Content Proposal
The Lack of Online Peer Review for AP Studio Art Students
EDM-665 On Line Course Development
EDM-613 Media Asset Creation
Education Media Design & Technology MS Program
Full Sail University
Prepared by:
Cindi A. Jobe
March 5, 2010
Thesis Abstract
Designing a Ning social network site that assists Advanced Placement Art students in portfolio creation would be a valuable utilization of Web 2.0 technologies in education. The AP art experience is meant to be rigorous, culminating in the creation of a portfolio submitted to The College Board. Missing in the process has been an available network of peers and teachers with portfolio experience to provide support outside the classroom. Students deserve the opportunity to experience a technologically advanced pre-assessment process that can provide that support. A Ning site utilizing a collaborative environment through social networking would solve this problem for AP students. The ability to share and critique artwork online would better prepare these students’ portfolios for AP presentation.
Introduction
Problem Addressed
Social networking is a daily ritual for digital natives, a demographic in which most of the high school population falls. Although new Web 2.0 technologies have proven to engage and motivate our students, very few advanced, college-prep students are presently receiving instructional design that properly utilizes these trends in their classrooms (Solomon & Schrum, 2007).
The lack of online peer review opportunities for Advanced Placement (AP) Art Studio students as they prepare portfolios can be solved by designing and utilizing a Ning social network site that students and their teachers could access for posting artwork, commenting and critiquing and even for formal evaluation purposes. Educational technology can be applied through the usual pedagogical methods of analysis, evaluation and creation as students and teachers interact using traditional assessment methods but through more progressive online means.
Target Audience
This website is designed for a single classroom of AP art students preparing portfolios within the College Board program and their teachers but it could grow to include a larger demographic. This website design could be modified for other learning environments or age groups. Former AP Art alumni now in the college ranks could also be encouraged to check in to offer advice and support with invitation.
Sharing the project
This project was created using Ning. The final output is a social networking site, which hosts student artwork, video of work in progress, a blog for students to comment on the work, individual pages for each student to present their work, and support information such as links to AP Central and other applicable resources. The project will be shared through access to the website, but could be introduced through a screenflow tutorial that takes the viewer on a tour of the site, its pages and the information hosted on the site.
Goals and Objectives
Instructional Goal
The instructional goal of this media project is to address the problem of the lack of online peer review in AP studio art by encouraging collaboration and interaction of these students and their teachers through a Ning social networking site. As AP Art teachers lead their students through the process of creating their portfolios, there are very specific problem-based standards that are required by the College Board for inclusion in the portfolio that will be linked, discussed, and created as part of the Ning website process.
The goal will be to address critical questions concerning design quality, idea development, and invite discovery, interpretation and understanding (Daley, 2009). Critiquing through a social network allows for asynchronous communication, but can also be the beginning of synchronous interaction through other formats, such as IM or chatting. As students develop connections with other students in the AP program that participate on the site, they will begin to develop peer review relationships naturally with those students whose comments make connections for them.
Learning Domain
Students will primarily gain learning within the cognitive and affective learning domains during this instructional process. Within the cognitive domain, students will identify projects to interpret as artwork, brainstorm ideas and analyze their worth as an art project, design and construct visual artwork to solve the problem, share and defend their artwork online, and also provide feedback for others artwork. Within the affective domain, the student will assign appreciation to artwork, define the Elements and Principles of Art in the work, discuss and respond to suggestions from peers, demonstrate an understanding of the critiquing process, and then attempt to revise their artwork based on the suggested revisions. According to Project Zero’s “Studio Thinking Project” (2010), one of the three classroom structures that every instructional art opportunity should engage in is critique. This process provides structure for reflection, gives pause to observation, and allows students to focus while work is in progress.
Learning Objectives
· Students will investigate formal and conceptual issues as they relate to their AP portfolio, blogging and discussing these ideas online and in their physical sketchbook.
· Students will create artwork that involves informed, critical decision making through brainstorming, discussion and production, posting the progression and finished work on the AP Sketchbook Ning site.
