Old Dog and Elly fear goannas, Ms Chen fears geckos, and Big Cuz fears the dentist. Little J boasts he isn’t scared of anything, but this may not be true. When Mick, Ally, Little J and Old Dog go to the beach, Little J discovers that his hero, Mick, is scared of Hermit crabs. Together, on the cliff, Mick and Little J overcome their shame of being afraid and help each other to be brave.

Evaluate - Learn about how and why artists, craftspeople and designers present their ideas through different visual representations, practices, processes and viewpoints.

Theme - GOANNA (DIRAWONG), GECKO (KULPAI), HERMIT CRAB (JUWANING)

Evaluate what students have learnt (know and can do) from the activities in relation to The Arts: Visual Arts curriculum.

Assess the success of the module through reflecting on students:

• Identifying and describing how artists in their artworks explore various ideas and representation of a goanna, a gecko, and a hermit crab.
• experimenting with various materials and techniques to design and create various ideas and representations
• investigating, describing and applying the art elements and conventions used to create and explain the processes and practices used by artists in their artworks.
• exploring options for displaying their preliminary designs and final art products
• identifying Aboriginal artists and/or Torres Strait Island artists, their artworks, and their stories and analysing the significance of the goanna, gecko and hermit crab to their Country and culture through the way they represent the animals in their art.

As a culmination of the learning in this module, students could

• Create ‘Pizza box storyboards’ – unused pizza boxes can be used to store and display characters, background and materials for different scenes from a story.
• Participate in an excursion to a local art gallery and/or museum where masks and headdresses from a range of cultures can be viewed. Compare masks from different cultures and ask students to draw, and discuss each for their potential to ward off evil spirits, or celebrate a part of the maker’s culture. Ask students to invent a story for a mask they design and construct.
• Sketch flora and fauna (and signs of animals like foot prints, scratchings, homes, scats) and make notes about aspects of the excursion; then back at school, discuss aspects and write a recount of the excursion; and create a class display of drawings, photos, and notes.
• Investigate a contemporary/ traditional Aboriginal artworks and artists and/or Torres Strait Islander artworks and artists to discover the variety of painting and carving styles represented by the diverse cultural/language groups.
• Map where the artists comes from (their Country) and document the use of symbols and icons to convey meaning and story in contemporary/traditional Aboriginal artworks and/or Torres Strait Islander artworks. (Symbols depict aspects of Aboriginal life, for example campfire, meeting place, local animals, local landforms and landmarks).
• Create an album of traditional materials (such as ochre, charcoal, sand, carved soft-wood); and of art techniques (such as dotting, cross hatching, x-ray designs, contour lines) used by Aboriginal artists and/or Torres Strait Islander artists.
• Organise an incursion inviting an Aboriginal Elder/ recognised representative and/or Torres Strait Islander Elder/recognised representative to speak to students about the local stories of the Dreaming stories and/or Bipo Bipo Taim (Before Before Time) stories, and about how these stories were told to explain how the people and the land were created.
• Learn selected words of the local language related to the focus of the students’ learning.

Student evaluation tools

Students could self-evaluate their learning using a ‘monitoring’ journal (physical or digital) where the teacher lists the key understandings and concepts students needed to acquire through the module.

Where applicable, a self-evaluation could be constructed as a poll rating their responses using.

• Kahoot
• Quizlet

Use Early Years writing using rubrics to provide feedback to students using the rubric.
Students can use a learning worm to evaluate their work, adapted from:

• Learning Worm 

Teacher reflection tools

Reflect on your teaching of the module. What worked well? What needs more work? What would you add/change/omit in future?

Ask students to rate your efforts and recommend areas for improvement. You may wish to refer to broader resources for reflection or for gaining feedback, for example:

• Demonstrating impact 
• ‘How-to’ guide: Learning walks 
• Reflection on Practice Tool