Arts-Based Classroom Evaluation: Impact Assessment Through Student Drawings

Abstract

Classroom evaluations are implemented with the best of intentions – to measure student satisfaction in the classroom. However, survey questions do not always apply to the learning environment, especially in nontraditional classrooms. We want to improve our craft as teachers and as facilitators, but we lose the chance to critically reflect on our practice when our participants do not feel that they can give constructive feedback because of the risk that a less-than-stellar review could jeopardize whether the class is even continued in future years. Is there another way to gather informal feedback from students or participants on a regular basis to build a collaborative and artistic community in our learning spaces? This article introduces student-generated drawings as a tool for teachers in all subject areas, for casual check-ins, general information gathering, and in-depth explorations of student experiences and opinions. Over 1,000 drawings were collected and analyzed to investigate the advantages of this approach in arts-based learning environments.