Assessments

This week is assessment week for first years. I have to fill in feedback sheets and mark them according to learning outcomes.

This is where I start to get the collywobbles. These are the learning outcomes for the Transformations brief:

Code 4B4: Explore different methods of recording information from a range of sources: 20 percent

Code 4C3: Demonstrate the applications of material techniques, processes and practices in an appropriate form: 40 percent

Code 4D3: Use drawing skills / visualization techniques to communicate concepts and ideas: 40 percent

It’s all rubbish to me and makes no sense whatsoever, so I’m reduced to making either a stab in the dark or going back to older criteria such as, was the student engaged and interested and did they make anything with some purpose and commitment. What if they used drawing skills to discover something? I thought graphic designers communicated concepts and fine artists were involved with other stuff, and what is ‘an appropriate form’. I look hard for inappropriate forms and mark them very highly.

These are the answers to fill in the boxes if you can’t think of anything to say. I didn’t use any but they are indicative of where education at degree level now stands. Formulaic pap.

Transformations

70+

You have understood and applied the key concepts introduced within the first brief. Well done and congratulations in passing the first element of your degree programme.

Presentation is another key issue and you have been brave enough to single out one piece and present it appropriately, well done.

The final work selected for presentation is of an excellent quality. You have employed a number of drawing techniques, experimented with a wide range of materials and processes and used the workshop inductions well.

Your studio book is excellent and documents information from a wide range of sources. Make sure you continue working at this standard.

60+

Don’t forget the key issue that lies at the centre of the module. Ideas come out of working with materials and processes, the more pieces of work you have developed the easier it will be to select and evaluate. 

Presentation is another key issue and you have been brave enough to single out one piece and present it appropriately, well done.

The final work selected for presentation is of a very good quality. You have employed a number of drawing techniques, experimented with a very good range of materials and processes and used the workshop inductions well.

Your studio book is very good; you could however improve the questioning and possibility development in relation to the images used.

50+

Art work evolves at different paces and you will hopefully have experienced this if only to a small extent in this short module. This may mean that your work has not evolved as fast as you would like it too or it may have changed so quickly you don’t feel you have had time to properly evaluate what has happened. Don’t worry, it’s early days and art isn’t like maths, there is no right or wrong, just a series of changes that unfold into hopefully surprising new territories. 

Presentation is another key issue and you could have been brave enough to single out one piece and present it appropriately.

The final work selected for presentation is of a good quality. You have employed a number of drawing techniques, experimented with a good range of materials and processes and used the workshop inductions well.

Your studio book is good. It is though important that you start pushing this area of your work further as it will become a vital underpinning element to your practice as a whole.

40+

Remember that one of the most important things for you to do this year is to find a creative strategy/s that suits your way of working and ensures that you can always be busy.

Presentation is another key issue and you could have been brave enough to single out one piece and present it appropriately. You have employed some drawing techniques, experimented with a fair range of materials and processes and engaged in the workshop inductions.

The final work selected for presentation is satisfactory. Your studio book is satisfactory. However, it is important that you start pushing this area of your work further as it will become a vital underpinning element of your practice as a whole.

I’m glad that the student will always be busy. To think I actually wrote bits of this stuff. Anyway done now and feedback next week. The hardest thing for me is that the students lose two weeks working time, when they could be working in the studios, they are hanging about fretting over what mark they will get. Studios are locked down for assessments and then the following week students have to get one to one tutorials for their assessment feedback. I could have just had a word or two in their ear in the studio and confirmed that time spent making was the best way to learn.