Instruction and Assessment

This week the two chapters we read were about assessment and instructional design. I’m fairly confident with the designs of my lessons and instruction, however I am always looking for new ways to assess the students. When teaching music or any other subject, it is important to be able to appropriately assess the students’ progress. Many times it seems that teachers (including myself!) feel that the only way to assess the students is to give them a test on the subject. While some tests can be important, there are many other forms of assessment that can be very useful, especially to music teachers who do not always deal with written material.

One of the assessments that I use, which is also described in Music Learning Today is a checklist. When the students arrive to their lessons they are supposed to have with them: a pencil, their method book, their instrument, and their practice log. I award points for each item that they bring with them, totaling 20 points per lesson. If the students do not have each item on the list, I deduct points from their grade. Rubrics were also described as being the “…most sophisticated of the three authentic assessment tools” (Bauer 2014). Bauer uses an example of a world music presentation to demonstrate how a rubric could be useful for assessment, but I have also used rubrics for playing tests. Although admittedly I don’t have too many playing tests during the year, when I do, I use a 1-5 rating scale for different components of the students’ performance. The categories are usually tone, tempo, dynamics, notes, and rhythms, and the students will receive a 1-5 rating for each category. Just like the example rubric in Figure 6.3 on page 139, I include a brief description of each rating so the students will know why they received the score that they got. I like this idea a lot because it eliminates the need to ask “how did I get this grade?”. When there is evidence to back up the grade the students’ received, it creates less issues from parents or students in the future.  

Chapter seven discussed instructional design. In Prince George’s County MD where I teach, we follow Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, which includes under domain 1 an element all about designing coherent instruction. When administrators observe teachers, this is one of the main aspects they look for in the teacher’s lesson plans. It was interesting to read about all the different ways to begin designing and implementing lessons. The “backwards” design was especially interesting because it creates a desired outcome before creating activities and assessments to achieve that outcome. As an instrumental teacher, I believe this is something I do regularly for my lessons; I just didn’t realize I was doing it! The outcome for my classes is the winter concert before winter break and the spring concert before summer break. I already know I need to prepare the students for these two programs, so after I determine the dates for these events, I begin to determine which pieces to perform. After this is decided, I begin to plan lessons geared toward performing the pieces I selected. This way, I have a goal to work for and my lessons aren’t just random learning until a goal is decided later.

I also like the idea of project based learning, or PBL that is discussed on page 150. People do not always learn in the same way. Some people may thrive with quiet studying and memorization, while others require much more hands on activities for information to “stick”. Projects are ways that students of any age will be able to remember what they have learned and apply it in a way that is more creative than reciting facts. This is the way we have been learning about technology in this graduate course, and it has really helped me understand how to use and implement these new programs into my teaching. I try to include projects in my classes, but do not use them as much as I would like. In the future, I hope to add more projects about instruments, notes, rhythms, and musical terminology into my lessons to help the students remember these things when the move to middle and high school.