STAR-POST (Art) January 2020 FINAL_STAR Post Art Jan 2020 | Page 46
During this whole process, three
practising artists (a designer toy artist,
a mural and book artist, and a comic
artist) were invited at strategic points
to share their artistic journeys and how
digital platforms impact their practices.
They also went on a learning journey to
Takashi Murakami Exhibition at STPI. The
aim of these sessions was to broaden
the students’ understanding of digital
art beyond their familiar perceptions
and allow them to see possibilities in
their own artistic approaches. A Google
classroom task was set for each talk and
the learning journey (see below).
These writing tasks aimed to build the
students’ abilities to structure their
thinking through writing using the Visible
Thinking Routine (VTR) of Claim-Support-
Question. Through this, students develop
clarity, accuracy and precision when they
structure and put forth their opinions
and ideas. They eventually cultivate their
ability to form and express personal
opinions in an informed way. For each
task, the students were given a week to
submit their writings through the Google
classroom. The writings were assessed
qualitatively (with no grades) and all the
writings with comments were shared
with the students through Google online
folders. Overall comments were shared
during subsequent lessons. Students
were also tasked to read at least 3 other
peers’ writings and apply what they
had learnt in their next writing task (see
below for one of the writing tasks with
comments in blue).
In terms of the level of impact,
anecdotally, there is a marked
improvement for a number of students
in both their quality of thinking and
expression of their opinions. Some
evidence of learning from their peers
could also be seen in their writings.
Nevertheless, in order for assessment to
go beyond the grades and to improve
learning, timeliness of the feedback and
authentic fit-for-purpose task design is
important. This could be enhanced with
the help of technology to build self-
directed learning habits and ownership.
Reference:
Dewey, J. (1980). Art as experience. New York:
Penguin Putnam.
** Chor Howe shared on his art
assessment practices at STAR’s workshop
– Marking Marks: Subjectivity + Objectivity
in Art Assessment, held on 25 September
2019. Click on this LINK to access a PDF
copy of the slides.
Snapshot of writing assessed qualitatively with my comments
Example of Google Classroom task
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