GRADING, INSTRUCTION, AND ASSESSMENT IN MUSIC

When attending workshops dealing with newer forms of assessment, many teachers ask the question, "How will this help me grade my students?" Typically these are teachers with fine programs who are super busy with all the small and large problems that are part of such a program. They regard grading as a distraction (some forms are!) from the more important job of instruction and are earnestly looking for, and need, a better way of documenting student learning. This column will discuss some of the contradictions inherent in traditional grading and describe a different approach to instruction and assessment that teachers have found enhances student motivation and achievement while avoiding the problems of the typical grading environment.

Grades "R" Us

The concern about grading described above is something like being concerned about the tip of an iceberg, with most of the problem much deeper. The busy ensemble director, intent on preparing students for performance, will naturally develop grading strategies that take a minimum amount of time and constitute a minimum distraction from the task at hand. Examples include attendance and tardy records, practice time outside of rehearsals, points accumulated through various activities, and paper and pencil tests. While the first three items are based on worthy assumptions, all are proxies for "doing" music and are not closely linked with the deeper concerns of instruction. They don't deal directly with the musical processes of performing, creating, or responding and often become the focus of student efforts in place of musical processes, skills, and understandings.

The other items above, paper and pencil tests, generally focus on factors that can be represented by easily quantifiable units, assessed by relatively low-level questions, and "graded" by letters or numbers. These may be suitable for ascertaining low-level knowledge of basic facts and concepts but hardly useful for determining students' mastery of and ability to apply the complex of procedural and declarative knowledge necessary for performing, creating, or responding. This can best (only?) be assessed by having students perform, create, and respond.

Grading's "Catch 22"

The most pervasive problem with traditional grades is that the grade, not mastery, becomes the main concern. Even grading students on performing a segment of music from a piece in process or giving a weekly lesson/section grade can have unintended results. While both involve "doing" music, which is good, the focus often becomes "getting a grade" on the students by having them prove their competence. This places the teacher in an adversarial position with the student, and for the student this "proving" for a grade tends to be a short-term but dominant concern instead of the longer-term mastery of those skills and understandings so necessary for students to improve their competency.

Further, research shows that the focus on grades tends to devalue the learning itself. The grade becomes an extrinsic motivator, and when the grade itself is viewed as a reward, creativity, risk-taking, and careful attention to process are lost in favor of speed and the safe response. In fact, the itch for learning, so evident in the early elementary years, gradually disappears in later years when extrinsic rewards like grades get greater emphasis. In addition, grades tend to sort and categorize students into winners and losers, without the redeeming grace of giving students detailed understandings of their strengths and challenges.

A Different Focus

If our job as music educators is to help students become self-sufficient musicians, to make ourselves "dispensable," a change in perspective is needed. The earlier question, "How will this help me grade my students?" deals only with the tip of the problem. The complete answer involves a deeper matter - restructuring instruction/assessment to deal more directly with ways to improve student competence. Such improvement is something all teachers work for, of course, but, as described above, in traditional grading practice the attention of students and emphasis of instruction will naturally center on getting the grade instead of mastery (the "catch 22"). To realize the benefit of a basic element of the standards movement ("All students can learn . ."), a change in focus from "grade-based" education to mastery of the standards is needed. And teachers that have begun teaching in this way find greater student intrinsic motivation and achievement.

Because this premise of the standards movement, that all students can learn but in different ways and at different rates, elevates students' individual learning styles and rates in importance, the students themselves must assume a stronger role in directing their own learning (How? Research shows that giving students more responsibility for their own learning enhances their ownership and motivation to learn). And since mastery for all is the goal, assessment in standards-based education must be linked closely to instruction and be used.

To inform students where they are, relative to mastery of the various aspects of the discipline, so they may direct their efforts more effectively;
To inform teachers so they may facilitate the students' efforts more effectively; and
To inform parents and other stakeholders of progress.

Instruction and assessment, then, must be focused on mastery, not grades, with assessment embedded in instruction so that assessment itself becomes an episode of instruction and learning.

Instructional Projects

What would "embedded assessment" look like? The following instructional project is an example of an approach that has been quite successful for many teachers and is the basis for some of the SCASS-Arts performance assessment tasks in music. Probably the most important standards for empoweringand motivating students to direct their own learning are Standards F and G--analyzing and evaluating.

