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 46 47