Student Achievement Assessment Committee

Learning Outcomes: Upon completion of the baccalaureate degree, students are expected to:

1. Examine the relationship and influence of the visual arts in social, historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts;

2. Demonstrate proficiency in technical, conceptual and critical abilities with studio media;

3. Plan and teach art curricula based on theories of child development and first-hand experience with individual students, for pre-kindergarten though young adult learners;

4. Demonstrate critical and reflective thinking, oral and written communication skills; and

5. Exhibit professional behavior when working with students, parents, other educators and community members.

Annual Report

1.      Learning (or Service) Outcomes assessed this year:

{Describe the specific goal or goals of the program's assessment activity this year-WHAT learning outcome(s) did we measure? No one is obligated to assess all outcomes each year}

#1, #3, #5.

2. Assessment Methods and Procedures:

{Describe the methods and procedures used to gather the assessment information-HOW did we measure the outcomes? What kinds of measures [ capstone experiences, juries, videos, course-embedded methods, surveys, senior projects, etc.] were used to determine if we achieved the intended outcomes?}

1. We evaluate the capstone experiences during student teaching semester that culminates in the following projects and activities:

a. The completion and presentation of their final Professional Portfolio (# 1,#3 and#5)

b. Interviewing at the Teacher Job Fairs (#5)

Professional Portfolios include exemplary examples of the following:

Professional resume, Praxis scores, written philosophy of art education, unit and daily lesson plans, a selection of assessment strategies (e.g., rubrics, tests, and quizzes), artist

research papers, visual resources and handouts created for art lessons, classroom management policies, and examples of their own art work, and studio examples by students that they taught in their practicum experiences and student teaching. Also included in the portfolios are examples of student self-assessments, and professional assessments completed by their cooperating teachers, practicum teachers and university supervisors.

3. Inferences from Assessments:

{Describe the findings and conclusions resulting from the assessment-WHAT did we find out from the assessments? What inferences can we make, and what conclusions can we draw from our data? Did students/clients/customers learn what we had hoped, or did things turn out differently than we had hoped?}

Description of our findings:

Overall, the professional portfolios are extremely successful; that is, by the time that students submit them at the end of their student teaching experience, the portfolios are complete, thorough and well organized, very well designed, and clearly represents each student's educational achievements in relationship to the following outcomes.

Outcome #1. Examine the relationship and influence of the visual arts in social, historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts.

Students successfully prepared unit plans, daily lessons, research papers and instructional resources that reflected the interconnections of art (aesthetics, art criticism, art history and art production), society, culture (multicultural issues) and history.

Outcome #3. Plan and teach art curricula, based on theories of child development and first-hand experience with individual students, for pre-kindergarten though young adult learners;

Students were successful in preparing lessons that were appropriate for the age and special needs of their students. Successful preparation was evident in examples of lesson plans taught in ART 382 Art for Special Needs Learners, ARTE 407 Visual Arts Practicum, ARTE 452 Advanced Methods in Art Education, and the student teaching semester. Assessment of their teaching completed by the ARTE 407 instructor and the Final Reports from student teaching attest to their abilities to successfully teach their art lessons.

Students were successful in completing practicum experiences in a variety of settings:

preschool/kindergarten children, special needs learners, a junior high or high school practicum, the BOSU Saturday Art Program for ages 3-17, an urban after school art program for ages 6-17, and student teaching in both elementary and secondary settings (assessments of their various teaching experiences are also included in their professional portfolio).

Outcome #5. Exhibit professional behavior when working with students, parents, other educators and community members.

The student's final reports completed by their cooperating teachers attest to their professional behavior.

However, there were discrepancies that were evident in the following: areas Please note that the following appraisal may vary depending on the instructor of student teaching. The percentages were arrived at from the Spring 2004 semester but comments reflect the 2003-2004.

Portfolio Requirements: The requirements are distributed to each student during their first methods course (ARTE 252). Students purchase their notebooks and insert all of the dividers along with professionally marked tabs.

Students continue to develop their portfolio in subsequent art education and education courses. For example, students write and revise lesson plans, collect evaluations on their performances in practicum experiences, revise their philosophy of art education papers, gather visual and instructional materials, make slides, photographs, CD's of their art work and their student's art work, well as other visual documentation that includes bulletin board displays and their interaction with young people in the classroom.

There were a number of students (20-25%); however, who were not introduced to the requirements of the professional portfolio until their junior or senior year and were ill prepared to complete the project without considerable work. In some cases, this situation was created when students transferred late into the art education program. In a few instances, even when introduced earlier to the requirements, some students had not done sufficient work on the portfolio before their student teaching semester.

Résumé's and Interviewing: While most students had prepared successful resumes, approximately 40% did not take advantage of the services at the Career Center in regard to writing the resumes or in developing strategies for the interviewing process.

Praxis II and Pathwise: In spite of the fact that students are introduced to both Pathwise and Praxis H exams in both their education and art education courses, many seniors continue to be confused about them. While the instructor of student teaching brought in guest speakers from both the Career Center, Ms. Susan Sherlock (to give information about Pathwise), and Dr. Becky Pissanos (for the Praxis II exam), it was clear that these specialists needed to be brought into earlier courses as well. In Spring 2003, Kim Grilliot came to the School of Art and gave a session about Art Education requirements and Praxis H. The presentation was publicized to all art education students and about 25-30 attended. The Division will consider other strategies to inform students of these two important issues.

The Job Fair: On the whole, there has been very good attendance by our students at the Job Fairs in the last several years. The fairs are advertised each semester and students are encouraged by their professors to attend. However, we still need to have all of our students take advantage of this opportunity.

4. Actions Taken/Program Improvements:

{Describe the program changes that have been or are being taken -WHAT actions were taken to improve our program based on what we found out? Should we continue what we have been doing, or should we make changes to the program in order to accomplish the intended outcomes?}

{Be sure to include information pertaining to assessment of learning outcomes in graduate programs and general education courses, as relevant.)

1. Professional Portfolios

. The Division Chair will oversee that the portfolio requirements are reviewed in each art education course to ensure that students include one or more written and/or visual materials in their portfolios.

. Strategies for better advising are being devised so the students will be reminded of the need to work on the development of their portfolio. Also, since there are many students who don't see an advisor or see someone who is not an Art Education faculty member, plans will be made to distribute reminder handouts with the needed criteria in the Art Education courses in order to reach more of our students.

2. Resumes. Job Fairs. Interviewing. Praxis Exams and Pathwise Much more work needs to be done in the last two Art Education methods courses to help prepare students for their capstone experiences. For example, one of our issues is that for some students, ARTE 452 is their last course before student teaching, but for others, ARTE 407 is their last course before student teaching. We now realize that it is important that the professors who teach both courses check student progress in their respective courses.

. Guest speakers from Career Services, the ODE Office or someone trained in Pathwise, and the BGSU's Licensure Officer will be asked to speak to the students in ARTE 452 and ARTE 407.

. The Division will make plans to develop a list serve and/or use Blackboard in order to send information to our majors.

. Group advising and individual advising will stress that students take advantage of the Career Services and the Teacher Job Fair.

. Strategies will be developed to ensure full participation in the Teacher Job Fairs, stressing that student attendance is part of their professional preparation. We also need to establish clear assessment guidelines for their participation.

. Finally, we need to develop a detailed rubric that will be used in each Art Education course to assess the Professional Portfolios. See below for an example.

*This report was prepared by Dr. Rosalie Politsky in consultation with Dr. Karen Kakas.