Effective Evaluation Writting

This document was written by Garry Barker for the BA(Hons) Elective students, there is much that you can take from this when you write your evaluations at the end of your own modules.

Reflective writing

Students are asked to reflect upon their experience and evaluate it. These evaluations are usually between 500 and 1000 words long. Students have asked if we can produce a model of what is good and bad practice. This is an attempt to do this, but it must be used very carefully. It is not to be used as a model to copy, only as a device or tool to lead students towards self-reflexion. There are many ways of expressing ideas and because this is designed as a teaching and learning tool it is by its very nature simplistic and crude.

Evaluation 1

This evaluation is descriptive and it contains little reflection. It is also rather short, 273 words, so would not count as a significant effort. (A minimum of 450 words is needed for a 500 word evaluation).

We were all told to collect objects before the course started and I picked some old dolls that my sister didn’t want anymore. I had to cast some shapes from the objects I had collected in plaster. I was fed up as it took all day as I didn’t mix the plaster correctly and had to do it all again and clean up all the dolls from the first attempt.

We then did another exercise while the plaster was left to harden, which consisted of pressing objects into clay, so that they left an impression. We then went on to pour plaster over these impressions and when dry we had a series of new forms. The next day we started building new objects out of combinations of the casts we made the day before. We used clay to hold the pieces together.

When I had one I liked, I had to make a new cast and this was hard work, as you had to make lots of small moulds to avoid undercuts. Once you had the idea, you could go on and make anything you wanted. I decided I liked the idea of a dolls face with legs coming out of its ears, so did that.

I don’t think the tutor liked my work and she was very critical of me not doing lots of variations. I didn’t agree with her opinion and still think the final piece is very good and my friends on the course agree. I was very pleased with the final result and thought I had done quite well. I’d like to do more of this in the future.

• The evaluation describes what happened, sometimes mentioning past experiences, sometimes anticipating the future but all in the context of an account of the event.
• There are some references to emotional reactions but no exploration of how these relate to behaviour.
• Ideas are taken up without questioning them or considering them in depth.
• The account is written only from one point of view. External information is mentioned but its impact on behaviour is not considered. One point is made at a time and ideas are not linked.

Evaluation 2

This evaluation is also descriptive but it shows much more evidence of reflection. (500 words long)

My jewellery elective involved having to use a lot of techniques that were introduced during the first few days and then I had to develop a body of work, using those techniques that were most appropriate to my ideas. The techniques introduced included, piercing and drawing metals, beating and hammering, soldering and brazing. We used mainly copper and a little brass as precious metals such as silver and gold were too expensive.

As well as being introduced to these techniques we had to keep a journal/sketchbook, in which we recorded the processes learnt and did drawings of how we could use these techniques to further our ideas. In support of this we were also asked to do some book research and to include examples of jewellery that we thought related to the way our own ideas were going. These examples also had to be annotated to show that we understood how the items were made. The tutor gave help with this as she was able to guess the techniques used just by looking at the photographs.

At first I couldn’t think about how to use the techniques learnt, but after looking at some photographs of modern jewellery, I realised that I didn’t have to be making rings or bracelets and that jewellery could just be seen as body adornment. Once I had this idea, I started to explore ideas for large scale pieces that could hang off the body and decided that I would use brazing and piercing techniques.

The brazing meant I could make larger pieces by joining different metal shapes together and the piercing meant that I could make joints that moved, as well as create decorative surfaces. I realised that the pieces I was making reminded me of the armour we had seen in the Royal Armouries and that people often use body adornment as a sort of ‘personality armour’, to protect them from emotional as well as physical harm. This helped me to think about what the decoration could be, and I developed a series of patterns based on smiling faces.

I’m not sure if the final piece worked that well and my smiling faces idea didn’t seem to fit with the final shape. But I think I learnt a lot from the process. In particular I learnt that ideas will come if you persist with something and that even if you think the final result isn’t working as well as it might, you can always go back and do it again. My sketchbook work was a bit of an afterthought and to be honest I did try and fill it out with photocopies as I hadn’t done much design work or drawings of what I was trying to think through. Perhaps if I had spent more time on this I would have realised that the smiley faces would not work and could have eliminated the idea before spending lots of time on it. On the whole I think it was an interesting elective and I have learnt a lot.

