Module 5 Blog - Assessing Student Projects

How do I assess student learning?

In my experience, there are many varied ways of assessing student learning depending on the class I am teaching and the school/college where I am teaching. For music classes, assessments are largely performance based. Rubrics and assessments are available for use, or I can use assessments that I created, but in the end, all students have to assessed within the bounds of differentiation. Every student's learning style, background, and present ability to learn should be a factor over and above the common assessment both at the high school level or at the college level. For other classes, more common assessments are used where performance is assessed in different modes of activity, tests, projects, presentations, reading assignments, etc. With all students and classes, I feel it is the utmost importance that all students are assessed using differentiation that is appropriate to each student's level of learning and learning style.

The Module 5 assignments have helped me to further refine my student sample and broaden the scope of the overall subject of music as a reflection of society. As the project continues to unfold, I keep finding more material that student could use as information for their own music/society projects. The latest topic that I discovered (or stumbled upon) is the area of children's songs. There is a wealth of musicians and songs that are written for children that educate about world issues on a level appropriate to their age. Of course the more successful musicians also use music as fun in addition to education. The latest example of this for me is Tom Chapin's song, "Not On the Test". These topics could easily be built into a semester long class.

How do I involve students in the assessment process?

I feel it is extremely important to involve students in all stages of the learning process. As a teacher, it is an important first step in defining student expectations for not only student work, but also in classroom behavior and etiquette. I believe this important step also empowers the students to take charge of their own learning so that they are more excited by the process and are more apt to forge a direction (or topics) for learning. In all classes that I teach and at both the high school and college level, I find that students are very aware, honest and forth rite in self assessment when asked to do so. I also find that it is important that students first identify areas of strengths, successes, and improvement. By doing this, students are not looking at their work as "glass half empty" but as "glass half full". This to me is by far a more successful approach to developing a strong assessment that is student driven.

I am finding that in future class offerings for Dirigo, I am considering asking for funding to offer a class that explores music and society.