Teaching Band

Grading Band Students - Music/Playing/Performance requirements

50% of a student's grade in my band class is based on their musicianship requirements.  For the most part, this is based on a series of "musicianship tests" that I give them.  I have a total of 15 levels of musicianship tests.  Students are required to work on one for each 9 weeks (4 in 6th grade, 4 in 7th grade, and 4 in 8th grade); there are a few extra for the kids who work ahead of the class.  Most levels have about 10 requirements on them, and each requirement is pass/fail.

I try to avoid giving grades for each requirement which is why I use pass/fail:  if they play it correctly they receive full credit.  They can try each requirement as many times as they like, but they do not receive any credit unless it is 100% correct.  I give 10 points per requirement, so if they only pass 7 of them, they 70 points out of a possible 100 for 50% of their grade.

What I like most about using this system, is that students can work ahead.  Right now, my 7th grade students are working on Level 5, but several have finished that already, and have started working on the next level.  I have a series of incentives and awards they can receive for working ahead.  Chair placement is based on their requirements and what level they are on.  This makes chair placement fair (at least I think so!) and very easy to explain to parents.  As a matter of fact, since I started this, I have never had a parent or student complain about their chair placement!

Playing requirements are 50% of their grade because it is the emphasis of my class.  I have a very hard time giving credit for concert attendance or participation because while it is important, the student grade should reflect what they are learning in class.  The remaining 50% of their grade is based on other criteria - which was outlined in my last post, and I will talk more about that later...

How do you grade your students?  How do you weight your grades?  

Grading Band Students

With the beginning of the school year here, I have been giving a lot of thought to my goals and objectives for the year, and more specifically, how I will assess and grade my students to meet these goals and objectives.  I really believe the effective assessment is one of the most powerful tools we have, and if used correctly, can provide a great deal of feedback for the student and parent.  Last year I wrote about this as well:

http://www.teachingband.com/2008/09/making-the-grad.html

Here is the breakdown of a student's grade in my band class:

Musicianship, 50% - Student performance on his/her instruments makes up half of the class grade. Of course, this should be made up of varying assessments/tests.

Concerts, 20% - This includes student preparation and performance of music, not just attendance.

Projects, 11% - This includes musical projects, directly related to the state or national standards for music. By making it 11%, students will lose one full letter grade if they do not complete this. This insures that the standards are included.

Written Assignments/Quizzes, 10% - This is a "catch-all" for any musical written assignments or quizzes. This can include vocabulary quizzes, theory assignments, etc...

Preparation, 9% - This is everything non-musical: coming to class prepared, having materials, turning in parent signature. A few years ago this may have been called the p-word (participation), but that word is being looked down on more and more. 9% is helps insure that this is the least significant portion of the grade.

I outlined why I weight my grade this way in that previous post - Musicianship gets 50% because as much of the grade as possible should be based on the student's individual progress.  Preparation, which I used to call participation is 9%, because it should be less than a letter grade (in my opinion).  Projects are 11% because I use that category to make sure I cover our state standards (I will post something about that later).

I used to give more weight to participation and concert attendance, but I was finding the grade was more about what they were showing up to then what they actually learned in my class.  I will and post how I grade each category soon...

How do you calculate your students' grade??  Please share in the comments section - Thanks!

New Scales Sheets Added

Two-Octave Scale sheets have been added to the scale sheets page.  These are for 7 major scales.  Scale sheets for the 12 major scales will be added soon.

Click on "Free Scale Sheets."

Recording Rehearsals

One of the things I have been doing more and more of over the last couple of years is recording my rehearsals.  I have always done it, but at first I would only record a couple of times.  Maybe once a couple of weeks before festival, maybe at a pre-festival concert, and occasionally towards the end of the year so the kids could hear what they sound like.  It wasn't that I didn't want to record them regularly, but it so much more difficult before all of these hand-held recording devices... Now I try to record on a regular basis.  There are a many reasons for recording your ensemble, depending on the time of year and what you hope to achieve.

During the first part of the year, I spend a great deal of time working on warm-ups and fundamentals.  We work on music for our concerts as well, but most of my attention is given to fundamentals.  So, often I will record all or part of the warm-up.  This is usually a clip of about 10 to 20 minutes.  I am listening for ensemble fundamentals such as blend, balance, uniform articulation, etc... Sometimes group balance will sound different on the recording then in person.  This may be because of how I am feeling, where I am standing, etc.  When we work on various articulations and note lengths it helps to be able to listen several times.  This allows to listen differently each time - maybe one time I am focusing on the reed instruments, next brass, etc.  This saves a great deal of time in class, because I know exactly what to address each day.  I don't bother recording concert music early in the year, because I am more concerned with the fundamental aspects of performance.

As the year progresses I will start to record music.  I do this probably around November for our Winter Concert music, and I still focus primarily on fundamentals.  By this time of year, the fundamental skills are stronger in warm-up, but the students are still working to transfer this to performance.  While they have learned to match articulations and blend during warm-up, they may not be correctly applying it to repertoire.  

