1. What Responsibilities Come
with the Freedom to Create?
Robin Peringer
NCECA 2015

2. • We constantly hear students say
“But I am not an artist”.
• Also known as “I can’t do this” …
or “I am not good at drawing”.

4. Our Enduring
Understanding
• what we know to be true,
revolves around the concept of
letting go.

5. wabi-sabi
nurtures all that is authentic by
acknowledging three simple realities:
nothing lasts,
nothing is finished,
and nothing is perfect

6. Letting Go
• Letting go of the idea that you have to be an
artist in order to take an art class. (Isn’t it
wonderful that all students working in clay for
the first time are six years old again and all
thumbs?)
• Letting go of the idea of items being “precious”
and instead focusing on process versus product.
• Letting go of the idea of possession and control
while learning to recycle clay.

7. • Letting go of the notion that an
art teacher needs to be there to
tell you what to do.
• The greatest gift we can give our
students is to have them not
need us.
• And in that lies the letting go by the art
teacher

8. Establishing a Sense of Community
• For the individual learner: The Growth
Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck
• Between the students: Community Building
Activities to establish classroom management
and expectations
• Beyond the classroom:
To make real world
connections

10. Castle Building
Classroom
Community
Activity

13. One Million Bones

14. Growth Mindset
• Dweck suggests taking the mindset test
http://bit.ly/MindsetTest to get a handle on the specific
areas where you can change your thinking about growth
and achievement. “[U]nderstand that you have a
choice,” she concludes. “Even when you feel anxious or
discouraged, you can choose to act in a growth-mindset
way…
You recognize that the
growth of your skills is in
your hands,
and you choose
to make that happen.”

16. • “Teachers’ Mindsets: ‘Every Student Has
Something to Teach Me’” by Carol Dweck in
Educational Horizons, December
2014/January 2015 (Vol. 93, p. 10-14),
www.edhorizons.org

19. Accountability
Letting Go Through Assessment

21. It is all Formative
• Formative Assessment is a doctors check-up
• Summative Assessment is an autopsy
• It is all formative
for the students,
and for us as educators,
keeping in mind the
Growth Mindset

22. Formative Assessment Strategies
• Terminology Ball
• Pit of Despair
• Paint Samples /Tile samples Exit Slips
• White Boards and Essential Questions
• One and Two minutes “Vessels”
• The Ten-Minute Teapot
• Musical Chairs Clay Building
• Poetry writing as assessment
• Ping pong art critique
• 3-2-1

24. Competency Assessment
and the New National
Standards and Frameworks
in the Arts, and their
connection to Teacher
Evaluation Systems

25. The New National Frameworks
A student engaged in creative practices:
• Imagines a mental image or concept.
• Investigates and studies through exploration
or examination.
• Constructs a product by combining or
arranging a series of elements.
• Reflects and thinks deeply about his or her
work.

26. From the College Board…
The findings in A Review of Connections between
the Common Core Standards and the National
Core Arts Standards Framework indicated that
the creative practices of
investigation and reflection are
connected to all ten of the
Anchor Standards for Reading,

27. and all four skills—imagination,
investigation, construction, and
reflection—were strongly represented in
the Anchor Standards for Writing.

28. Additionally, all four creative
practices were found to be
aligned with each of the
Standards for Mathematical
Practice.

30. The Rubric for student work in clay
Distinguished = Advanced or ahead in development or
progress.
Competent = Having the necessary ability, knowledge, or
skill to do something successfully.
Revise = Reconsider and alter (something) in the light of
further evidence.

31. Coil Method Example
The Project will not be considered “complete” until the
following items can be checked off
• Coil pot is approximately 10” tall.
• Coil pot has a combination of smooth surface and textures
• Thicker extruded coils have been altered to be aesthetically
pleasing
• Student chose a Greek, American Indian, Jomon/Japanese
form, or other traditional form as a starting point
• Attachments are working well, no cracks or pieces falling
apart.
• Advice/constructive criticism was taken from the in-progress
critique sessions and applied to improve the coil
• Student created and worked from a template
• Student created a maquette in clay to study the form and
make decisions about change
• Student completes the writing piece, stated below

32. • Concepts/Skills/Directions COIL METHOD
•
Create a coil pot by formulating a visual thesis or idea of what the capabilities are of building and
decorating with coil, research traditional forms and incorporate contemporary ideas into the design.
Originality
- Challenging one’s self to think “outside the box”
-Student can explain visual choices and their
meanings.
-student takes risks and embraces the Growth
Mindset
Participation & Effort
- Use of class time evident (not wasting time)
-student stays after school if more time is needed
- Clean-up is done properly and independently
-Constructive criticism is reviewed and applied to
piece
Craftsmanship
· Work is well-crafted.
-All attachments and seams are scored and
reinforced.
· Surface and edges are smooth.
-Walls consistent in thickness
-Techniques such as decorating with coil or adding
textures are done with care, effort, and control.
4 3 2 1 Comments
Distinguished Competent REVISE REVISE

33. Always have a writing component
** Write about your process of creating your coil
piece:
• What would this be used for?
• Who would want to use it?
• Why did you make the decorative choices that
are on the pinch pot?
• If you had this to do over, what would you do
differently or would you perhaps make a
different form?

34. A Poetry Writing exercise from the MFA Boston
This four-line poem structure was taken from the book
Image to Word: Art and Creative Writing
The Thinker (sculpture by Rodin)
Inward focus
He arches his back and furrows his brow
Strong like the bronze that forms his body
Unbroken concentration
Here is what you do: Choose a work of art and study it. Then create these four
lines:
Line 1: Your own creative and descriptive name for the work of art
Line 2: An action phrase based on what you see
Line 3: A simile (using the word “like”) or metaphor that describes a character or
setting of the work of art
Line 4: Another short name for the work of art

36. Our district has gone with Kim
Marshall for a Teacher
Development and Observation
System
Published Online: July 19, 2013
COMMENTARY
How to Make Teacher Evaluations Accurate,
Fair, and Consistent, By Kim Marshall

37. Classroom visits
• Let’s face it: Teacher evaluation based on
infrequent, announced classroom visits is
inaccurate, ineffective, and dishonest
GOAL: The need to be more frequent, in order
to have your administrator begin to
understand the daily realities of an
arts/ceramics classroom

38. Observation skills
•For starters, it’s essential that all principals
commit to giving honest feedback ensuring
that every principal really does have a good
eye for instruction
GOAL: Do a self evaluation so the YOU can
guide your administrator to understanding
what to look for in your particular teaching
situation

39. Feedback skills
• Principals’ classroom visits will accomplish
very little if they don’t talk to teachers
afterward
GOAL: It is all about the dialogue, so keep it
happening

40. The rubric
• deciding how and when to use the district’s
rubric
• keeping student learning at the center of
supervisory conversations
• GOAL: educate your administrator on YOUR
National Frameworks and the evidence of
student learning through how YOU measure
competencies/use rubrics

41. Teacher Evaluation
• Teachers all over the country are moving to
competency based and evidence gathering
systems of observation and evaluation
• GOAL: As an art teacher, do not accept the
attribution of a percentage of your final
evaluation being based on standardized tests
in areas where or if you have no direct
impact. What are you already doing that
could qualify as a measurable Student
Learning Objective? Or PD Goals?

42. Stay involved
Remember the Growth Mindset
and that you would not evaluate a fish based on
how well he can climb a tree. That would be
stupid.

43. Robin Peringer
peringerr@nashua.edu
Nashua High School South
Nashua, NH