me arts ed

Feedback is clear

The Maine Arts Assessment Initiative offered an all day Mega-regional workshop yesterday at the beautiful Ellsworth High School. Forty-four educators attended from surrounding and had the opportunity to spend the morning in two different workshops. The teacher leaders offered workshops on digital portfolios and the digital classroom, gifted and talented music programs, looking outside the school day to fulfill the high school arts requirement, the MLRs and music ensembles, reporting on student progress, student empowerment, and advocacy.

The two afternoon sessions were spent on technology and the Arts and proficiency. The focus for the proficiency session was on answering “what does proficiency look and sound like in the visual or performing arts classroom?” The conversation was very worthwhile. Some teachers left with more questions than answers. The visual art teachers worked in small groups to look at student work samples. Below are some of the questions included from the both visual and performing arts groups.

• Does proficiency really include growth of the student over time?
• How do we chart the artist growth through the process and not just the end result?
• How can we use the data collection to make sure we hold teachers accountable for teaching the curriculum and therefore allowing the kids the opportunity to BE proficient?
• How will students find the time to become proficient? If a student is continually not meeting they would always be behind.

Some of what the teachers learned:

• Being clear with students what the standards are.
• Recording students to demonstrate proficiency.
• There are many aspects to showing proficiency.
• That I am accomplishing more thank I realized but I need to create better documentation.

Thank you to those who attended and a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to the teacher leaders for providing workshops and leadership.

If you are interested in attended a future Mega-regional workshop there are three more scheduled during the school year along with several regional workshops. You can see the MAAI workshop opportunities by clicking here.