Visual Arts

Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals

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Mission: Why we exist, what is the core of our business, why engage in visual education in school?

Prepare students to be critical thinkers who

• Understand “visual language” to appreciate  and interpret visual art

• Use knowledge and skills to express their ideas visually

• Understand the role of art and how people from different cultures and historical periods express themselves

 

Vision: What do we strive to be? What are we becoming? The purpose of crafting a vision is to develop and maintain creative tension, to acknowledge the difference between our current state and our desired state and provide the direction and energy for continuous improvement.

We will provide an environment where students are engaged in

• Inquiry learning and project-based learning that emphasizes students constructing their own knowledge

• Raising and pursuing their own questions about art and culture

• Common assessments of on-going development of artistic skills

 

Values: What are our collective commitments? What behaviors do we agree to?

The Instructional Core: We commit to: 

• Essential Learning: Backwards-planning thematic units from engaging and authentic assessments that require students to apply core knowledge and skills to demonstrate understanding

• Formative Assessment: Designing on-going student-involved assessments of essential learning objectives throughout units.

• Engaged Classroom Communities: Proactively planning for highly engaged student learning through the use of collaborative structures, inquiry learning, and positive behavior supports 

 

Goals: How will we measure our progress in student achievement?

• Improvement in quality of artwork (artistic technique and choice of art media)

• Improvement in use of art vocabulary- verbal and written.

• Improvement in test and quiz scores.

• Common assessment results that establish growth during the course of the year, and year after year.