Formative Assessment in the Arts

This chapter discusses formative assessment to the context of arts education while preserving the core features of each. It illustrates how formative assessment in arts classrooms must navigate the tension between pre-determined standards for craft and the elements of the creative process, such as experimentation and risk-taking. Like most models of formative assessment, the Council of Chief State School Officers’s description has a prominent place for learning goals and success criteria. Formative assessment in an arts classroom must be part of the dynamic relationship between the freedom of imagination and the constraints of tradition called for by S. Bailin, where the constraints of tradition include prescribed educational standards, learning goals, and success criteria. The formative assessment literature favors feedback focused on standards, learning targets, or performance criteria, but formative assessment in an arts classroom must be a dynamic relationship between the freedom of imagination and the constraints of tradition.