Yes, you do do data!

We teach fine arts.  We don't do data.

I've heard that byline a number of times, often as a way to opt out of the PLC process.  The three big ideas of a PLC are (1) to ensure that all students learn at high levels, (2) to work collaboratively to achieve that goal, and (3) to use evidence to assess our effectiveness in helping all students learn (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, 2010).  The discussion about evidence morphs into data, data morph into measurements and numbers, and many art educators are resistant to the idea of measuring art.

Certainly, there are dangers in the use of measurement and evaluation in art education.  There is ample research that shows that early judgment can block creativity.  We also teach in a performance rich environment where there is more than one right answer.

Perhaps more influential is our love of the mystery of creativity.  Elizabeth Gilbert's famous TED talk attributes creative power to the muses.  We love the story about the genius who has mysterious powers that are unavailable to the average person.  The problem with data is that the purpose of measurement is to make things less mysterious.

But art is about quality, and we make quality judgments all the time.  Was the concert good?  Who should get the part?  Should these pieces be exhibited?  Do we need to revise the choreography?  Even a yes/no decision is a piece of data.

If we broaden our concept of measurement, data become less scary.  Douglas Hubbard describes measurement as "a quantitatively expressed reduction of uncertainty based on one or more observations" (2010, p.23).

That's it.

With a well-crafted rubric, we can describe different levels of quality for our learning targets, and the rubric will give us a number.  This process is only as good as the quality of the rubric and the reliability of the scorer, so high-quality work is needed in the design and implementation of the rubric.

And yes, even creativity can be measured.  Many artists have described creativity as the production of original work that has value.  We can reduce the uncertainty of whether or not something is original.  As artists, we do it all the time.  Torrance came up with a clever solution in his tests of creative thinking.  Many tasks involve creating an original picture given lines, circles, or other abstract figures.  Scorers are provided with a list of drawings that many people come up with - things which, by definition, are not original.  These drawings do not merit originality points.

Art education cannot be effective if we cling to the story of the muses.  As teachers, it is our responsibility to nurture and develop our students' artistic knowledge, skills, and dispositions.  That must go beyond creating an environment where the muses drop in - it must include some specific teaching and learning.  We know there are essential skills to master.  We know there is essential content to learn.  These things can be taught.  Progress on these things can be evaluated.  Evaluation is measurement's close relative.  Once we've measured, we have something meaningful to put in the grade book.

Yes, we do do data!

References:

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., Eaker, R., and Many, T. (2010). Learning by doing: A handbook for             professional learning communities at work. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Hubbard, D. (2010). How to measure anything: Finding the "intangibles" in business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.