Analysis & Reflection:  Assessment

Assessment is one of the biggest challenges facing any teacher.  The ability to properly ascertain a student’s ability and progress is rife with obstacles.  My current position does not require me to give student grades, so most of my assessments are informal.  However, I do have an audition process for my performance groups that requires a more formal means of evaluation.  I’ve tried to keep the performance ensembles at my school small for various reasons.  One reason is that our instrument availability is constrained; another is that as a new teacher, I feel I’m better off keeping my groups at a manageable level until I’m a bit more experienced.  However, I audition as many students as show interest, so I’ve had to develop a system for quantifying their skills. As a result, I test each child in five areas and give a score in each area of 2-5 points.  The areas are rhythm, improvisation, pitch, performance and cognition/motivation.  For rhythm, I clap and have them imitate at least three rhythms.  Then I have them make up a few of their own, to see how well they can improvise.  I have them match pitch with either the piano or my voice (usually both) and then sing (or for instrumental students, play on an Orff instrument) a simple song.  Finally, I have them write me a letter stating how music is a part of their life and why they want to be in band/choir.  I then take the five scores and add them together, then choose the students with the highest scores.  I also make notes on things like behavior, etc. and take that into consideration.  Finally, I discuss each student with the classroom teacher to ensure that they are an appropriate candidate.  So the selection process has been quantified somewhat (click here for Excel spreadsheet example), however it is still a subjective and imperfect process. This year for the Music Memory program, I had to devise a way to quantify what students were good choices to be on our team for the competition.  I worked with nearly the entire 3rd and 5th grades and therefore had to make difficult choices because I had to narrow a field from hundreds down to a select ten students.  Fortunately, the program curriculum includes several assessment tests which have 5-20 multiple choice questions.  CDs are provided with musical excerpts and the students are given a choice of three musical works for each answer.  This type of assessment made for easily quantified scores, however, these tests provided little insight into the students thought process.  Therefore, I used some writing prompts to get more in-depth student responses to the music.  For a few of the pieces, I had them write down one fact and one opinion.  I created a rough rubric by which to assign points to their responses (uses complete sentences, coherent thought, higher-level thinking, etc.) and then gave a point score.  Ultimately, I had a point score from a few different types of tasks on which to base my initial selection.  After finding the few highest scores in the class, I also took into consideration a few more subjective factors.  First, I always consult with the classroom teacher to ensure that a selected student is one they feel would be appropriate.  Second, my classroom management technique of awarding stamps for good behavior and outstanding answers lent a quantifiable number to the assessment of class participation.  Finally, I considered the chemistry of the team overall, wanting to have a good mix of students personality-wise and an even number of each gender. More often my assessments are informal.  Usually in my general music classes, I ask students questions to assess their understanding or have them perform simple tasks.  For example, after playing a piece that we have been discussing I might give them a writing prompt and from this I will be able to ascertain how well they absorbed the lesson as well as how their critical skills are evolving.  A few times I have given them group tasks to complete and this has worked well.  I would like to incorporate more group work in the future. I’ve found that in my performance ensembles, peer assessments are incredibly effective.  In my choral group, we appoint “listeners” on a daily basis, who will observe the choir’s performance and give feedback.  The students enjoy this a great deal and it’s also helped me to ascertain their level of understanding as well as teach them how to listen and critique constructively.  It is also helpful for classroom management, because they all are eager to be chosen for the task, so it can be used as a reward for positive behavior. This concept also works in my band classes, although instead of pulling out a couple students, I will more often have one half of the room play and the other half listen and give suggestions for improvement.  This is simply because they are at such a low beginner level, that they are very self-conscious of playing in front of others.  I don’t allow them to single out an individual for criticism, but instead focus their comments on the performance as a whole.  Overall, assessment is one area which I feel could use improvement in my teaching.  I think next year, now that I am more comfortable with lesson planning as a whole, I will be able to put more emphasis on assessment and how best to make sure they are grasping the lessons I have worked so hard to prepare!