Summer Circle Curricular Overview and Learning Assessment

Circle Round the Square (Circle) provides students with an Art experience that is balanced in its efforts to inspire and inform, challenge and reward.  The program does this by coupling the Ohio Department of Education Academic Standards for the Visual Arts with insights based on long term relationships between children from the community and a committed staff.   The ODE Standards ensure students receive an art curriculum that is up-to-date with the highest aspirations of Discipline Based Art Education.  Committed teachers and long term relationships make it relevant, accessible and fun for students.

Children completing the program will participate in four different visual art studios, accumulating 50 hours of classroom time.  The equivalent of a semester class that meets 35 minutes a day five days a week for 90 days, only with significantly less clean-up and transition time.  If one recognizes the time participants spent creating videos, designing theatrical sets, making costumes, and working in digital studios as visual arts time, the participants actually get the equivalent of a semester class that meets 45 minutes a day for 90 days.

The Curriculum Standards

Teachers selected learning goals for their lessons in a way that nicely balanced their passion as an artist, student interest and ODE Standards.  It is also worth noting that there are a number of valuable learning goals that go beyond the ODE Standards.

Circle is a multi-aged learning environment with most students ranging from 4th grade to 9th grade.   To accommodate diverse learners the visual arts teaching staff selected age appropriate standards ranging from grade level 4 to grade level 8. Averaged together the the mean learning standard was grade level 6.57, very nearly the average grade level of Summer Circle participants.

Circle curriculum embraces a wide range of art experiences.  Teachers selected learning goals from across all five of the different domains.  See Table 1.1  

One should not overlook learning goals that fall outside of the ODE Standards.  For example, in a the ceramics studio with Ann Judy students created plates based on Mandala’s, circular art traditionally used in meditation.  Ann used this opportunity to teach students to practice the skill of meditation - focusing the mind, calming one’s self searching for creative insight.  Skip French’s lesson in print making relied on students being able to work collaboratively.  To complete a print each student needed others to help them create their print and needed to help others to do the same. Valuable learning outcomes indeed.

* The five domains on ODE Standards are listed across the top.  Studios are designated on the left. Numeric designations of the various standards employed in individual studios are listed in their corresponding column and row.  In the bottom row numbers designate actual totals of standards accumulated in each domain.

The Instruction

Each teacher in the program is an artist with a unique passion and discernible commitment to their craft.  Teachers were encouraged to provide instruction in a way that played to their strengths.  

If they wanted help, Keith Wilde, a certified visual arts teacher, was available.  In the later planning stages, June 2,  he assembled the teaching staff for a meeting to discuss instruction strategies and lesson plans.  Teachers were challenged to deliver content in ways that would guarantee each student’s participation.  Teachers devised instructional strategies.

Student Learning Outcomes

There are many kinds of learning in each of the studios.  Some of them can be measured and others cannot.  Each teacher made it a goal to teach and assess three to five different ODE Visual arts standards.  They understood that each of these standards needed to have an observable criteria so that they could evaluate student learning with respect to the standard.  

Reporting the student learning outcomes involves quantitative and qualitative analysis.  In arriving at a percentage of students that met or exceed a standard, absent students were excluded from the calculation.  Table 2 is a numeric representation of the data collected in each studio.

Murals with Aaron

Students created a large community mural celebrating Nelsonville.  Along the way students learned about historic murals, articulated history and points of interest in their own community, and learned to make appropriate use of materials to create the mural.  

Standard 6.4, Historical, Cultural and Social Contexts - Investigate the roles and relationships between artists and patrons and explain the effect on the creation of public works of art such as murals.  Aaron explains that overall students are not well grounded in art history.  With prompting and instruction 38%  of the students were able to meet this standard.

Standard 8.4 Connections, Relationships and Applications - Identify how aspects of culture influence social and public artwork.  To meet this standard students were asked to identify aspects of their personal heritage and explain how it appears in the mural.  89% of students were able to meet or exceed this standard.  

Standard 6.5 Creative Expression and Communication - Select and use appropriate materials and tools to solve an artistic problem. Students were tasked with choosing the appropriate tools (markers, paints, brushes) for the section of the mural they painted.  Aaron’s basic instruction of the fundamentals helped 80% of  students to meet or exceed this standard.  Another 16% needed more frequent one on one instruction to make appropriate tool choices.  The result is a very high rate of student success.

Prints with Skip

Students worked collaboratively as they learned about Native American Heritage and created large scale printed works with Skip.  To create their prints students were asked to look inward to find their own personal symbols and work with others as they thought critically about composition.  Looking at the final pieces one can see that Skip helped them achieve a high level of craftsmanship.  

Standard 8.2, Historical, Social and Cultural Contexts -  Discuss Function and role of art objects within culture.  Students learned about and discussed native american art.  Art History is not something the students have been exposed to, but by working on this project over 56% of the students were able to meet or exceed this standard with an ongoing immersion in Native American Art topics.

