This week's reading from William Bauer's Music Learning Today focused us on the assessment process. Assessments are a crucial part of being an educator. As Bauer put it, "Not only is assessment necessary to determine whether students have learned what teachers think they have taught, but is also informs the design of instruction and can direct adjustments of the specific teaching and learning strategies that are used over time." (Bauer, 2014, p. 131). If you think about all the assessments you have given throughout your teaching career, you will probably realize just how true Bauer's statement is. Even in my short time teaching my assessments and strategies have changed from semester to semester based on the outcome of the past assessments.
As Bauer says all of us use formative and summative assessments. For my SLO (student learning outcome) exams I like to use scale testing. This is an Authentic assessment that helps build students foundational playing skills. I do benchmark testing once a quarter (summative) to keep track of student growth. After the students take their benchmarks I show them the score they had at the beginning of the year, the score they had at the previous benchmarks, and the target score they are aiming for at the end of the year. This provides students with feedback and allows students to realize what they need to work on.
I also use Project Based Learning in a few of my classes. The general music classes have a few projects a year. These range from composition projects to internet research. The current project my 6th grade is working on is Around the World. Music, instruments, and culture from countries around the world, and compared to countries of the same and different regions. I loved reading the list on p. 151 of project ideas!! My favorite is "How is music used in everyday life?" (Bauer, 2014, p. 151). This would be a great project for students to realize how much music they are actually exposed to in a day. I think I may use this project next year with my 6th grade class!
Until next time
H
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Thanks for posting. I completely agree that assessment is what tells us how effective our instruction is to the students. It gives us documentation as to how well our students are meeting the learning objectives we designed for them. I definitely alter my teaching based on the assessment data of previous years and semesters. Formative assessment tends to give more information about what's going on in the mind of the student than summative assessment does. Though both are necessary, I find that formative assessment is much more informative to me. If I'm grading a final music theory exam, I can't always get in the minds of the students and tell exactly where they went wrong in their thinking. When formatively assessing the students while I'm teaching the concepts, I am able to trace the thoughts of the student and correct errors or steer them in the right direction. This isn't as easy with summative assessment. In the band realm, directors honestly assess students' progress every day as they rehearse. Summative assessment (like your quarterly tests) gives them something to work for in addition to rehearsing their music.
ReplyDeleteProject-Based Learning is so crucial for those classes where students HAVE to take them. General music has been a challenge for me these past two years. I tried to focus the course too much on content knowledge (history, music literacy, etc.). This year I have shifted to a more project-based approach. Behavior has improved. Engagement has improved. Their general appreciation for me, the class, and music in general have improved. It's really the best way to teach classes like that!