Backward Design...While organizing a curriculum, we really focused on how to flow and connect every component from top to bottom. This helps support where standards are being learned and how assessments play into the overall course.
At the "top" of our curriculum breakdown, is the UBD (Understanding By Design) course descriptor. This template is a combination of many template examples, however, the main focus is to create an encompassing understanding of what students' will achieve in the course. |
191 Data Collection...Data collection has been a work-in-progress this year in my school. As a Fine Arts Department, we decided that our assessment and data should be performance based.
At the National Conference last spring we picked up a few ideas and have made them our own. Here is an example of how our growth and proficiency data is collected and displayed.
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Step One…
We developed a list of essential skills we wanted to cove in each course. The first week of each course, we have the students rank themselves on each scale using a five point system. At the end of the course, we have them rank themselves on the skills again. The difference in the two rankings is our growth data.
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After developing the overall UBD, focus next on your individual projects. Below is an example of a "Design" project. This document is specific to my school's curriculum, however, it still breaks down even further the Course's UBD and how the project relates to the overall course.
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Step Two…
We rate the student on each skill as we teach the skill and grade the projects. The ratings are directly related to the teacher rubric for each project. We also gather this data in the last column of the Student Target Sheet. This is where we pull our proficiency data. |
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Step Three…
We collect our data into an Excel spreadsheets according to course. Some data is collected quarterly and some over a semester depending on the length of the course. Below is an example of the data collected for the 1st quarter of 2013-2014. |
Common Assessments! Like the documents before, these can be modified/wording changed, etc. to what best fits your needs. These have been a helpful tool on creating an assessment that supports alignment with the standards. I also include a "Student Rubric" in conjunction, as a communication piece with students.
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Step Four…
Finally we put our data in the form below. This helps us and our administration with data collection, planning of next steps, and evaluating effectiveness of our programs.
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Creating your own….Here are the blank documents for your own modification.
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Our Program….We were fortunate enough to develop our program from the bottom up. Although it was necessary to obtain a CTE certification, our administration was open to entirely revamping out program.
Falcon Middle School has two art teachers (a 2D and a 3D teacher). We offer two classes to our 6th grade students, four classes to our 7th grade students, and eight classes to our 8th grade students. We offer Art II to 7th and 8th grade students and Art III to 8th grade students. Below is the flowchart for how our program progresses.
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