As we get closer to festival time, I begin recording rehearsals to work on musical detail and interpretation.  When we first start preparing the music, I am listening for pretty basic things - note and rhythm errors, pitch issues, etc.  Someone told me once that there isn't much point in recording until it is almost ready for performance.  I disagree - it is important to record early and often, as you may find things that may not have surfaced until later.  It is much easier to correct something that has been wrong for 2 days then 2 weeks.  The longer it goes unnoticed, the harder it is to fix!  As the performance gets closer, I will start listening for more the sophisticated aspects of musical performance - effective dynamic contrast, stylistic articulation, etc.  Often times I will record shorter segments, as short as 8 or 12 measures, to listen for as many details as possible.  

The bottom line is, once you record, you get to listen as many times as you want.  Before I recorded this often, I would get to hear it once, and would have to rely on my memory of the rehearsal to plan. Sometimes it really helps to listen s few hours later, with fresh ears, to really hear what happened.

Do you record your rehearsals?  Why? What do you listen for? Please share!

TeachingBand.com - ideas or suggestions?

I started this blog last year - I haven't put much on it yet for many reasons, but I would like to start writing here more often.  When I have written, though, I usually write about something I talked to someone else about recently.  I think it is important to share ideas;  I know much of what I do I learned by talking to others.  I plan to continue to use this blog as a way to share my ideas...

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for topics?  Please let me know!  I'd also like to use the comment section of the website as a place to have discussions.  If you have any suggestions or ideas, please let me know in the comments, or send me an email!

Thanks!

Fundraising - Pancake Breakfast

So, I am in the process of planning for next school year, and one of our biggest events is our annual Fall Concert and Pancake Breakfast.  A few months ago, I wrote about fundraising ideas and guidelines, and I mentioned this one.  This is my favorite fundraiser.  The kids come and play, the families eat pancakes, and we make money - not a bad combination.

There are two sides to this event.  The first is the concert - we will have 10 different ensembles scheduled during the day next year.  Each one will get a 15 minute time slot at various times during the morning. They are lined up based on two factors: 1.  The largest groups get time slots far apart, to keep the crowd under control.  We sold about 1200 tickets last year, and our cafeteria can hold about 350 people comfortably.  2. We try to line them up so the beginning bands and their parents can hear the older groups.  This is for recruiting purposes.. Recruiting is a year-long event.

The other side of this event is the fundraiser.  We are somewhat confident that we can make $15,000 on that Saturday.  We sold 1200 tickets last year with 350 kids enrolled in band.  This year we are close to 500, so ticket sales will be better.  We also do a silent auction, with a goal of $5000.

We sell tickets for $5, and $7 at the door.  The cost to us per ticket is usually less than 75 cents.  The meal includes all-you-can-eat pancakes, plus sausage, juice, and coffee. We order the sausage through the school's food vendor, the juice through a Sam's Club, and the coffee is usually donated.  For the pancake batter, we ask the kids to bring in a box of pancake mix (just add water).  We always have more than enough.

On the day of, we have parents come in shifts to cook pancakes.  Many bring griddles from home, and they all seem to have a good time.  A lot of the parents know each other, and it is a social experience for them. 

The silent auction is handled by the parents.  We are in the process of sending out requests for donations.  We get all kinds of things - gift cards, theme park tickets, sports tickets, memorabilia, etc... 

This is my favorite event for many reasons, but mostly because the kids are going door to door selling things.  They show up, each group plays for fifteen minutes, and we make money.  The whole event is done in one day, and then we can move on.  There are no items to pass out, additional money to collect, or prizes to pass out.  

Let me know if you would like more information, I'd be glad to share order forms, schedules, etc.. Also, let me know if you try it, or if you do it and have suggestions.  I am always looking for new ideas.

60 minutes or less...

One of the things I struggled with for a long time was the length of my concerts.  I wanted to make sure my groups played a full program of quality literature, and I wanted to make sure every kid in my program stayed to here every band.  As my program got bigger, the concerts got longer and longer.  At it's worst point, I had 5 different groups that played at least 4 pieces each.  That concert was nearly 2 hours.  While I thought it was great, parents were ready to leave, it was warm in the auditorium, the kids were not paying attention any longer, babies were crying, etc... 

It has been my goal over the last couple of years to make them as short as possible - lots of quality, and not so much quantity.  My last two concerts this year were each under 45 minutes.  Now, I split my groups up into 2 separate concerts which makes it easier.  The parents loved it, and everyone stayed until the end. There were less behavior issues from students in the audience, and the audience seemed to be more engaged.

There were three basic guidelines I used to keep them short:

1.  I talk as little as possible.  I had a script for kids to read from, which was also short.  I spoke only before the final piece for the final group.  

2.  Each group gets 15 minutes to play.  That is a long time for beginning bands, because most pieces are a couple of minutes. This was more challenging for my older groups.  I will write about how I selected the music later this week.

3.  I had my stage changes planned ahead of time, with written directions, and parent volunteers.  At these concerts, our group changes always took less than 5 minutes.

Do you have any suggestions for keeping concerts short??

