Why do we assess students?

We use assessments to find out what the students knows and can do. In addition, assessment enables the teacher to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners, provide feedback to improve their performance, and prepare students for the next level or grade.

In music class, I’m assessing my students at every moment. Music instruction is performance based, driven by motivation, exploration, listening, and experimentation. Since musical instruments are involved, I monitor their progress by recording everyday classroom instruction. Sectional reheasals, demonstrations, student/teacher modeling, and performances are all documented to provide evidence of their progress.

Why I’m concern about Music Education in our private and public schools.

Districts and educational leaders have turned their backs on the traditional methods of music education for a more suitable and in-expensive alternative “Music Appreciation”. In addition, our leaders have failed to implement the necessary components that music education requires:

Facilities – Many music teachers are restricted to a cart for music instruction.

Funding – Music instruments are expensive but are essential to music instruction. Investing in adequate tools are needed, not toys.

Required – If music is to be considered in a school cirriculum, it must have the respect as any other discipline. Students should never have low expectations about anything of study. We’re sending the wrong message.

Formative Assessment: Teacher Improvisation

In music, jazz improvisation is the spontaneous creativity (“composing in the moment”) of a musical composition which combines performance, instrumental technique and communication with other musicians. In other words, musicians who improvise use the evidence of the musical composition to improve its melody.

You’ve got to find some way of saying it without saying it.” – Duke Ellington

In Jazz, improvisation isn’t a matter of just making any ole’ thing up. Jazz, like any language has its own grammar and vocabulary. There’s no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.” – Wynton Marsalis

Alike in process, formative assessment is feedback used by teachers and students to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement.

The greatest value in formative assessment lies in teachers and students making use of results to improve real- time teaching and learning at every turn. – W. James Popham

In combination with sets of sequenced building blocks called “learning progressions or “sub-skills” assessment evidence is collected to determine student mastery of enabling knowledge. School districts implementing effective classroom formative assessment are using improvised classroom instruction to meet the needs of different learners. Educational scholars have stated that “Assessment for learning can take many different forms in the classroom. It consists of anything teachers do to help students answer the following questions: where am I going, where am I now and how do I close the gap? (Atkin, Black, & Coffey, 2001).” These are also the inquiries educational leaders and teachers should ask themselves while initiating educational reform in our school systems.

As I concluded this semester’s instruction, I wanted to assess my own usage of formative assessment in the classroom. I’m faced with the challenge of teaching a variety of different learners the basic music fundamentals. My strengths are based in differentiated instruction techniques, and my area of needed improvement is patience. In accordance with NJ content standards for general music, I wanted to teach the entire population of students how music is organized and structured whether they where enrolled in music class or not. I started with the most challenging class, a group of kindergarten children diagnosed with learning disabilities.

On the first day of class, I knew the traditional method of teaching my learning objectives wouldn’t work for some students. These objectives included the basic essentials that make music work: The musical staff: line and space names. This is how we distinguish what notes to play on any given instrument (see figure 1).

(figure 1- Music Staff )         (figure 2 – Student Artwork)

Armed with art paper, crayons, and a ruler, students were instructed to pick out their favorite color, draw five-lines and number them from bottom to top using numbers one, two, three, four and five. Using a different color of art paper, I then made small circles for students to cut out and paste the letters E-G-B-D-F and F-A-C-E on each circle separately. For the lines of the musical staff, I told them E lived on the first line, G on the second and so forth. For the spaces (space in-between the lines) of the musical staff, I told students it spelled the word F-A-C-E. In order to complete their assignment successfully, students had to paste the correct lettered circle on the appropriate line or space without assistance from the teacher (see figure 2). As students worked together on their art work, they began to learn from one another. They talked aloud about where each one should be placed. They took ownership and pride in what they doing and making! But most importantly, they all knew where the circles were to be placed. I decided to assign this same group project to my third and fourth graders. We laminated the projects and systematically place them in my classroom and around the school where other potential music students could observe.

During the next few weeks, I wanted to assess if my students had mastered the musical staff’s line and space names. I gave them recorders and a corresponding method book that used examples of what they had made in class to assist them with fingering the correct notes on their recorders (see figure 3).

Before we performed a selection in our method book, I told them to use a pencil to write the letters beneath each note. With teacher feedback and visual clues embedded around the classroom and school, they were able to help themselves while mastering the skills needed to complete the learning objective: How music is organized and structured?

(figure 3 Student Recorder Method Book)

As a supervisor or principal, I would want my teachers to be able teach one concept many different ways. I would consider teachers who teach a wide-range of subjects in one class to be highly qualified in one or more content areas. I would also praise teachers committed to sharing prudent strategies that help improve learning during classroom practice . A modest implementation of formative assessment powered by teacher learning communities increase student achievement.

References

Atkin, J. M., Black, P., & Coffey, J. (2001). Classroom assessment and the national science standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

W. James Popham (2008). Transformative assessment .W. James Popham.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index

Article Essay: Seven Stepping Stones to Success

Course: EDUC 6718 – Curriculum/Program Eval&Student Assessment

Author: Robert M. Rucker

The New Order: Formative Assessment

        In the spirit of change, formative assessment is the new order of educational intervention in our school systems.  Through research, it is acknowledged as the leading initiative to improve student achievement.  It’s implementation is rooted in teacher learning communities in which teachers share student data with one another.

        In the classroom, teachers and students collect evidence  to what they are learning and adjust their instructional methods and procedures.   In other words, teachers and students are assessing themselves hands-on and ongoing.  However, for formative assessment to utilized properly, educational leaders and teachers must be willing to act on change. As Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity has said.

 It is generally easier to get people to act their way into a new of thinking than it is to get them to think their way into a new way of acting.

        Teacher Learning Communities (TLC) are brainstorming groups which operate similar to a small business firm that meets regularly to assess quarterly gains or losses.  It gathers data to improve performance and revenue.  Conceptualizing your classroom as your small business could be the blueprint for student learning by allowing students to gain ownership and take part in what they are to learn.  A component of formative assessment suggests that:

Students should be owners of their own work using agreed-on criteria for success” and also “encourage students to be instructional resources for one another.  Dylan Wiliam, Changing Classroom Practice. p37

        Keeping students engaged and involved in the learning process can produce a wealth of information for student assessment in TLC’s.  Like a business, everyone must work together.

        Building TLC’s to sustain formative assessment requires teamwork in it’s truest meaning, its an attitude that every colleague involved shares and acknowledges.  Although administrators and educational professionals play an significant role in support of TLC’s, formative assessment is based in the classroom where teachers and students adjust what they planned or are planning to do. Therefore, educational leaders must be supportive in their roles to provide  leadership, motivation, and feedback for members of  TLC.

        In closing, formative assessment based in teacher learning communities is the new order for student learning in our school systems.  It’s a time for educational leaders and teachers to put aside personal agenda’s and act on change by utilizing all the  tools and resources available to improve student acheivement.  In a business oriented society, there’s no government bailout equivalent to the value of our childrens’s education.