Running Head: SLA 1

Student Learning Analysis

Anna R.P. Miller

Oakland University
 SLA 2

Rochester Community Schools do not have an established set of expectations for its

middle school art curriculum. Although the free-range ability to teach a variety of concepts

provides leeway for more ambitious creativity and experimentation with different mediums, the

limitation of not having any set expectations doesn’t benefit students as they may be preparing to

take art classes in high school, which could have a completely different set of expectations in

terms of students’ craftsmanship and critical thinking skills. After having some experience

demonstrating several lessons my mentor teacher made (mostly introductions to the

fundamentals of art), I created a lesson for her 8th grade Classes based on the following National

Core Arts Standards for the 8th Grade:

● VA:Cr1.2.8a: Collaboratively shape an artistic investigation of an aspect of present day life using

a Contemporary practice of art and design.

● VA:Pr6.1.8a: Analyze why and how an exhibition or collection may influence ideas, beliefs, and

experiences.

● VA:Re8.1.8a: Interpret art by analyzing how the interaction of subject matter, characteristics of

form and structure, use of media, artmaking approaches, and relevant contextual information

contributes to understanding messages or ideas and mood conveyed.

● VA:Cn11.1.8a: Distinguish different ways art is used to represent, establish, reinforce, and reflect

group identity.

(State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education, 2014)

My initial layout of my 8th Grade lesson was titled “Art Techniques of the Future”, based

on this short conceptual summary:

Students will discuss how art, particularly architecture, affects the way we live,

remember, and how we can improve the quality of life of the people/community/world around

us. Students will be shown different structures by Maya Lin including the Vietnam Veterans

Memorial in Washington DC, The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama; and The
 SLA 3

Wave Field on North Campus of U of M, Ann Arbor. They will discuss the significance of each

structure, and be prompted to create a meaningful (model-sized) structure of their own. They will

reflect whether their artwork is meant to remember someone/something, bring people together,

express pride in their cultural background, etc. As I was expanding on the topic, I decided to

write up a small, ungraded pretest, titled: “How is art used now?” it would be presented in the

following format:

1. Name 3 LIVING Artists and what kind of art they do, If you don’t know/can’t think of 3 LIVING

Artists, SKIP to Question 2:

a.

b.

c.

2. What can art be made from and where can we view art NOW?

3. What are a couple of reasons artwork is made for public viewing?

4. In what ways can art have meaning or be meaningful?

Most of the students skipped the first question, and I was not completely surprised by that

kind of response. Because most Elementary art curriculums focus on the more well-known,

historical artists and their work, this tends to lead to students not being fully aware of the living

artists that are currently affecting the media they consume.

To some degree, all of these students do know (and may not consider those individuals

“artists”) and have access to doing research on various living artists, due to the wide accessibility

of these artists’ social media and other online platforms. However, this pretest mostly served as a

survey to know student preconceptions around relevant art/artists and to what degree they were

aware of what defines art.

All 58 students got the second answer “correct”. I thought this open-ended question

would mostly result in students listing specific art tools such as pencils, ink, paint, etc. However,
 SLA 4

there were students that did list those tools, but summed up their answers under “anything” and

“everything”. Each student seemed to understand that art could be made from anything, which

greatly helped me create small side-assignments and artful exercises (revolving around the

planning of their sculpture), that would fully cover and apply all of the National Core Arts

Standards. This also allowed me to build a lesson that was modeled after college-level

art-making processes where student would be introduced to a core concept (“goal”), introduced

to new techniques of art-making, create a smaller model of their final structure to break down the

forms they need to achieve in their final structure, and use that information to build and complete

their final structure.

When it came the the third and fourth question, students would need this information to

consider the scale of their artwork alongside how they were going to give their meaning: Why

artwork is displayed publicly is much more open-ended question, that I decided to sum up into

the following:

● Community/Cultural Landmark

● Public Accessibility

● A More Permanent Memorial

● Interactivity

● Raising Awareness

Most students (55 out of the 58) answered this question with a variation of 2 of these reasons.

But I believed this would be a better list of direct answers that students, when faced with this

same question in the posttest, would have a wider range of responses based on that new (if not

repeated) information. The last question is the core concept of their project: How will students

make their work meaningful? Technically, students already know that answer. But it’s important
 SLA 5

for them to be able to verbalize it when they are asked during critique.

