Rationale – HSC Assessment Task 2, Term 1.

Case Study 3: Appropriation Art

This case study and unit assessment is designed to utilise and build upon
students learning and skills previously developed in the preliminary and
beginning HSC course. Account has also being taken of the needs of diverse
learners through offering flexibility in choice of content, a variety of
assessment tasks and the explicit instruction of expectations, outcomes and
modes of delivery with online and print based options. The focus is on
fostering students to develop a deep knowledge, maintain high expectations
and seek knowledge integration of their learning.

The teaching and learning strategy for this assessment and case study is to
give students an authentic taste of independent inquiry and research. A
learning scaffold has been engaged in by students through the teacher
modeling the type of research, documentation and enquiry expected in a
prior case study. Now class time will be used to reinforce expectations,
model task outcomes by revisiting past examples and providing one on one
instruction and assistance.
Instruction can then be tailored to suit the diverse learning needs of
individual students.

Students receive explicit instruction on what is required for the successful

completion of the task and careful attention is paid to ensuring that before
students begin the case study that the assessment task is clearly
understood. All information of syllabus outcomes, learn to’s and about’s as
well as task description and assessment criteria is given to students in both
hard copy and available electronically. The key competencies of Collecting,
Analysing and Organising Information and Communicating Ideas and
Information are embedded within the tasks of research, content and
resource in the assessment case study. For students to successfully
complete the tasks they must engage in these key competencies.

In light of NSW DET Quality Teaching Framework elements, Students

undertaking this assessment will be challenged to explore their own thinking
about an artwork or artist after first researching the artists’ intent
(knowledge as problematic). In order for students to achieve a high level of
success in this task they will have to learn to provide their own direction of
research although they will be assisted by an explicit quality criterion. Finally
students will be utilising their background knowledge of research
conventions and practices and prior teacher modeled case studies to join the
dots in their research and provide insight into their understanding of its
significance (connectedness).

Particularly important in this assessment is the registration of all students’

progress, this is a vital component in maintaining an awareness of where the
student is in relation to the assessment and gives ample opportunity for the
students to monitor their progress with the teacher. The different tasks
themselves also provide students with various ways to explore art historical
and critical studies that maintain the explicit format of the stage 6 syllabus
that students must use in their HSC examination.

Quintessentially the act of research and its documentation promote students

literacy, the tasks themselves are the strategy in engaging in those
activities. However not all students find academic work interesting or easy.
Thought has been given to include as a significant part of the assessment a
task that will hopefully inspire those students to engage in the ‘necessary’
research in order to focus on creating a visual document using their visual
literacy in its development. Numeracy is acknowledged for its vital use in a
visual work to equally aid the ‘reading’ of an artwork and it’s understand it
through the inclusion of measurement, time, shape etc. These facets are
actively promoted when using visual mediums to document understanding.

In order for students to properly complete this case study assessment task
they will require access to research resources and materials. Hypothetically
for this assessment it has been contrived in light of the reference
expectations that students will have access to online academic databases
similar to universities. It is also taken for granted that students have some
basic form of internet and computer access to utilise those resources along
with the prior knowledge on how to use them. Optimally a classroom
equipped with computer, projection and internet service along with printing
would provide an environment for intended support for this task. The
facilities available to students to construct/ design their visual resource
would also have to be considered as a factor in deciding the types of choices
that students make to represent their case study.

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