PLN - Week 5 Assessment Tools

Developing Assessments 

According to Bauer, (2014), teachers first determine desired learning outcomes and then develop assessment tools to evaluate the work (p.132).  Only after we establish what will be learned and how it will be assessed are we to develop the activities that support the given objective.  Personally, even though I have been attempting to use backward design (p. 152)  since college,  I have always found the process to be very difficult. Indeed, creating assessments before activities is a process I have only begun to understand and use the last few years. 

A real life example of assessment decisions:

Yesterday I met with my co-teacher to plan for this upcoming semester.  Based on our district curriculum and state standards. one learning outcome for fifth graders will be to play, read and write a C, F, and G Major scale.  The assessment of this learning outcome has three parts.    We ask students to demonstrate their ability to read and write the scales and use a rubric to assess their work.   To assess students playing scales, we use a simple checklist designed to capture accuracy. Because students might be playing unfamiliar instruments we decided not to include a technical element within the checklist.  Perhaps as we continue to further integrate our LMS into our everyday teaching, asking students to submit videos of their scale performances individually rather than in small groups.  This would enable us to share very specific feedback in a rubric with more detail.  

In my experience, the process of planning and then teaching with assessment always in the forefront is a learned skill that takes time to develop.  Having the right guidance and tools to help teachers develop this mindset is key.  This week I discovered Carnegie Hall Music Teacher Tool Box , an assessment resource that would have transformed my younger teaching had it been available eighteen years ago.  I shared it in my tweet for this week, but due to the brevity of twitter,  I thought it might be helpful if I shared some of the aspects that I feel are the most useful especially in terms of creating assessments that are fully reliable and valid reflections of the expected learning outcomes.

https://www.carnegiehall.org/toolbox/ retrieved August 5, 2016

In this website, you can search by grade level, concept, or resource type. Each tool includes a scope and sequence for a particular grade level based on the National Standards.  There are also multiple formative assessment tasks and at least one summative assessment task included in each tool as well as any materials students might need to complete the task.  These resources are available with a creative commons license.   There are also videos of teachers and students engaged in learning and assessment activities which would be especially helpful to anyone you know who is new to teaching.

https://www.carnegiehall.org/toolbox/ retrieved August 5, 2016

Implementing Assessments

Checklists and rubrics are the daily bread of assessment in elementary music and they are amazing tools if you have good ones, but even a good tool is not very helpful if it cannot be implemented successfully.    I learned very quickly that in elementary, nothing spells death to a good lesson like having to pause the action in the room so that I can put a check on my checklist. or worse yet, asking students to play the game for the thirtieth time so that every child can be assessed as an individual.  I have noticed that children are often motivated by the hope that they might get another turn.  If in my attempt to assess, I turn the play of the children into a one-at-a-time assessment where everyone must have a turn then the hope of another turn dies and as time passes, more and more students are off-task.   As a young teacher, to avoid exasperating my students, it was simpler  to give myself over to facilitating the activity and play of the children rather than the immediate assessment of their work.  Then after my class left I would frantically make as many notes in my checklist as I could remember, hoping that I didn’t get my students mixed up. Attempting to assess in this way not very effective at all.  I felt like I was trying to keep too many things up in the air at once.  

Then I got an IPad.  Finally, I could assess with less stress.  I still find that in most cases it is easier for me to review student work after class.  However, the iPad enables me to capture instructional moments that I can revisit at my own convenience.   I can teach a song or a game, and then video the class at work.  I often show them their work immediately and we are able to review and assess their progress right away.  Inevitably, my students want me to share their accomplishments with their teachers which I usually do out in the hallway when the teacher is picking up the class.    Using my IPad has also cut down on the number of copies I make and papers I deal with.  Instead, we will use dry-erase boards for those tasks requiring a pencil and paper.  When students are finished, I take their picture with their work.  Students who have devices can just send their work in an instant message or email directly to my iPad.  My classroom teacher iPad has become a sort of product/performance portfolio.  "A product/performance portfolio is a formative portfolio created by the teacher, containing a collection of similar materials from the class (i,e, the same assignments from all students). This portfolio is used for 'ranking and sorting' of student achievement for measurement purposes" (Mills 2009, p. 33).  

Having the habit of using  the iPad to record student work, I am excited to have the opportunity to explore a new resource this year that is free to all teachers.  It is called For All Rubrics.  Through this application, you can create classes, create rubrics and checklists, as well as assess individual students within the application and then share the information in a variety of ways.  The program will even generate a student version of your rubric that can be shared with students at the beginning of an assignment.  I don't yet know if it can be integrated into the LMS system used by my district, but it does work with Edmodo which is a nice option in and of itself.

Portfolio Goals

While I am comfortable creating a product/performance portfolio (Mills 2009), I find the task of creating a working or presentation portfolio for even one grade level of students to be incredibly daunting.  From a management standpoint, and in terms of creating somewhat protected and dedicated digital workspaces for students, it would seem that an LMS as described by Brauer (2014, p. 142) would lend itself very well to the development of a true student-centered portfolio. 

Having attempted to create a digital version on my own on more than one occasion, I know first hand that at least when referring to digital portfolios, there are not enough minutes in the day to upload all of the various types of data, scan papers, communicate expectations and share the work in a meaningful way without very robust LMS that facilitates and enables students to file and upload their own work.  

As part of our districts full roll-out of our LMS, I plan on asking my fifth-grade students to regularly contribute to a working portfolio that will turn into a performance portfolio that they can take with them to Jr. High.  I am certain that the families in my community would keep the work even if their student never enrolled in another music class in which case the portfolio would serve as a sort of capstone.   If the project goes the way I envision, it might be a fantastic tool for the Jr. High.  If I could share the portfolio of all the band students with the band director and so on, it might save everyone time, since there would be assessed proof that at least three months before starting the clarinet, Johnny did know about and could demonstrate his ability to read, write, sing and play melodies in a variety of keys and meters accurately.   

Bauer, W. I. (2014). A conceptual framework for technology - Assisted music learning. In Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music (pp. 130-143). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

            Kehret, S. (2013, June 08). For All Rubrics Short Tutorial. Retrieved August 5, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPhe3B2tIec

Mills, M. (2009). Capturing Student Progress via Portfolios in the Music Classroom. Music Educators Journal, 96(2), 32-38. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40666404

            Music Educators Toolbox. (n.d.). Retrieved August 5, 2016, from https://www.carnegiehall.org/toolbox/