So How DO We Measure Learning in the Arts...
... if we don't use some kind of standardized assessment?
My previous blog has been re-posted, dissected, praised and scorned. But the question is still out there: How do we measure learning in the arts?
Two critical observations:
• Contrary to what some commenters seem to think, nobody is suggesting that learning in arts education can't or shouldn't be assessed. The blog wasn't a half-baked claim that the arts are too creative/expressive/ethereal/woo-woo for teachers to properly evaluate what their students have produced and learned. Assessing learning in the arts is precisely how students grow in arts knowledge and skill--with the assistance of their teachers, who use those assessments to tailor and improve their instruction as well.
• This contention--that we can't measure something unless we standardize it--is driving a whole lot of truly damaging, excessive and deceptive testing right now, and not just in the arts. How many times have we heard this: "If we don't use standardized tests, how will we really know what students have learned? Or how they
My previous blog has been re-posted, dissected, praised and scorned. But the question is still out there: How do we measure learning in the arts?
Two critical observations:
• Contrary to what some commenters seem to think, nobody is suggesting that learning in arts education can't or shouldn't be assessed. The blog wasn't a half-baked claim that the arts are too creative/expressive/ethereal/woo-woo for teachers to properly evaluate what their students have produced and learned. Assessing learning in the arts is precisely how students grow in arts knowledge and skill--with the assistance of their teachers, who use those assessments to tailor and improve their instruction as well.
• This contention--that we can't measure something unless we standardize it--is driving a whole lot of truly damaging, excessive and deceptive testing right now, and not just in the arts. How many times have we heard this: "If we don't use standardized tests, how will we really know what students have learned? Or how they