Assessment with ATP

What do I want my students to know and do with their time in the studio?

The easy answer is “make art” but the challenge is how to support every student at every skill level to work as artists with increasing independence. Setting clear expectations for what, exactly, that looks like and teaching them is essential, as is providing clear feedback.

I’m working towards this by teaching ATP (the Artistic Thinking Process) as an organizational tool for students to use as they learn and move through the creative process.

I developed this checklist for students to use to assess their progress as they make art and reflect on learning, and also for me to use as I provide differentiated support.

This checklist captures core concepts of successful, independent art-making: finding inspiration, goal setting, planning for making art, creating work that is increasingly better, and reflecting throughout the whole process.

This checklist covers lots of content, so I’m starting my new classes by teaching each element on the list. This week I covered goal setting and planning with my Studio class.

Students worked in groups to list ways that artists plan.

I also had each student set a goal and write it on a sticky note.

This feels like a good start to me but I will have to revisit these concepts regularly to have them become part of our studio culture and habits that are routinely used.