Subject and Level: 7th and 8th Grade Art

Learner Description - The students are 7th and 8th graders at MacArthur Middle School. Student population in art class is extremely diverse, including broad socioeconomic differences and both high/low abilities levels. However, because the high achievers opt to enroll in Spanish, the remaining students who take art tend to have average to low motivation. High achievers are an exception. In addition, some classes have a ratio as high as 47% special education students without any assistance from classroom aides.

Overview - Brief description of the unit - an abstract.

What will be taught? How will it be taught? What will students do and learn?

Include the problem, issue, or question that will frame the unit. Probably easiest to write after the unit has been created.

This Unit focuses on artists of the Renaissance and the Impressionists. The scenario for this unit is as follows:

Your team has been hired by an art museum to create an exhibition which explains the life and work of your given artist. The art museum is in an enormous mansion, and the Director is allowing you to use one room to hold the exhibition. You will have visitors coming to your show, and you may put together any type of presentation for them you wish. This includes a brochure, a guided tour, skit, mini-musical, etc. However, you must use technology to document your exhibition.

Students are grouped in cooperative teams by the teacher. Each team is assigned an artist and country and the instructor guides the class in a student-created rubric. The students explore the specific required biographical information, examples of art work, and bibliography. In addition, students analyze what a superior project will look like.

Rationale - Purpose for the unit as a whole. The WHY questions.

Why would you teach this unit?

Why would this this qualify as an Engaged Learning unit?

Why is technology an important component of this unit?

Why is this project authentic/meaningful, and challenging for students?

Students learn about great artists of Europe and America for several reasons. First, studying these artists provides students with an opportunity to explore social studies content in depth. Second, students must learn about the great artists of history to be culturally literate. And finally, by seeing great works of art, students expand their understanding of culture, values, and aesthetics.

This unit qualifies as an Engaged Learning unit because all of the indicators are present. This includes heterogeneous collaborative groups, multidisciplinary tasks, performance-based assessment, the teacher as facilitator, and the student as producer.

The proverbial "glue" that holds the unit together is technology. Though students use hardcopy resources from the school and public library, students also rely heavily on age-appropriate web resources. This is crucial because there is such limited middle school art historical "data" available to students. Student understanding of technological tools is enhanced through the collaborative process. Technology is vital to this project because students are required to create a permanent document of their presentation. This permanent document, whether it be a digital video, web site, slide show, or simply a word processing file, allows the instructor to provide in depth assessment and use the projects as future teaching tools.

This project is meaningful to students for two reasons. The first is content-related; it greatly improves their knowledge of history, geography, and culture. But perhaps more importantly, the collaborative process requires students to exercise social skills that will carry them throughout their education and future careers. These skills include listening to others, sharing ideas in a positive manner, being a leader/follower, compromising, and conflict resolution.

Goals

The WHAT questions

What new attributes (knowledge, skills, attitudes) do you expect students to gain?

What school, district, state and national standards/benchmarks are addressed?

Students enhance their knowledge of the "Great Artist," the artist's country of origin, and the art movement. Students demonstrate their understanding by learning biographical information about the artist, including the artists childhood, religious beliefs, personality, and family life. In addition, students analyze specific works by the artists and attempt to understand the "why" behind the works. Students achieve an attitude that art is a reflection of culture. Students infer that art from the past can explain cultural beliefs and attitudes, therefore art from the present can do the same.

Illinois Learning Standards for Fine Arts Achieved --

APPLICATIONS OF LEARNING

Through Applications of Learning, students demonstrate and deepen their understanding of basic knowledge and skills. These applied learning skills cross academic disciplines and reinforce the important learning of the disciplines. The ability to use these skills will greatly influence students' success in school, in the workplace and in the community.

SOLVING PROBLEMS

Recognize and investigate problems; formulate and propose solutions supported by reason and evidence.

COMMUNICATING

Express and interpret information and ideas.

USING TECHNOLOGY

Use appropriate instruments, electronic equipment, computers and networks to access information, process ideas and communicate results.

WORKING ON TEAMS

Learn and contribute productively as individuals and as members of groups.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

Recognize and apply connections of important information and ideas within and among learning areas.

