Faculty Name	Benjy Davies	Year/Term			Spring 2007-2008
Course Number & Title	ART 11404 Printmaking		Select One:	PLAN
Assessment Focus Describe the concept or learning activity that is the focus of assessment. ie. class participation, understanding photo- synthesis; or research paper; persuasive speech	Artist Statement Students enrolled in the BFA Program are expected to be able to present their ideas in a coherent fashion in written form. Students will write an artist statement about one piece of work they have created in class.
Assessment Strategy Outline the project. What is your plan for measuring learning? Describe/attach pre- post- scales, instruments, rubrics.	The attached Rubric will be used to assess students’ success at creating a quality artist statement.
Assessment Result Report and analyze your results. What is your evidence that students achieved the learning objective you identified? Provide quantitative evidence of analysis.	Students submitted artist statements at two points in the semester: just prior to midterms and as a component of their final portfolio. Ten students were required to submit statements for each assessment. The results are as follows: First Assessment: High score: 6, low score 4, two students did not submit, for an average score of 4.1 After the first assessment, the students’ work was discussed/critiqued in class, and students were given the opportunity to rewrite/revise the statement. The students then resubmitted the same assessment as part of their final portfolio. The results are as follows: Second Assessment: High score 8, Low score 3, all students submitted, for an average score of 4.8. While this represents a significant improvement, the statements, as a whole, were still woefully lacking. Most of the improvement was a result of greater completion (all students submitted), and the correction of the most obvious mechanical errors-grammar, punctuation, and length. The substance of the writing was only marginally improved, and only in one or two students.
Improvement Strategy As a result of your assessment project, what will you do differently in this course?	Some of the confusion in writing an artists statement seems to be the goals of the document. While the rubric states criteria that can be used to assess writing in general, it does not make it clear that the goal of the artist statement is to help the viewer understand and appreciate the artwork. Most of the students seemed to focus their efforts on either expository writing regarding their life and opinions about art, or their process for making it. While these musings may be of some use in understanding the artists mindset in making the work, the main goal of the effort (persuasion) was not clear to the students. Additionally, the students’ writing skills were weak across the board, and dismal in about half the students. To remedy this weakness, the BFA program has included a requirement of writing an artist statement in every course, with clear program-wide standards. Hopefully, the repetition and consistent tutelage of the faculty will ameliorate the generally poor writing skills to some degree.

University of Rio Grande AQIP

Faculty Course Assessment of Student Learning (rev02Oct06)

Rubric used for this assessment