• There is description of the event, and where there are external ideas or information, the material is subjected to consideration and deliberation.
• The account shows some analysis.
• There is recognition of the worth of exploring motives for behaviour.
• There is willingness to be critical of action.
• Relevant and helpful detail is explored where it has value.
• There is recognition of the overall effect of the event on self.
• The account is written at one point in time. It does not, therefore, demonstrate the recognition that views can change with time and more reflection.
• The account does not indicate a recognition that frames of reference affect the manner in which we reflect at a given time.

Evaluation 3

This evaluation shows quite deep reflection, and it does incorporate a recognition that the frame of reference with which an event is viewed can change. (700 words)

This drawing elective has been very interesting. It has changed the way that I think about drawing and why I might consider using it. Before attending this elective I thought of drawing only as a tool for recording things and sort of thought you could either do it or you couldn’t. I’d never thought of myself as a good drawer and so rarely drew. The camera has always been far more important to me and I have developed a lot of ideas by using collages of existing images, both techniques allowing me to avoid an area I felt less confident in.

The tutor started the sessions by questioning us all about what we thought drawing was and set about challenging us to produce drawings that were not about copying or recording in conventional ways. At first it was hard and I thought the drawings I did do looked ‘childish’. However later on when we had ‘crits’ I started to realise I could be looking for other things and instead of trying to measure my drawings against an idea of whether or not they looked like the real thing, I could see if my drawing had ‘something to say’.

The tutor would often say, “What is this drawing telling us?” Once I got over the idea that a drawing could say something, I started to think through how a drawing communicated something. The way it was made seemed very important and why. On the third day I made a drawing with cellotape. I stuck lengths of it on various surfaces around the college and decided how long each piece of cellotape should be by devising a scale so that the relationships between each length of cellotape would be similar to those in the real world. All the pieces were then re-stuck into a drawing I had started to construct about my personal investigation of the corridors and rooms of the area of the college I was working in. The relationships set up between the ‘real’ size textures I had gathered and the scaled elements of the drawing eventually became the ‘entry point’ for a whole series of drawings that went on to explore these ideas. I found that several artists had used devices to transfer information from one surface to another and that these ideas could be traced back to Cubism and were present in contemporary art practices around such diverse areas as performance and video. It seems that drawing is now no longer just about copying things, but is a process in its own right that can be used to develop ideas and open out possibilities for thinking.

The final drawings I did were more like installations. I started to cut up the flat images and re-build them in the spaces that I initially worked in. This started to create a dialogue between the initial spaces, my first perceptions of them, my records and traces taken and the processes involved. As soon as I took the work back into the space, it opened out the possibility of re-reading what I had done again and of course I then had to take the work on another step, I started to take photographs, cut them up, drawing into them, add rubbings, re-build etc. only stopping when we were forced to vacate the room at the end of the elective. So what have I learnt? I now realise that any set of convictions you might have can be challenged and that once challenged if you open yourself out to new things, you can really feel as if you have moved on. However it does take confidence and when I first felt that my drawings looked ‘childish’ it was only because the tutor helped me to ‘see’ things differently that I persisted. My initial perception of myself as a failure could have been reinforced if she had just dismissed my efforts. I don’t think I’ve learnt any new techniques in drawing, which is what I expected to learn before taking this elective. However I do think I’ve learnt to think about things differently and perhaps I now see drawing more as a process rather than as a technique.

• Self-questioning is evident, (an ‘internal dialogue’ is set up at times) deliberating between different views of his/her own behaviour
• The student takes into account the views of others and weighs these against own judgements.
• The student recognises how prior experience, can interact with the development of own behaviour.
• There is clear evidence of being able to stand back from the experience, in order to evaluate it.
• There is evidence of learning from the experience.
• There is a recognition that a personal frame of reference can change with the reception of new information and the effect of time passing.
• There is an ability to review ideas.

It’s worth noting that you should avoid where possible also going over a word count. You have a +/- 10% allowance before staff consider penalties for short or excessive writing.

The three examples above are ‘adapted’ from evaluations accompanying electives work sent in for marking. Can I thank the anonymous students who wrote the originals from which I have extracted text for this handout?

Garry Barker

Much like the presentation the majority of these notes is self explanatory. The most important thing about writing an evaluation is to include self reflection in concise detail enough to meet the word limit but not too much detail you don't go overboard.