Verses

I. OK, this is an attempt to describe the practice of Teaching Artistry.

Teaching Artistry is the purposeful integration of art with specific knowledge so that people can achieve a certain level of understanding.

When arts are integrated into a workshop, the person can achieve a deeper understanding, and is capable of transferring knowledge to other areas.

Otherwise, the individual achieves a shallow understanding, and is incapable of transferring knowledge.

II. Understanding, whether deep or shallow, comes through inquiry and reflection.

Without inquiry and reflection, there is no understanding.

Knowledge, whether of skills or of concepts, can be of two kinds: expertise and awareness.

The person attaining expertise and awareness of specific skills and concepts should be able to demonstrate what they know.

III. Demonstrations of knowledge and understanding can be set up as formative and summative assessments.

Formative assessments are non-evaluative in nature. They are used during the teaching and learning process to answer three questions:

What do I want to know and understand?
How close am I to that knowledge and understanding?
What will close the gap?

Summative assessments are evaluative in nature. They are used at the end of a learning process to answer three questions:

What do I know and understand?
How deep is my knowledge and understanding, especially in relationship to other people's?
What don’t I know and/or understand that I had intended to learn?

That's it for now, but this kind of rambling and musing about the nature of our work will be continued here, quite possibly forever, but at least for the rest of the month...off and on.

Also: @ the New York Times, a report on the winners of the Race to the Top, in which we learn the sad truth: If it's a competition, somebody has to lose.

Also: Ravi Shankar - Mangalam