Standard 4.1, Creative Expression and Communication - Identify and select art materials, tools, and process to achieve specific purposes in their artworks.  Printmaking can be a very technical process that involves specialized tools and sequences.  Diligent efforts paid off, over 95% of participating students met or exceeded this standard.  Skip was surprised by how well younger students performed relative to their older counterparts.

Standard 6.3 Creative Expression and Communication -  Explore ways that art making functions as a means of personal identification and expression.  Students constructed print based puppets and explained how these figures represented a personal totem. 92% of students were able to meet or exceed the standard.  

Terry's Charcoal Portrait Workshop

In Terry’s Charcoal Portrait Workshop students were able to learn several fundamentals of drawing, and key concepts relevant to portraiture.  These are timeless themes that will directly inform the art work of many students and provide all participants key visual problem solving skills.

Standard 4.1, Creative Expression and Communication - Identify and select art materials, tools and processes to achieve specific purposes in art work.  Students learned how to effectively use light and dark to enhance a drawing.  To meet this standard students needed to use a wide range of values effectively.  An impressive 100% of students were able to meet or exceed this standard.

Standard 7.1, Creative Expression and Communication -  Demonstrate a variety of techniques to create the illusion of depth.  Students created the illusion of three dimensional depth using lights and darks to meet this standard.   70% of students were able to meet or exceed this standard that represents a substantial drawing challenge.

Standard 6.7, Creative Expression and Communication - Identify and defend artistic decisions using appropriate visual vocabulary.  Students were asked to demonstrate an intellectual understanding of the design choices involving light and dark to meet this standard.  96% of students were able to effectively analyze their drawings to meet or exceed this standard.

Terry’s class pulled together drawing and watercolor projects.  In this report the information is slightly partitioned to show more clearly how the standards and learning activities are linked.
Watercolor Painting with Terry

Terry’s watercolor lesson gave students a chance to explore two-dimensional image making from another aesthetic perspective and gain a foothold on the unique properties of watercolor.

Standard 4.2, Creative Expression and Communication - Discuss their artworks in terms of color, line, size, shape, texture and composition.  Students learned about the elements of design.  They were able to demonstrate an understanding of these concepts by explaining how they were applied to their watercolor.  82% of students were able to do this at a level that met or exceeded the standard.

Standard 5.1, Analyzing and Responding - Compare and analyze how art elements and principles are used for expressive purposes (strong mood, explosive shapes and rhythmic patterns).  In the watercolor studio students worked on small thumbnail sized watercolors, then evaluated and discussed the designs before putting turning the most effective designs into larger images.  It is a process that reflects sound artistic practice.  75% of students were able to do this in a way that met or exceed the standard.  

Standard 8.2, Valuing the Arts/ Aesthetic Reflection - Demonstrate an enhanced level of craftsmanship in original two- and three-dimensional art products.  To meet or exceed this standard students needed to full employ what they had learned about elements and principles of design, 91% of students were able to this.  

Ceramic Mandala Plates with Ann

Standard 6.3, Historical, Cultural and Social Contexts - Analyze and demonstrate the stylistic characteristics of culturally representative artworks.   Students learned about mandalas of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.  As a demonstration of their learning they were asked to analyze and explain features of various mandalas.  66% of students were able to do this at a level that met or exceeded the standard.  In helping students succeed with respect to this challenge Ann found it helpful to pay special attention to the least verbal students.  She also found opportunities to extend the learning when for example she discovered that most students didn’t understand the meaning of sacred.

Standard 4.3, Connections, Relationships and Applications - Relate concepts common to the arts and disciplines outside the arts (e.g., composition, balance, form and movement). To meet this standard students had to find examples of mandalas in the environment.  Ann was delighted with their enthusiastic participation on walks and 72% of students were able to meet or exceed this standard by identifying three or more examples in their surroundings. Almost without exception all students were able to find at lease one example.

Standard 4.1, Creative Expression &Communication - Identify and select art materials, tools and processes to achieve specific purposes in their artworks.  Ann teaches ceramics every year but always introduces something new.  This year students used a process of wax resist in their glazing for the first time.  The effort required was challenging but rewarding,  83% of students were able to use the technique well enough to meet or exceed the standard.

Standard 6.2, Analyzing and Responding - Explain how art elements and principles are used in artworks to produce certain visual effects.  Students learned about the traditional uses of mandalas, synthesized that information with design principles and practiced meditation to gain a deep understanding of the visual strategies involved in a well designed mandala.  Students were asked to explain how their mandala is successful in similar ways.  89% of  students were able to meet or exceed this standard.

Standard 5.2, Creative Expression &Communication - Explore different approaches to creating art (e.g., by artist, style or historical period).   To complete the layout of their mandalas students needed to be able to manipulate compasses and rulers.  83% of students were able to meet this standard by using those tools in a way the
demonstrated competency with these important cross-curricular tools.

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