Summary and Reflection of a chapter from Jagow's Developing the Complete Band Program
The goal of assessment in music, as with any subject, is to improve the learning of the students. At the end of every lesson, there should be an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the ensemble or individual student that the director is teaching. In order for a teacher to be effective in the classroom, there must be objectives set and accomplished. An objective is a goal that set for the class or students to reach for, but it has to be observable and assessable. There is a difference be a procedure and an objective.
In a way, teaching can be looked at like an experiment. The teacher is in the continuing process of improving methods and doing so through trial and error. They look for what appears to be the best method and test that method on their students. This happens in every subject taught in the school system.
At every step in the curriculum planning stage, there just be assessment adding into the plan. Something that a music instructor must think about is the influence of noncurricular factors. Most students learn what they know about music from entertainment and learn most of what they know about music outside of the classroom. These factors must be given thought by the instructor before school credit is given for student achievement.
It has become common for music programs to be judged based on their performances. So if the concert went well, then the music program must be doing well and the students must be learning in the program. Music educators know that more than a solid performance is needed to know whether the students are “learning to understand, appreciate, and read music, as well as acquire historical and cultural knowledge about music and develop those skills …” (Colwell and Hewitt 31).
Assessments can be labeled by many terms. They can be authentic or inauthentic. If an assessment is authentic, it relates to what the students are doing outside of school or it relates to a practical situation. Any kind of ensemble is an example of an authentic assessment because of tryouts and concerts. An assessment can also be labeled as formative or summative. A summative assessment is an assessment of learning and a formative assessment is the assessment for the purpose of learning. The last label is criterion-related and normative scoring. Normative scoring is when the student’s “grade” can be compared to other members in the class. The progresses of each student can be compared to each other. State standard tests is what criterion-related scoring is.
A common misunderstanding that I think the book should stress a bit more is that the teacher in any classroom should use in all of the different types of assessments and scoring that was mentioned above. It may not be possible to do it in every lesson, but the teacher needs to use all these ways of assessing and scoring because it provides different angles to see how the students are learning and what needs to be changed. If the teacher is only assessing from one angle, the students will be missing out on the full learning opportunity because they will only be taught one way because there is only way of assessment in the classroom.
Hourigan Chapter 6
Every music educator needs to plan his or her curriculum and lessons for every student in the classroom. The goal is to take those goals and be able to adjust them for students with learning challenges. When the teacher is making adjustments for the student with special needs, the first thing to do is to look at the IEP of the student. Inside the IEP there will be curricular goals and assessments that are mandated. It is a good idea for the teacher to talk to other teachers that have had the student in his or her class to see what they did and what the outcomes were. Learn from their successes and failures.
There are four basic designs to the curriculum in the music classroom. The first is a materials-centered approach. The teacher chooses a “basic set of materials” and designs his or her lesson plans from these materials. The second is a content-centered approach. The curriculum is built from one of these three things; a piece of music, a style of music, and a composer. Everything thing stems from music literature. The third is a method approach. Examples of methods that are used in the music classroom are Orff, Kodaly, and Music Learning Theory. Each of these methods can be adapted for students with special needs, while sticking to the method. The fourth is an experience-based approach. At the heart of this approach are the learning experiences of the students.
While using these basic designs in curriculum, there are four primary teaching practices that a music teacher should keep in mind while executing and planning the lessons.
The modality of how the lesson is taught is something that will either make or break the learning of the student with special needs. Every student within the classroom will learn best in different ways, whether it be aural, visual, or kinesthetic. Students with special needs are limited in the ways they can process information. While planning a lesson, the teacher should ask him or herself, “How many ways can a concept be taught?” Not only will the students with special needs benefit from this approach to the lesson planning, but all the students in the classroom will benefit.
The book mentions that a lot of the time, the music teacher is use to keeping the lesson at a face pace because there is so much information and pressure to get things done. But it is important for the teacher to remember that if the pace of the class is too fast for some of the students, those students will eventually get frustrated. They also will suffer from sensory overload. The pace needs to be adjusted, but not hold back the other students in the classroom.
Some food for thought is the idea that sometimes it is the music on the page that is holding the special needs student back. It is important to avoid giving the students music that has small, faint font and large amounts of material.
The last practice that should be exercised by the teacher goes along with the size of the font and material. The color of the material can affect the student just as much as the size. Black and white music creates problems in the eyes and causes the processing of information to slow down in special needs students. Using color not only avoids this problem, but it also is an attention grabber.