Case
Art Class Grading

Mr. Davis is teaching a unit on shading. He takes his class to an outside garden, and while the students are creating compositions focusing on the shadows and colors they see, he walks around and observes their progress. He's not sure on how to score the students without interrupting them. What should he base his scoring on?

Solution #1
Mr. Davis should create and use a holistic rubric in order to assess student learning without interrupting students. He could specify a few certain criteria that he is looking for with shading and very quickly walk around and see if students are showing mastery or not. Criteria for such a rubric could be simply color, contrast, and blending. Students would either be showing they have mastered these things or not. Mr. Davis could review these items the next day in class before students continued their work. He could also show exemplar examples in order for students to gain a full understanding of expectations of shading. Students would not even know that he was assessing their work as he walked around quietly.
Solution #2
This is silly. Why is he afraid to interrupt them? With art instruction you have to be bold and go up to them, and show them examples. While I agree that a rubric can be helpful for assigning an actual letter grade to the assignment, the point at which the student learns is the point where the teacher walks over and says something like "Hey, you are holding your pencil wrong, if you tilt it on the side like this you can form better transitions and variety in your shading" and then shows them quickly what he expects, not on their paper but on his own. If you don't talk to your students, you probably should not be teaching.
Solution #3
Mr. Davis should create a rubric prior to this activity and use it to assess students as he is walking around. If he is worried about interrupting the students then he can take note of any questions or feedback he has and address it after the lesson He could also provide students with quite feedback as he as walking around so as not to disrupt them while still giving guidance.