The instructional strategies and planned supports used during this learning segment are designed for the range of modalities and ability levels observed in this classroom and correspond to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). All students in the classroom are able to draw to some extent and have drawn before; they are familiar with drawing tools and supplies such as pencils, markers, and paper.

Lessons in this learning segment are designed to move the whole class from what they can do (draw based on a pre-existing schema for how things are thought to look) to what they cannot do (achieve a level of realism in their drawings through careful observation of natural and man-made objects). In this way students will gradually and sequentially transition from assisted to independent learning.

To facilitate this transition students are provided with scaffolded instruction. Thus during the first lesson of the learning segment, students are given a less complex two-dimensional drawing from which to copy and are shown through teacher demonstration the correct procedure for completing the drawing. This drawing is already defined by contour lines, so that students are copying the lines already present on the original.

During the second lesson, students are tasked with copying the contours of their hand, which is a more complex three-dimensional object, and for which they must use visual-spatial judgment to translate this object to a series of contour lines on a two-dimensional drawing; however, students are again provided with a teacher demonstration and visual examples to use as models.

During the third lesson, students are again tasked with translating three-dimensional objects to two-dimensional drawings, but are provided individual assistance as needed; i.e., a supporting scaffold is given as needed then removed as students begin constructing their own knowledge as they work independently.

Common misunderstandings within my focus are students’ lack of understanding of the concept of contour line drawings. A contour line drawing consists of defining the edges of objects using lines to represent these edges. Outside edges define the shape of an object, while inside edges delineate details within the object. This misunderstanding is addressed by showing visual examples of contour line drawings and explaining that they are constructed using the element of line only, while pointing out what they do not include (indications of shading, color, or texture).

This misunderstanding is also addressed through modeling by the teacher that gives students an idea of how to approach a contour line drawing and the rationale for the placement of lines. Misunderstandings are further addressed by means of one-on-one help as the teacher circulates around the room during students’ work time and checks for understanding by examining the progress of students’ drawings and asking and answering questions.

A common error for students working with the concept of contour line drawing is moving too quickly so that they continue to draw what they think they see or what they think the object should look like rather than carefully observing the actual object and striving to translate the edges of that object to lines on paper. This error is addressed through demonstration and individual feedback as the instructor circulates around the room to offer help to struggling students and check for understanding. This error is also addressed during an analysis/critique exercise at the end of the lesson, for which the teacher holds up one or two drawings done by students and asks them whether or not they can be considered contour line drawings and why they should be considered as such (i.e., what are the defining characteristics of the drawings?]

The design or adaptation of my planned assessments allows students with specific needs to demonstrate their learning in the following ways: the teacher will provide the students with all materials. Although students are expected to bring their own pencils to class, students who do not have pencils will be allowed to borrow them (socio-economic). The gifted students, if they are finished with the assignment early, will be expected to assist classmates who may need help, or to begin working on another drawing to gain more practice (ability levels). The lesson will include verbal instruction and a class discussion (auditory learner); visual examples and a drawing assignment (visual learner); drawing with marker on paper to develop hand-eye coordination (tactile/kinesthetic learner).

The art classroom is a friendly place in which students are comfortable and surroundings and work areas are familiar, and in which they have adequate time to complete challenging but realistic tasks with the support of the teacher and fellow classmates (relaxed alertness); students are fully engaged throughout the learning segment in a teacher-designed and -guided project in which they learn techniques to complete contour line drawings using various techniques (orchestrated immersion); given that students entering the Pseudo-Naturalistic stage of artistic development are becoming very critical of their own success in achieving realism in their drawings, the content of the lesson will be explained as a way to help them improve their drawing skills, thereby making it relevant to their lived experience (active processing).

ELL students and/or those with IEPs addressing reading/writing fluency and comprehension are accommodated by being given verbal as well as written instructions, and the teacher answers all questions or rephrases questions so that students will understand. The teacher offers extra hands-on help to those students who may have difficulty processing written and verbal instructions so that they may correctly perform the assigned drawing tasks. Higher-performing students who are finished with the task early are encouraged to continue practicing by making other drawings as time allows.

Throughout the segment I successfully supported student learning of the central focus for the whole class as well as students who needed greater support or challenge. For example, in [reference to video clip] I use scaffolding in scenes whereby I assist students who need greater support. Thus at [reference to video clip] I help Student 1 with her continuous contour-line drawing by modeling the technique for her. First I start her drawing, explain the process by which I am creating the drawing as following the edges of her hand with my eyes and then drawing what I see on the paper. Using the vocabulary word “contour” to describe the edges of her hand, I then encourage her finish the drawing as best she can using the same technique that I just showed her, starting from where I left off on her paper.

I also provide individual support for Student 2 at [reference to video clip] when she asks me how to fold her paper for the blind continuous contour-line drawing. During this scene I show her how to fold her paper and position it depending on whether she is right- or left-handed, and then how to position her hand to start her drawing. Then at [reference to video clip] I help Student 3 to correctly complete his continuous contour-line drawing using the proper method. First I begin his drawing for him as I did earlier for Student 1, such that I model the technique and explain the process as I am doing it; then I have him start where I left off while encouraging him to finish the drawing using the same technique (this is particularly clear on the video at [reference to video clip].