Overall, there were no sizing requirements. I decided to leave the size and scale of the

sculpture a little more open-ended because, in my presentation, the size of the sculptures (in my

examples) were often determined by the visual hierarchy of the overall sculpture. Larger

sculptures were often used to draw attention to something specific about the form, while smaller

sculptures were made to fit a specific space. Essentially, this lesson was purely an exercise and

application of each NAEA Core Standard 8th Grade Level Proficiency. Since classes were still

Hybrid, I started creating relevant exercises for both In-Person and Online Classes. Students that

were In-Person, after doing the pretest, were able to start their first exercise: Aluminum Foil

Model Sculptures. This is an exercise often used in beginner college-level sculpture classes;

Students would be given a roll of Aluminum Foil to practice creating 3-D Shapes before working

with their final materials.

The idea of using Aluminum foil to model the final sculpture was that students would

practice achieving 3-D Forms of their final sculpture. Aluminum is easier to fold, crush, and

layer; and Aluminum is so malleable, that if students changed their mind about the object they

were going to make, they could easily do so. But more importantly, students would use these

models to break down their model into basic shapes and forms!

My Mentor Teacher and I took inventory of the classroom materials that students could

use for their final sculptures. Students are never expected to buy materials outside of class and

they aren’t expected to take their projects home to work outside of school. This is to lessen any

financial concerns that students may have about completing their project, and it lessens the

school workload that students are already experiencing as they navigate the hybrid set-up. As I

went over the materials that would be provided in the classroom, I mentioned that if students
 SLA 6

wanted to bring paper and packaging materials like styrofoam, paper towel rolls, or toilet paper

rolls from home, they were allowed to do so. I reminded students that they would not be using

any clay alternatives in their sculptures (polymer, playdough, floam, etc.) After introducing this

exercise, discussing final sculpture materials, and reviewing students’ feedback I received from

the Pretest, I created the following activity online assignment for all of the students (both

in-person and online) to really consider what person, place, or thing they could build their

sculptural tribute to:

Name a Person, a Place, and a Thing that you love and appreciate:

● Person:

○ Why?

○ What images or symbols do you associate with this person?

● Place:

○ Why?

○ What images or symbols do you associate with this place?

● Thing:

○ Why?

○ What images or symbols do you associate with this thing?

This assignment was meant to be an exercise for students to explain the meaning behind their

work. Students would be sharing the meaning of their artwork later, during critique. This

activity was meant to reinforce student awareness and intent behind their creative process. That

way, students who were still figuring out what they wanted to do with their Aluminum Sculpture

could work on this assignment to think more in depth on what they plan to make; and students

who were online could prepare to decide what they were going to do with their Aluminum

Sculpture when they came to in-person class.

While students were finishing up their Aluminum Models, and deciding what exact
 SLA 7

person/place/thing they were going to honor; I presented all of the project’s materials, along with

a collection of different techniques students could apply when creating their Final Sculpture. I

also created an online assignment where students would submit their Final Plan for their Final

Sculpture. Their Final Plan would include the following:

● Write down what Person, Place, or Thing you decided on making your final sculpture on based on

the aluminum sculpture you made for class!

● Sketch this in your sketchbook (and submit a picture) or write down the basic forms that make up

your structure (Spheres? Cubes? Cones? etc.)

● Write down what techniques we discussed in class that you plan to use to achieve each basic form

in your final structure.

This made their Final Plan more accessible for themselves and the teachers. The idea

behind having students submit a final plan was to use it as a foundational guide. This assignment

would further reinforce student awareness and intent behind their creative process and

progression, and it would provide my mentor teacher and I with a solidified idea behind their

scuplture’s structure. This way, if a student is struggling and becoming frustrated with achieving

a specific shape/form (particularly rounder, organic shapes) for their sculpture, either me or my

mentor teacher would be able to suggest techniques and offer alternative solutions for those

students to work around.

When students were

completed with their sculptures,

they participated in a more

time-efficient critique activity.

Since I would not be physically

there for the student’s critique

 SLA 8

day, I left the following Critique Checklist Layout Plan with my mentor teacher:

1. Students will place their projects on their tables (the tables have colored dividers, so as long as the

projects aren’t placed on/past that divider, it should be an easy & quick thing).