Effective Performance Assessments

So, we are at the end of our 3rd quarter, and my students have been doing performance assessments all week - nothing major, just scales, rhtyhms, and one-line exercises.  I spent a great deal of time studying various assessment methods, and ways to make performance assessments more effective while working on my thesis.  Here are some things that I came up with that help me and my students:

-  Make sure your assessment has a specific goal.  For the first few years, I would tell them to play a certain line from their book, and it had to be perfect.  Well, what is perfect?  Instead, identify exactly what you are assessing.  Today, my beginners were playing an exercise that demonstrated dotted-quater not rhythms.  Some of them added or forgot a slur or two, but the rest of it was technically correct.  They passed, because I was assessing their ability to play that particular note duration.  When I first started this, I was skeptical, because I thought the result would be a lower quality of performance.  The result was the opposite:  my students were much more careful about the skills being assessed, and it significantly improved their performance in class.

-  I always make sure my students know exactly how they will be assessed.  I play them audio examples of playing tests, and show them exactly how it will be graded.  Then, I let them grade some examples, until the entire class can tell the difference between a passing example and a non-passing example.

-  All of my performance assessment are pass/fail.  I do not give different grades or numerical grades.  If they correctly demonstrate the desired skill, the pass, if not, they fail.  This makes if more clear-cut for them and their parents.  It is much easier to explain that a child either failed or passed a specific skill, than explain the difference between a B and a C on a playing test.

-  Finally - make expectations as clear as possible.  I always notify parents when various assessments are due, and exactly what needs to be played.  When parents know, the kids seem to be better prepared!

Do you have any tips or suggestions?  Please leave comments!

What did they learn today?

One of the things I have learned since I have started teaching is to have clear goals and objectives for each class every day.  As band directors (music teachers) we learned much of what we do from our college band or high school band rehearsals.  I remember in college, the conductor would show up, and we would play music.  That was it.  The warm-up would be a one of the famous 16 Bach Chorales, and then we would go straight into literature rehearsal.

The problem with this, is that in college, we also went to music theory class, private lessons, history, etc... In school music programs we have to teach all of that through our band class.  I like to refer to band class as applied music - students are learning all about music through the performance on their instruments.  

I thought about this today because I did not do a very good job (actually a poor job) of planning for today. At the end of the day, I sat and asked myself, "What did they learn today?"  I have no answer for that.  My older classes did an okay job reading some new music.  The beginners did an okay job of playing through a new exercise - but as far as a new skill or concept - absolutely nothing.

This is not a good way to go about teaching, especially in middle school.  Normally, I sit down, and figure out exactly what I want them to know at the end of one week, one month, one year, etc... and then come up with a plan.  Within that plan is all of the daily lessons and the methods I will use to accomplish my goals.  Each class I work on a concept - I give them experiences with that concept during the warm-up time, and work on that concept within the music they are playing.  Every class should provide students the chance to strengthen concepts and learn new skills.  

So, ask yourself tomorrow, after school, "What did they learn today?"  I know that question makes me take a hard look at my teaching and planning.  Students need to learn more than how to play individual pieces of music.  Learning concepts and skills that they can apply to music performance will make them better musicians, and improve your ensembles.

Today my students didn't learn much, so I will need to plan better for next time!

Preparing to Return...

Each year I look forward to Winter Break, more than I do summer break.  I enjoy the holidays, and it is not nearly as much work to prepare for January as it is for August.  I am disappointed that it is over, but I am anxiously awaiting all of the things that happen in the second half of the school year.  

The second half of the year seems to fly by, with our state convention, solo and ensemble festival, concert band festival, trips, testing, etc... The second half of the year seems to go by quickly.  I have always found it hard to get my self mentally ready to go back to school - I always feel like my pacing is off, I am unprepared, and my ears are not functioning correctly!  Here are some things I do the day before to get ready:

1.  I try to wake up at the time I normally do for school.  This has gotten easier since I have kids now.  The don't like to let us sleep late!  

2.  In addition to my regular lesson plan, I try to write down a play by play of what I am going to do - clerical work, phone calls to make, and even all of my announcements and personal business.  This seems to help keep me on track.  It is nothing fancy - I write it on a legal pad, and cross it off as they day goes on. This probably takes about 15 minutes.

3.  I answer any parent emails I received over break, but haven't answered.  This doesn't take much time when I do it at home.  I can never seem to have enough time in the school day to sit down and answer emails - too many interruptions!  I don't like to spend too much time doing this during break, because it doesn't seem fair to my family.

4.  Score study - not much, but 20-30 minutes.  By now I have already studied the music I will working on, but I want to make sure I don't waste any time, even the first day back.  

So, that is about 60 minutes of prep work for school - not bad considering the time it saves me when I get back.  There are other things I do on the day before too:

5.  Watch TV.  That seems reasonable, sometimes sitting and not thinking keeps my blood pressure down.

6.  Do some housework - outside, in the garage, wherever - this helps me feel more relaxed and lets me focus on my job when I am at work.  I like to be able to focus on what I am doing, not what needs to get done.

7.  Spend time with my family.  Family comes first.

8.  Go to bed early.  Sleep is too important!

So, this is what I do to get ready for school.  I am sure there are some people who can just pop up on Monday and wing it; I know I can't.  Having some sort of preparation always seems to make things smoother and more productive.