For students who needed greater challenge during the learning segment, either because they completed the drawing tasks efficiently and effectively or inefficiently and ineffectively, I encouraged them to gain further practice by creating more drawings than the task originally called for [reference to video clip]. The primary changs I would make to my instruction is that I would explain and demonstrate the concepts of blind continuous and continuous line contour drawings by dividing them into separate tasks with separate demonstrations and separate classroom critiques.

During the lesson shown, I explained both of these concepts at the beginning of the class, demonstrated both concepts together, and then asked the students to do both sequentially and without a break. So in [reference to video clip], when I ask students to do the second part of the task for which they are allowed to look at their paper while they are drawing (i.e., not draw blind), I had to explain the concepts again at [reference to video clip], thus wasting time since I had already explained and demonstrated the same ideas at the beginning of class.

I think that the changes mentioned above would improve student learning based on observational evidence I obtained during another class (i.e., not the focus class) for which the cooperating teacher led the same lesson: she explained, demonstrated, and assigned one concept, then explained, demonstrated, and assigned the second concept, so that each became a separate, self-contained task that was easier for students to comprehend and remember; and yet the tasks built one upon the other. She also had students discuss and critique their work at the end of each individual task, rather than at the end of the entire lesson as I did during [reference to video clip]. Thus the cooperating teacher applied the psychological concept of chunking much more effectively than I.

I cannot assert definitively that her method of breaking the lesson into smaller, more “digestible” bits resulted in better student work overall for these particular tasks (given the wide range of ability levels in each classroom); however, that the cooperating teacher did not need to explain to the students the concepts and techniques of the lesson’s central focus a second time before they were able to start the second task as I had to do at [reference to video clip] is evidence in itself that they were more efficiently able to transfer these concepts to the production of their artwork. Applied consistently throughout a learning segment or unit, chunking should facilitate the scaffolding of concepts and techniques from one lesson to the next and help with long-term retention of learned knowledge and skills.

Indeed, George Miller showed in his book The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information that “the probability of recall is greater when chunking is used.” Also, Lindley (1966) showed that … “[chunking] makes it easier for an individual to recall and maintain information in memory …” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)). Additionally, as Marzano states in The Art and Science of Teaching (2007), “Of vital importance to the success of critical input experiences is the extent to which the teacher organizes the experience into small chunks.”

Student learning for the whole class can be summarized quantitatively through an analysis of data collected from a criterion-referenced pre- / post-assessment, which was administered to fourth graders at the beginning and end of the three-lesson learning segment. This learning segment was embedded within a four-lesson unit. The criterion measured by this assessment is that students should learn vocabulary related to the central focus of the four-lesson unit, including words such as “contour,” “left brain,” and “right brain.” A summary of the data collected from the pre- / post-assessment for the whole class as well as for the focus students is presented in Fig. 1a above, and is based on an analysis of the information provided in Figs. 1b–c directly below it. The purpose of the pre- / post-assessment was to evaluate (at minimum) students’ ability to recall and/or (at best) understand important concepts and associated vocabulary related to the various performance tasks within the learning segment. Figs. 1b–c show detailed results.

Two question types were used: completion (C) and true/false (TF). Answer options were not provided with completion-type items. Students’ answers for both item types were scored as either correct or incorrect, as indicated in the tables as C (correct) and I (incorrect). Thus in considering quantitative student learning for the whole class, Fig. 1a shows a complete reversal in the percentage of students’ correct versus incorrect responses to assessment items; while only 27% of students’ responses were correct at the beginning of the learning segment, only 25% were incorrect at the end. This is a positive statistic providing compelling quantitative evidence of student learning related to the central focus.

Although the change is dramatic, one might nonetheless extrapolate these percentages to a whole class grade: for the pre-assessment they would certainly earn a letter grade of F, but for the post-assessment they would still only earn a C+. It must be pointed out that there are two factors skewing the post-assessment results and suppressing the percentage of correct responses so that one may confidently assert that the raw data does not accurately reflect the amount of student learning that actually occurred. Firstly, time constraints made it necessary for the post-assessment to be administered at the end of the three-lesson learning segment rather than at the end of the four-lesson unit. It was during the fourth lesson in which students were introduced to the concept and technique of sketching (not discussed in-depth during the first three lessons).

Due to external circumstances this situation could not have been foreseen when the pre-assessment was administered, and so item no. 1, for which “sketch” was the correct response, was included. For the sake of consistency, then, the post-assessment was administered with all items intact, including item no. 1. Therefore on the post-assessment, while 91% (21/23) of the whole class responded correctly to each of the completion type items for which the concepts were covered in-depth during the learning segment (nos. 2–4, “contour,” “continuous,” and “proportion” respectively), only 39% (9/14) of the whole class responded correctly to “sketch,” the vocabulary word associated with completion-type item no. 1, and which was not taught during the learning segment. Excluding item no. 1 from the post-assessment results and recalculating the percentages to more accurately reflect the content of the actual lessons taught, the result would be 83% total correct responses for the whole class.