· Students will apply prior knowledge of the Elements and Principles of Art in their work, posting photos and videos of their creative process.
· Students will participate in critiques of their work and that of their peers to develop independent thinking skills while they respond to the suggestions of their peers and teachers on the Ning AP Sketchbook site.
Presentation
Instructional Approach
With the onset of 21st century online communities, one learning theory that has further established itself in online learning is Communities of Practice. Lave and Wenger (1998) state that a primary focus of this type of learning theory is the social participation. There must be a shared domain of interest where members interact and engage in activities through practice. Social networking, for example, would help inform art students as they gain interactive assistance with their portfolio preparations. This form of peer and teacher review can balance the stress of the portfolio process with the joy of creativity.
Although the kind of e- portfolio utilized in a study by Ellison and Wu (2008) is of the literary type, their research transfers comparatively with other e-portfolios, supporting the above learning theory. The benefits and similarities of the electronic portfolio within the digital environment of a social network combined with blogging aligns nicely with a typical classroom critiquing situation in AP art. The benefits of an online social network increase the amount of interaction and therefore the scope of feedback. Ellison and Wu (2008) report an increase in student engagement via this act of portfolio creation and peer online review. This process is more learner-centered and therefore more advantageous to the student as it harnesses self-expression and intrinsic motivation.
Online photo galleries and social networking are also highlighted as positive ways to promote interactions between artists. Although taken from a college population, Cifuentes, Carpenter, and Bula (2006) highlight many facts that apply to an Advanced Placement high school student’s portfolio experience. One educational rationale discussed by these authors is the promotion of collaborative online interpretations and the enhancement of visual literacy. Many students at the AP Art Studio level have never looked at another student’s work of the same level, other than those within their own classroom or program. These authors describe the online interactions of their students through their online collaborative environment, Seeing Culture as a form of telecollaboration. They recommend online tools such as weblogs, RSS, wikis, and other social networking sites. They suggest that learners should be allowed to publicly express their thoughts and opinions, post artwork and sketches, and freely comment on each other’s work.
Lesson Structure
The Ning website will be introduced initially to students through a visual “visit” of the site by the teacher to introduce the website itself and it’s purpose in the class. The students will be taken through a step-by-step process to develop their own page on the Ning site, something like an artist’s statement. Students will then begin by adding still photos of their first chosen project and blog about their own work. Their next assignment will be to visit other students’ pages, and comment at least once on two other students’ work. Following the initial introductory assignment, the students will begin telling the story of the process of their first e-portfolio project for the site. A demonstration will be provided to show the inclusion of video, commentary and even music so that the process can be fun and educational. This digital story of the process of creation will then be uploaded to their page on the site. This ongoing process of interaction and collaboration will continue with a basic schedule of posting, blogging and reflection until an e-portfolio” of the student’s work has been created. The culmination of the lesson will be the presentation of the actual final portfolio online, critiqued by the student’s peers and teacher before submission to the College Board.
Evaluation
Since reflection and engagement are inherent in this project, and project-based studio learning is the vehicle, formative assessment will be evident in the daily process of each student’s learning through self-reflection and finally culminating in their portfolio presentation. According to Sabol (2004) art classroom assessment should include feedback on a number of criteria, including the Elements and Principles of Art, creativity, technical skill, personal expression, and improvement or growth. These criteria are also included in the College Board AP Central website as a performance based visual exam. The unifying idea for the portfolio is that the student focuses on making decisions about how to apply the principles and elements of art to create works of art that convey meaning within their portfolio presentation. (http://apcentral.collegeboard.com)
In terms of ongoing evaluation, the AP art students and their teachers will be able to evaluate the success of the project based on the scores received on their portfolio submissions through scoring and comments from the readers of the College Board. Built into the actual Ning site itself is also the reflection and feedback process online. This social networking process is a valuable and practical vehicle for the ongoing discussion and critique of what aspects of the Ning site helped with artwork and portfolio creation and what should be added for the following year’s site.
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Cindi Jobe said...
