Assessment is everywhere - it is probably the single most popular word in American education today. Teachers have assessments for the students all year long, checking student progress on benchmarks and standards for their subject areas. Most states have standardized tests in place to assess student skills, and plenty of money for education is tied to student performance on these tests.
All of this attention on assessment has given that word a negative stigma - Most directors are too busy preparing their kids for concerts, festivals, and competitions to give it the attention it needs. Most directors spend a great deal of time on assessment, both formal and informal, and may not even realize it. It probably wouldn't take much work to maximize the effectiveness of existing assessment strategies, which would only improve student skill and performance. Well-planned assessment is probably the greatest tool to improve teacher effectiveness and student performance.
I will be posting a series of articles dedicated to assessment in the band program - which is an area that I think does not get enough attention.
The biggest assessment tool we have is the student grade. This tool is probably the one most commonly taken for granted. The grade itself offers little to no information. Four times a year, parents receive a piece of paper that has the subject area with a letter next to it. What does this grade mean? If you give a student a B in your class, what does that tell the parent? For some reason, this little bit of information can mean everything to a student or parent. For this reason, it can be an effective tool for motivating a student to do better work.
Most people assume the grade is directly tied to the student's success in that subject area. An A in math means they did exceptional work in that subject, while the D in Language Arts means he/she is performing below average. What about band? Does every student who receives an A in band perform exceptionally on their instrument? This is not always the case with band, as well as other elective classes, because teachers are concerned that students will lose interest if their class is not an "easy A."
The first step to making the report card grade effective is clearly defining what it stands for. Most states or school districts provide course codes and descriptions for each class offered. While everyone may not agree, the student grade probably should reflect their mastery of the material noted in the class description, or the student mastery of standards for that subject matter. One example of this for band could be that the grade represents the students ability to demonstrate various music skills and standards through performance on a band instrument.
The next step is to make sure that this assessment, the students report grade, is valid, meaning the grade represents what it is said to represent. For this reason, the majority of the grade should be based on the students abilities and skills learned in your class. The more that non-musical factors contribute to a student grade, the less valid it becomes. For example, if 50% grade is based on participation or concert attendance, the grade will not be valid. Here is an example of a grading system that could be considered valid:
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.
A total of 91% of a student's grade in this system is directly tied to musical skills, which helps make the grade valid. This is by no means the only valid grading model, just an example.
Noticeably absent: practice logs or journals - that is a topic for another day...
I went to this model of grading in my third year of teaching, and has made the single-biggest improvement to my student's performance. Their is always the fear that tougher grading will cause students to drop out, but their has been no significant research proving this (at least that I can find). I always find that the biggest reason students drop out is because they feel like the are no good at their instrument, and this could actually help prevent that.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please share!
Thanks for the great post. I am beginning my teaching carrier as we speak and your grading guidelines have been a big help.
Posted by: jason | January 10, 2009 at 03:52 PM