Realistic Assessment in the
Music Classroom
Making it work for you and your students
TENNESSEE
THE HEART OF
ARTS EDUCATION REFORM
Why Assess?
To ensure that students are meeting goals
 Data collection informs our teaching
 To provide feedback for students, parents
and other stakeholders
 To advocate for our programs
 Because it may be required

Assessment v. Evaluation
Assessment: Measure of the learner’s
performance
 Evaluation: Description of that
performance in relation to other learners
or according to a continuum of labels
(grades)

Ways to assess
Formative (ongoing; can be formal or
informal)
 Summative (end of unit, grade or program;
usually formal)

Changing the way we view
assessment
Curriculum, instruction and
assessment/evaluation are inextricably
woven
 Teachers should incorporate information
from assessment into their teaching IN
THE MOMENT.

Changing the way we view
assessment

Assessment should happen by having
students perform alone, provide
explanations in class, and use the
information and skills they are working on
by applying them in ways that have not
been explicitly taught. Often. (Duke, 2009)
Changing the way we view
assessment
Day-to-day activities should closely
resemble the assessments themselves.
 Objectives and assessment criterion
should be the same thing! Objectives
should be stated in observable behaviors
 “Teaching to the Test” is fine, as long as
it’s a good test!

Tools for assessment
Checklists
 Rubrics
 Portfolios

Obstacles to Overcome
Our evaluation based culture
 Teacher time
 Student-perceived consequences of the
assessment (My GPA will suffer! I’ll be
grounded! I’m embarrassed! I didn’t get
first chair!)
 Striking the “knowing v. doing” balance

Tools for assessment
Checklists
 Used for assessing skills on a “Yes” or
“No” basis or a simple Likert scale
 Simple and easy to collect.
 Can be tough to translate to a grade.
 No middle ground.
Sample Checklists
file://localhost/Users/jonathanvest/Deskto
p/CHORAL MUSIC ASSESSMENT
CHECKLIST.docx
 file://localhost/Users/jonathanvest/Deskto
p/RECORDER ASSESSMENT.docx

Tools for assessment
Rubrics
 Used to give more detailed feedback
 Give students and teachers specific things
to target during the lesson
 Easy to translate to a letter/number grade
 Sometimes difficult to write.
 Can get complicated rather quickly.
Sample Rubric

file://localhost/Users/jonathanvest/Deskto
p/MS Band Rubric.docx
Portfolios
Arts Education Teachers are now being
evaluated on student work. Teachers are to
collect artifacts from a purposeful sampling
of students to be evaluated by a team of
trained music educators. Teachers must
show evidence of that students are:
Creating
 Performing
 Responding
 Connecting

How will we demonstrate this?
Video and audio data of group and
individual performances
 Written responses to music, about music
and about musical choices
 Notated student musical work
(compositions and arrangements.)

Technology in Assessment
Smart Music
http://www.smartmusic.com/products/educ
ators/

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/

Electronic Gradebooks
http://gradebookapp.com/

QR Codes
QR Codes
For copies of this presentation or
other questions, please email me!
Johnathan Vest
The University of TN at Martin
jvest@utm.edu