If we extrapolate the pattern identified above, where 91% (21/23) of student responded correctly to each completion-type item for which the concept was covered in-depth during the learning segment, and apply the same percentage to item no. 1, we would arrive at the same percentage of total correct responses (83%). While still only bumping the whole-class letter grade up to B-, this more accurate result is evidence that the class as a whole was able to exhibit a 55% increase in knowledge of the concepts and vocabulary related to the central focus than they were previously able to do. A second factor skewing the post-assessment results and suppressing the percentage of correct responses appears to stem from the inclusion of true/false-type items in the assessment. Indeed, the two true/false-type items (nos. 5–6) appear to be distorting the results of both the pre- and post-assessment. For example, on the pre-assessment, the majority of students in the whole class responded correctly to nos. 5–6 (77% and 82% respectively), for which “T” was the correct response to both.

Nonetheless, classroom discussion during the introduction of the first lesson of the learning segment, in which the corresponding concept of left- and right-brain thinking was introduced, revealed that the vast majority of students were unfamiliar with these terms and could not answer questions related to these concepts correctly. It is therefore reasonable to infer from this that “T” was the default guess for this group of students when confronted with true/false type items covering concepts for which they were unfamiliar. Interestingly, fewer students in the whole class selected the correct response to these same items on the post-assessment (74% and 56% respectively), even though the concept of left- and right-brain thinking had been discussed during all three lessons of the learning segment and a few students were even able to correctly answer relevant questions during classroom discussions.

The percentage spread of correct to incorrect responses between items no. 5–6 increases significantly from five on the pre-assessment to eighteen on the post-assessment, again indicating that students were simply guessing. The reason for this inference is that these two items are worded such that if one is true, the other must also be true, and if one is false the other must also be false. If students had read, comprehended, and logically thought these statements through, they would have been compelled to respond to both as either “T” or “F.” However, many split their responses between the two. It is thus also reasonable to infer that many of the students, though now recognizing the concepts and terminology covered by these item statements, were unsure of the correct responses. They may have even assumed that their guesses of “T” on the pre-assessment must have been incorrect, so instead guessed “F.”

These patterns suggest that true/false-type items such as these may have less validity than other types of assessment items, such as the completion-type items that were used for nos. 1–4. In the case of this pre- / post-assessment, the inclusion of true/false-type items seems to have skewed the data, making it appear as if students in the whole class had more total knowledge of the concepts and vocabulary related to the central focus prior to the learning segment, and perhaps that they knew a bit less than they did once the learning segment had been completed. These types of items also reveal that mere recognition of a concept and related vocabulary such as “left-brain” and “right-brain” may signal a kind of incomplete learning that indicates familiarity, but that does not necessarily lead to the kind of knowledge that can be effectively applied.

Based on the data presented above, my next step for whole-class instruction is to introduce the technique of sketching with a similar exercise as those used for contour-line drawing. Sketching is a method of art production that is more forgiving than the technique of contour line drawing. Thus in practicing drawing on the right side of the brain, sketching allows students to develop their artwork in a more fluid manner to arrive at solutions that more accurately reflect the realistic form of their subject matter; if they begin to sketch an object such as a bird using left-brain schematic thinking, they are able to make corrections while they work using right-brain observation as they come to an awareness of their error, either through self-realization or external feedback by the instructor.

In the next lesson therefore the whole class will make practice sketches of birds in preparation for a later lesson in which they will make more complex and detailed bird drawings inspired by the prints of John James Audubon, thereby placing their learning within an historical art context. Based again on the data analyzed above, the next step for the group of focus students would essentially parallel that of the whole class, but each would receive more individual attention than would be required by most of the other students in the class. This would likely take the form of instructor intervention during learning tasks, where I start some part of their drawing for them while explaining what I am doing, then have them finish it. Based on the student work samples submitted in [name of task], this method of assistance appeared to result in better comprehension evidenced by an overall improvement in their work. These individuals would also receive accommodations such as extra time to complete assignments. For the whole class, each task would be explained, demonstrated, and assigned separately, so that these self-contained tasks will be easier for students to comprehend and remember because each task will build one upon the other.

On the post-assessment, for which an analysis of student learning was presented above, 91% of the whole class responded correctly to completion type items related to the concepts taught during the learning segment, but only 39% of the whole class responded correctly to “sketch,” a concept that was not taught during the learning segment. The benefits of sketching are described above, and links my next step to students’ prior academic learning that has heretofore corresponded to Lowenfeld’s The Dawning Realism stage of artistic development, whereby students are becoming more critical of their own work but continue to use schema to create their drawings.

Moving students from contour line drawing to sketching will help to bring students to a further awareness of that schema and allow them to begin transitioning into the Pseudo-Naturalistic stage of artistic development, within which they are becoming very critical of their own success in achieving realism in their drawings. Moreover, breaking the next lessons into smaller, more “digestible” bits should result in better student work overall, facilitate the scaffolding of concepts and techniques from one lesson to the next, and help with long-term retention of learned knowledge and skills. These ideas related to chunking are based on the theories and writings of Lindley, Marzano, and Miller as already described above.