach opportunities to ensure all students have a chance to succeed.

Another table in the Response Analysis is for Special Populations.  Data Rows for English Learners and Students with Individual Education Plans are already added, but you are welcome to add more if needed.  

As Fine Art teachers, we are often overlooked when providing accommodations for students.  Some students may not need them for a fine arts class if that class was based entirely on demonstrative assessments, or …well…participation.  By adding written questions and notes to the learning and testing formats, those accommodations will be useful.  Choose the accommodations that align most to your lesson content from the student IEPs.  

It also provides an opportunity for fine art teachers to document how and when they apply student accommodations.  That information is greatly needed by sped coordinators and EB coordinators.  Again -  it’s about improving the student experience.

From the beginning of this episode, I’ve mentioned the Student experience quite a few times.  The student experience isn’t about answering questions correctly, it’s about understanding and experiencing the fine arts that we are so passionate about.  Find ways to connect students to the fine arts - both knowing about it, and doing it!

A few helpful tips as a parting gift - if your class requires semester exams or unit tests, you have an entire question bank at your disposal by creating these short informal priority lesson assessments.  

Keeping track of student data, both the knowing and the doing, provides individual student growth data.  At any point, you could share with students, parents, or colleagues the strides that each student has made in your class, and celebrate those accomplishments accordingly. 

I mentioned Artistic Literacy several times during this episode.  More information can be found at the Artistic Literacy Institute online, and is part of the National Core Arts Standards.  I highly encourage anyone interested in improving the student experience to search more about this concept.  

And finally, Check out our social media pages, @faecchost, and visit our website faecc.org for templates, resources, and the opportunity to voice your input.  I’d love to collaborate on a topic, so if you are interested, be sure to visit the website and send me an email, faecchost@gmail.com.

Until next time, this is your host Eric Sanford with the Fine Arts Educator Coaching Clinics Podcast.  

Peace and Blessings