Audra Yesnach, Visual Arts teacher at River Bluff High School, discusses her approaches to integrating the Profile of the SC Graduate Competencies into her AP Art class. Learn more about the tool Audra created to merge the competencies with AP guidelines to help students “play and experiment for play’s sake” and focus more on growth and their learning journey through art.
Q: Tell us how you were initially introduced to the Profile of the SC Graduate Competencies.
Audra: Well, the funny thing is I came at it very organically. I wasn't introduced to it in training and it wasn't something that was layered into our professional development at the time. I think I'd actually heard of them, but I hadn't really been introduced to them. I had listened to a previous podcast from your office on the competencies. When I was listening to that, it triggered me into thinking, “Hey, I need to start doing something a little differently,” and I had some different ideas about my own curriculum. So I brought that to our instructional coach, Andrea, and she listened to the problem and everything about it. Then she said, “I think I have a solution for you.” So it wasn’t through training or a top-down sort of introduction. It was really a problem-solving introduction to the competencies which, honestly, I felt like it was the best way to be introduced to them.
Q: When you first were introduced to this strategy of utilizing the competencies, what was it about that strategy that made it appealing to you?
Audra: The biggest issue with this particular situation was being faced with a new sort of approach to this AP Art class. It's actually a whole new portfolio that the College Board set out. There's this whole focus on practice and experimentation with the art materials, supplies, approaches, etc. and students really don't want to do that. They want to jump into the work and do what gets the grade, right? The art project gets the grade, so they’ll do the art project. I wanted them to slow down and actually spend time doing practice and experimentation, which is what they're going to be graded on by the College Board. So I asked myself, “What can I do to get them to dive into practice, experimentation, and play for play’s sake and feel like it was rewarding?” Also, I wondered, “How do you grade something that feels so ungradable?” I’m basically asking them, “Why don't you try and fail, and I’m going to grade you on that?” So we had to come up with an assignment and then a way to assess that assignment that rewarded kids for their level of growth. That was really what it was about; not about grading their product but grading their approach, grading their research, and how those outcomes happen. The competencies helped kids see that development and growth was the goal, and they helped me communicate that to students. Students could be on a level 4 or 5 or 6 because of how much they put into it and how the work develops. From their standpoint, they had something tangible to see how they could be graded on something not product-based. Kids aren't used to that. Then, it made it easier for me because in AP Art, everything is an individual project. Every student has their own goals as they're working along. So how do you take one student who's working in sculpture and another student who's working in drawing and grade them equally on how well they experimented? That was very challenging. The competencies allowed me to see a group of processes and how to score their level of input and work without needing to have a product at the end.
Developing this was actually literally the hardest thing I've done in my teaching career because we are so focused on product and we still grade product. But there has to be some “in between” on this. The competencies allowed an opportunity to do that, and we are even using them in our Art I classes now for that purpose.
Q: What was the first thing that you actually tried using the competencies and what made you start there?
I think for a lot of teachers the most important thing to understand is you need to figure out how that competency works for your content and then tweak it to do what you need. So the first thing I had to do was start figuring out how to use the competency. I asked myself, “Do I need all six levels?” I wasn’t sure at the time, so I had to look at the levels and see. We're now using levels 1 through 3 in Art I, and we're using levels 4 through 6 in AP Art. But when I started, I actually ended up pulling ten separate competencies that I boiled down for specific content we needed. I broke that down for the kids into a “Creation” section and then a “Recording” section. The kids could then see these are the six competencies that will show my work well in this area, and these are four competencies that are going to show how well I can record and report my data to the College Board. The kids were awesome. I literally told them, “We're going to start this process and work on it together. I trust you and you trust me and we're going to get through it.” And they were great about it.
If I had to give a timeline for teachers, this is what I would say the steps are: First, I started by breaking down the competencies themselves and finding the ones that work for me. Then, rewriting them for my subject for my specific usage that stayed true to what the competency was asking but was specific to my content area. Then, I worked on how we could make a tool that specifically worked for this particular assignment. In the end, the way I'm using that tool with them is we're conferencing with that document in hand. They have the document throughout the assignment and they know it's the expectation.
Want to learn more?
Listen to Audra discuss more about her use of competencies in AP Art by listening to her conversation with us in this podcast Episode 42: Growth is the Goal: Competencies in AP Art.
Read about Audra's journey and investigate the PSCG Competencies in AP Art and Design Tool she created.
