 |
|
|
Eleventh-grader Ella Macklin was uncertain of her artistic abilities when she entered
Norman Brown's studio art class at Pittsburgh's Schenley High School. But after making a
watercolor copy of her mother's high school photograph, she decided to explore her family
background through a series of portraits. For two years, she would experiment with
different media and artistic styles; visit art museums and pour over art books and
catalogues; and revise her work in response to comments from her teacher and classmates.
Her detailed journal not only explains aesthetic decisions she made, but also traces her
development as an artist.
This kind of student-directed learning is the goal of Arts PROPEL, a five-year, collaborative effort involving Harvard Project Zero, the Educational Testing Service (ETS), and the teachers and administrators of the Pittsburgh Public Schools. Model programs combining instruction and assessment were developed for middle and high school students in three art forms: music, visual arts, and imaginative writing. In an Arts PROPEL classroom, students approach the art form along three crisscrossing pathways that give Arts PROPEL its name: (1) production--students are inspired to learn the basic skills and principles of the art form by putting their ideas into music, words, or visual form; (2) perception--students study works of art to understand the kinds of choices artists make and to see connections between their own and others' work; (3) reflection--students assess their work according to personal goals and standards of excellence in the field. Arts PROPEL researchers developed two major instruments that use an ongoing process of assessment and self-assessment to reinforce instruction. One, the domain project, encourages students to tackle open-ended problems similar to those undertaken by practicing artists (like Ella Macklin's investigation of portraiture). The other instrument, the portfolio or processfolio, traces the development of examples of student work through each stage of the creative process. Arts PROPEL now is disseminating to educators the project's findings, which are presented along with model curricular units and assessment guidelines in The Arts PROPEL Video Handbook, Arts PROPEL: An Introductory Handbook, and individual handbooks on imaginative writing, music, and visual arts.
Selected readings and materialsMany of these materials can be purchased through Project Zero's eBookstore. Brandt, R. (1987/88, December/January). On assessment in the arts: A conversation with Howard Gardner. Educational Leadership, 45 (4), 30-34. Davidson, L., Ross-Broadus, L., Charlton, J., Scripp, L., & Waanders, J. (1990, March). Recent advances in the state of assessment: Arts PROPEL in Pittsburgh. Paper presented at the Music Educators Convention, Pittsburgh, PA. Davidson, L., & Scripp, L. (1989). Education and development in music from a cognitive perspective. In D. Hargreaves (Ed.), Children and the arts (pp. 59-86). Philadelphia: Open University Press. Davidson, L., & Scripp, L. (1990). Tracing reflective thinking in the performance ensemble. The Quarterly, 1 (1 and 2), 49-62. Gardner, H. (1989). Zero-based arts education: An introduction to Arts PROPEL. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research, 30 (2), 71-83. Gardner, H. (1990, December). The assessment of student learning in the arts. Paper presented at the Conference on Assessment in Art Education, Bosschenhooft, The Netherlands. To be published in the Proceedings. Scripp, L. (1990). Transforming teaching through Arts PROPEL portfolios: A case study of assessing individual student work in the high school ensemble. Cambridge, MA: Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. Seidel, S. (1989, May). Preparing language arts teachers to teach playwriting. Paper presented at the International Symposium for Drama Education Research, Toronto. Wolf, D. (1987/88, December/January). Opening up assessment. Educational Leadership, 45 (4), 24-29. Wolf, D. (1989). Artistic learning as conversation. In D. Hargreaves (Ed.), Children and the arts. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Wolf, D., & Pistone, N. (1991). Taking full measure: Rethinking assessment through the arts. New York: College Entrance Examination Board. Zessoules, R., & Gardner, H. (1991). Authentic assessment: Beyond the buzzword and into the classroom. In V. Perrone (Ed.), Assessment in schools. Washington, DC: ASCD. Zessoules, R., Wolf, D., & Gardner, H. (1988, April). A better balance: Arts PROPEL as an alternative to discipline-based arts education. In J. Burton, A. Lederman, and P. London (Eds.), Beyond DBAE: The case for multiple visions of art education. In the Arts PROPEL approach to instruction and assessment (Grades 7-12), students write poems, compose their own songs, paint portraits, and tackle other "real-life" projects as the starting point for exploring the works of practicing artists. Prepared by Project Zero and the Educational Testing Service, with the help of teachers and administrators from the Pittsburgh Public Schools, the Arts PROPEL handbooks and videotape offer guidelines and models for creating a project-based curriculum and using portfolios to assess student work in the arts. Arts PROPEL: An Introductory Handbook. |
|
Search the Project Zero web site. |
|
[Project Zero] [Research Projects] [History of Project Zero ] [Principal Investigators] [Summer Institute] [Products and Services] [eBookstore] Copyright © 2008 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Fifth Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138, Phone: 617-495-4342, Fax: 617-495-9709 |