2. Students will place a sticky note “label” on

their table in front of their project (without

adding their name). If they are at table 1,

those students will label their projects “1.1”

& “1.2”, table 2 students will label their

projects “2.1” & “2.2”, and so on and so

forth…

3. As soon as everyone is good on labels, students will be handed their Critique Checklist, and we

will quickly review what kind of answers we expect to be written on that checklist. Remind them

that the very last question shouldn’t be answered until they “talk to the artist”.

4. At the start of critique, as I’ve drawn on the guide, students will be walking to the project across

from them: tables 1,3,5,7 should be walking to the back tables (2,4,6,8) and vice versa. Remind

them to not answer that very last question until

they talk to the artist.

5. When students are done writing down their

answers on their checklist, have the “artists”

take turns discussing their artwork to answer

the very last question. So this can be done by

having the critiquers from tables 1,3,5,7, stand

by the artwork they are critiquing and have the artists who moved to the front (students from

tables 2,4,6,8) return to their projects to talk about it. And vice versa. Then students can answer

that very last question.

6. Have students take a picture of their critique checklist of their answers and submit it to google

classroom before collecting the physical copies from them (in case their pictures are illegible).

The Critique Checklist that asked the following questions in the following format:
 SLA 9

1. What is the first thing you notice about the work?

a. What does it remind you of?

2. What is the work made out of?

a. What is the texture?

b. Does it look thick and sturdy, or thin and delicate?

3. What is the shape/form of the work?

a. Does the work seem to directly reference a specific person, place or thing; or is it an abstract

representation?

4. Is the work laying low or towering high?

a. Is it large or small?

b. Could you carry it, place it on a table, or on the ground?

5. After listening to the artist talk about their work, what was similar or different from the artist’s

interpretation from your own?

This way students could directly comment on what they see in the work based on each element

of art and compare their personal interpretation vs. the artist’s interpretation. Doing this allows

students to practice talking about artwork on a more formal level.

After reading the student’s answers, I wonder if I could have worded the specifics of each

checklist a little differently. Many students tended to answer some of these questions with a

one-worded answer (sometimes “yes” and “no” even though none of these questions could be

answered with a yes/no). For example, many students answer the question “Is the work laying

low or towering high?” with answers like “low”, “high”, “medium”, etc. However, from what I

am getting from many of their answers is that they are responding to what they see. When it

came down to the comparison of their interpretation and the artist’s interpretation, their answers

were slightly longer and detailed. Albeit, there were a handful of answers that said something

along the lines of “I already knew what it was”. There were some students who at least wrote

down what the object was, what it represented, and why it was meaningful to the artist. In high
 SLA 10

school and college-level critique, these students would be applying their understanding of art

conceptually through commenting on the formal qualities of the artwork they see in a similar

manner. But, in the future, I will conduct a practice critique with the students. I could have used

relevant artwork from Maya Lin or other famous artworks to get students adjusted to using artful

vocabulary.

Finally, students reflected on what they’ve learned based on the introductory assignments

and project process over the course of planning, modelling, and building their sculptures. The

posttest asked the following:

1. Name 3 Things that art be made from, based on what you’ve learned:

a.

b.

c.

2. Name 3 places where we can view art:

a.

b.

c.

3. What are 3 reasons artwork is made for public viewing?

a.

b.

c.

4. In what ways can art have meaning or be meaningful?

5. Trick Question: How can I make meaningful art?

Like the Pretest Questions, I left these questions open-ended for students because I felt

that their initial answers in the pretest, their process throughout planning, creating, and critiquing

was enough documentation of their progress and application of knowledge/learned concept, and
 SLA 11

this posttest acted more like a “takeaway” from the overall lesson. All 58 8th Grade Students

were able to answer the first two questions easily, however, the third question was variable. 3 out

of the 58 8th Graders listed two reasons (or a variation of the same reason). The last two

questions were all answered, however, the length of those answers were also varied. About 35 of

the 58 8th Grade students (60%) applied their experiences with the process of their project to the

answers of the last two questions on the posttest. The other 23 8th Grade Students’ (40%)

answers were short and sweet, but the beauty of having all of that documentation of their process

and their final product is what really demonstrates their learning beyond the average quiz-based

assessment.

References

State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. “Visual Arts At A Glance.” State

Education Agency Directors of Art Education, 2014.