Illinois Learning Goals for Fine Arts Achieved --

25.A.3d Visual Arts: Identify and describe the elements of value, perspective and color schemes; the principles of contrast, emphasis and unity; and the expressive qualities of thematic development and sequence.

25.B.3 Compare and contrast the elements and principles in two or more art works that share similar themes.

27.A.3b Compare and contrast how the arts function in ceremony, technology, politics, communication and entertainment.

27.B.3 Know and describe how artists and their works shape culture and increase understanding of societies, past and present.

Learning Activities

The How questions.

 Student Assessment-

Enables student and teacher to measure student's attainment of goals.

What are my scoring characteristics? (What do I want to measure? What is an important outcome of this unit?)

What will indicate that students are novices, practitioners, or experts? (Rubric)

How will I measure and communicate student progress on the goals?

How can students be involved in establishing goals and criteria for the assessment?

How will the assessments be implemented to ensure that they are generative? Seamless and ongoing? Equitable for all students? An authentic task?

How will students demonstrate their knowledge and skills? (Observations, portfolios, projects, performances, oral reports, paper-&-pencil activities, journals, checklists, student self-assessment, student peer assessment, etc.)

Assessment is based upon individual performance in the following formula: 25% self-assessment, 25% peer assessment, 50% instructor assessment. Each assessment is based upon the student-created rubric. The rubric includes categories such as facts, pictures, creativity, use of technology, and teamwork.

The indication that a student is a novice, practitioner, or expert is based upon the student-created rubric. Student progress will be measured using "mini-assessments" which occur twice during the project. The mini-assessment is a combined self and peer assessment. Students will demonstrate their knowledge and skills through this performance-based project, checklists, presentations, and the previously mentioned assessments.

Resources

What resources will you need to do this unit?

Consider all forms - human, technological, community-based, school-based and traditional.

The following resources required for this project are: access to a computer lab for a minimum of a week for an entire class, the school library, and the public library.

Management

How will you manage student work individually and in groups?

How will the room(s) be arranged.

Where will equipment and materials be located to promote maximum use?

Where will students need to work and how can they be accommodated?

How will students with special needs be helped?

The teacher will manage individual work through daily observations and conferences. In addition, students are required to share their individual work on the school file server, which allows the instructor access to each students work. The instructor may then evaluate individual work and make additional judgments about student progress.

The classroom is arranged to allow groups to sit and work together without being disturbed by the activities of others. In addition, because this is a project taught through the art curriculum, many students utilize various art materials for their presentations, including markers, pencils, paints, poster board, and even clay.

Students with special needs may or may not be able to participate in this project as a group member. For instance, a 7th grade student with severe Down's Syndrome was not able to provide any contributions to her group. Her reading level is at grade 2 and her researching abilities are even lower. The instructor gave her an individual project where she could find examples of her artist's work and write several sentences describing what she sees in each art example. In this way, she is still challenged, and her teammates are not held back because of the gap in skill levels. Furthermore, she still shares her work with her team and participates in the group presentation so that she is included in the group dynamics as much as possible.

Unit Evaluation

What will I need to do, be aware of, and/or gather while teaching the unit in order to answer these questions:

What was effective?

What wasn't effective?

What will I do differently next time?

There are two parts to this unit that are extremely effective; cooperative learning groups, and the use of the internet as a research tool.

The challenge to teaching this unit at the middle school level lies in its duration. If this unit is done properly, it may take three full weeks of class-time. As a teacher who only sees students for nine weeks at a time, this is incredibly problematic. As one repeats this unit, it becomes possible to find ways to trim the duration of this unit down to one one-half to two weeks of class time.

The other challenge simply lies in the nature of cooperative groups, which includes conflict, poor social skills, and an extremely broad range of skill levels. Again, this area can improve for the instructor with as experience is gained.

What I will do differently, and continue to improve upon, is challenging the students to work at their highest level possible, which means each student must utilize skills in research, citing sources, creating a bibliography, using correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation, reading comprehension which is demonstrated through paraphrasing, etc. Though this is a project taught in art class, it forces students to exercise fundamental skills which are necessary throughout their educational careers. My challenge as a teacher is lies in challenging students to meet a standard of achievement that is exceptional for a middle school student.