Students can develop these abilities most readily through assessing their own performing and creating activities. (Typically we teachers take over this role - "Play it louder . .softer. . higher . . lower . .") In this project, students assessed tapes of their own (or their ensembles') performance on a regular basis, with the teachers assessing and providing feedback on the students' critiques as well as their performances. Assessment is thus embedded in an instructional task, with ongoing assessment by both teacher and student providing direction for the students' further learning and the teachers' instructional efforts. And since achievement of any of Standards A through G will require effort over time, this suggests that it be a long-term project that will parallel and reinforce the usual preparations for performance. It will have a double effect. In the short term it will enhance the next performance, and in the long term the student will develop and refine the abilities to analyze, evaluate, and make good musical judgments (a win-win situation!).

Teachers using this approach note several points:

Instead of distracting from the goal of improving individual or group performance, this instructional/assessment task aligns directly with it.
Students see this as a meaningful, authentic task, i.e., one that adult professionals do routinely.
Instead of a teacher-made exercise to "get a grade," with the teacher in an adversarial "prove it" relationship with the students, the students and teacher collaborate in achieving the shared goal of a good performance.
Students exercise a degree of control of their own learning in this project, and research as well as the experience of teachers indicate that student autonomy, authentic tasks, and collaborative effort contribute to intrinsic motivation, ownership, and enhanced achievement.

Processfolios

Finally, an excellent learning and assessment strategy is a process-portfolio kept by each student. It might contain critiques, tapes of performances, questionnaires, curricular work, journal entries, etc. Portfolio assessment affords a close match between what has been taught and what is assessed. Portfolios also provide a learning opportunity for students - revisiting past work and reflecting on what worked, what didn't, and what would improve it. It can help the student determine a direction for future work as well as form the basis for self and teacher/student assessment. And it is an excellent means for informing parents and other stakeholders of student achievement.

About that Grading Question . . .

The answer to the question, "Will this help me grade my students?" is "Yes, but only if the emphasis of instruction and assessment is changed." All of the teachers whose work is described above have to give letter grades, but they are generally able to focus their students on mastery of musical understandings and processes instead of competition for grades. Several have succeeded in this by using a "learning profile," a teacher/student listing of the goals of the project (e.g., technique, performance skills, music reading skills, error detection, critiquing, composing, etc.). Both student andteacher assess the portfolio's collection of work on these dimensions and arrive at an agreement on student progress (another excellent learning experience!), which can then be translated into a grade to satisfy district requirements and/or parent insistence. (However, note that the benefit to learning and instruction occurs before the grade is established.) Such an assessment dwells on what students have learned, not what they have failed to learn. And parents are highly supportive of this approach when their students explain their portfolios to them. Displays of student portfolios at concerts, student-generated program notes, student analyses of compositions for the audience - all are excellent ways of communicating to parents and the public at large the depth of students' learning.

The instruction and assessment strategies described above are based on combining the Arts PROPEL** and CMP* models. Teachers in Wisconsin and across the country are discovering the advantages of these approaches, and many teacher educators are including this approach as part of their methods courses. Such an instructional/assessment model provides rich, in-depth learning, and learning profiles such as that described above are more informative and useful to students, teachers, and parents than a single letter grade.

We live in exciting times! The changes in education that are possible through the standards initiative can lead to situations in which students assume a greater role in their own education and all students achieve high standards!

Adapted from the September 1998 issue of the Wisconsin School Musician and used with permission.

Contact: Melvin Pontious, Music Consultant, or phone: (608) 267-5042 FAX: (608) 266-1965

*CMP, Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance, is a model developed in Wisconsin in 1977 for teaching musical understandings in the performance class. For details contact WMEA, 4797 Hayes Rd., Madison, WI 53704, 608/249-4566.

**Arts PROPEL is an instructional/assessment model developed by Harvard Project Zero that stresses students' active engagement in their own learning. For details contact Project Zero Publications, 124 Mt. Auburn St., 5th floor, Cambridge, MA 02138, 617/495-4342.

***SCASS-Arts is a consortium of several states that is developing performance and selected assessment tasks in the four arts areas. For information contact Frank Philip, Council of Chief State School Officers, One Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001-1431.

For questions about this information, contact Melvin F. Pontious (608) 267-5042

Last updated on 2/25/2008 1:42:47 PM