+
Camille Kingman
Orem Junior High School (UT)
ckingman@alpinedistrict.org
NAfME National
In-Service
Conference
2014
What You Think Your Students Are
Learning But Aren’t: Collaboration as
Eye-Opener
+
What You Think
You Are
+ Teaching But
Aren’t: Delusions
Revealed
Confessions of a
Collaboration
+ Hater: Learning
to Love Group
Work
What You Can
+ Learn from What
Your Students
Aren’t Learning
+
Goals
 Tools
and resources
 What
collaboration looks like: a
professional learning community of music
educators in action
 How
to collaborate
 How
to use data
 How
collaborative work ties into new
National Core Music Standards
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Tools
choirplc.com
choirhelp.weebly.com
+
Tools
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choirplc.com: Scope Page
+
choirplc.com: Assessments Page
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choirplc.com: Data Page
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choirplc.com: Formative
Assessments Pages
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Tools
+
PLC by the
Numbers
4 years of high-functioning collaboration
+ 11 junior high schools
17 choral educators
0 district administrators
3500+ students each fall
3 levels of curriculum
46 common assessments created to date
+
How We Got Started

Monthly meetings

Summer grant in 2011

Unpacked our state core curriculum

Created specific benchmarks for 7th Grade Choir, focusing
on music notation skills

Divided into sub-groups to complete work

Wrote a comprehensive pre-test and post-test

Made a SMART goal

Gave the assessment and collected student data
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Unpacking
“Identify and define
standard notation terms and
symbols for pitch, rhythm,
dynamics, tempo,
articulation, and
expression.”
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Beginning Pre-Test, 2011-2012
Proficient 9%
Not-Proficient 91%
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Beginning Post-Test, 2011-2012
Proficient 45%
Not Proficient 55%
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How Did We Do?

We finally knew where we stood.

We made some progress, 347 more students showed
proficiency.

We did NOT meet our SMART goal and we were SHOCKED.

We had taught the basics.

We had been more meticulous about our teaching than ever.

We had talked about teaching more than ever.

How many years had we been in denial about what our
students were learning?
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Why Didn’t We Give Up?

Inexperienced

Mistakes

Unrealistic goals

Didn’t know how to write quality assessments

Difficult to collect data

Didn’t know how to use data

Worked so hard and still had many failing students

We didn’t receive a collaboration grant for 2012
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Why Didn’t We Give Up?
 Greater
organization
 Heightened
team collegiality
 Accountability
to members of the team
 Improved
teacher instruction
 Increased
student learning
 Access
 Getting
to resources
over the delusion “I taught it, they got it.”
+
Beginning Pre-Test, 2012-2013
Proficient 22%
Non-Proficient 78%
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Beginning Post-Test, 2012-2013
Proficient 69%
Not Proficient 31%
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Beginning Assessments, 3-Year
Comparison
Proficiency
2011-2012
2012-2013
2013-2014
69%
45%
22%
20%
9%
Pre-Test
Post-Test
75%
+
This Year’s Baseline
Proficiency Data
2011-2012
2012-2013
2013-2014
2014-2015
22%
20%
15%
9%
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Where We Are Now
 Meet
2-3 times a month
 Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced
Curricula
 Collect
common data on formative assessments,
not only summative post-tests
 Unified
use of Mastery Connect software for data
collection
 Teacher
 Student
website
website
How do we
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collaborate?
+
Collaborate with those who
share your same discipline.

Specialize within music disciplines (band, choir, orchestra) if
you can

You will need to have the support of your administrators

Reach out beyond your physical school site

Use technology to collaborate

Increase your collaboration proficiency, then collaborate with
other educators who might not teach what you do

New national standards will help in collaboration amongst
diverse arts educators
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Collaboration is NOT
Cooperation
Event
Planning
Collegiality
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Collaboration IS
 Shared
values and vision centering on
students’ learning
 Collective
teacher learning and application
of learning
 Shared
 Action
 Shared
personal practice
and experimentation orientation
leadership
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What do we want our
students to know?

What do we want a 7th grade student leaving my choir class to
be able to know and do?

Intended, enacted, assessed, and learned curricula

Do we want our students to learn how to sing and interpret a
piece of music they just picked up?

Do we want our students to memorize symbols and definitions?

Do we want our students to learn how to take multiple choice
tests?

Do we want our students to learn that music reading skills are
separate from the “fun” music-making they enjoy outside of the
classroom?
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What is essential?
 Must
know
 Good
 Nice
to know
to know
 Ultimately, only
you know what is essential for your
students in your situation.
 Your
list of essentials will evolve, and probably
shrink, as time passes.
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What is essential?
Facility in solfege
Letter names on
the staff
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What is essential?
Aural skills
Terminology
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Start small.
 The “easy” project
will be far more difficult than
you realize.
 Choose
one unit in one level of curriculum.
 Choose
concepts/objectives that are easily
assessed.
 In
large PLCs (5+ teachers) divide work amongst
subgroups.
 Be
patient with yourself and others.
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How will we know if they
learned it?
 Answers
are more elusive than you think
 This
is the course in assessment writing that you
never had.
You have to write an assessment.
 It will take longer to create than you predict.
 You’ll finally finish, and you’ll be proud.
 You have to actually give the assessment.
 Once you have used the assessment, you’ll hate it.
 Repeat.

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How will we know if they
learned it?
 Moment
of truth
 Nothing
will be scarier than the first batch of data
 Checkups
versus autopsies
 Assessments
are just as much for the teacher as for
the student
 Allow
a minute for you and your students to adjust,
logistically and psychologically
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Common Assessment
 Assessment
is not common until data is collected
and shared.
 Be
very specific about data collection.

When

Where

What

How
 Use
technology: the computer is better at grading
than you anyway.
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Avoid the DRIP syndrome.
Data
Rich
Information
Poor
 What
do we do with data once we have it?
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Pre-Test Data
 Establish
a baseline
 Adjust
curriculum for the classroom
 Adjust
curriculum for individual students
 Inform
assignment of students to teams for
group work
 Fix
mistakes in assessment
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Formative Data
 Assessment
FOR learning
 Not
for the purpose of putting assignments in
the grade book
 Provide
 You




immediate feedback to students
will need help
Extra time in the day
Student teachers and college students
Students who are already proficient
Technology
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Formative Data
 Dialogue
 “How
did you get this answer?”
 Validate
 Learn
with students
students’ problem-solving skills
how to think as your students think
 Adjust
future teaching to align with the
styles of your students
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Item Analysis
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Item Analysis
Beginning 7th Boys
Beginning 7th Girls
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Item Analysis
Entire District
Questions I Should Ask

What is the content of
Questions 20 & 21?

Is there a better way to assess
the content of Questions 20 &
21?

What is Question 24 asking?

How did my colleagues teach
that content?

Is Question 23 too easy?
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Item Analysis
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Formative Data

Reflect: What did I do to teach this the first time?

Re-teaching does not mean to repeat the teaching you did the
first time.

Provide experiential learning before assigning verbal terms.

Take another look at the question.






Is it assessing what you think it is?
Is it unnecessarily tricky?
Is it worded in student-friendly language?
Is the graphic clear?
Are the answer choices too similar to one another?
Is it simply a bad question?
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Item Analysis
Advanced Formative #1
For Your Consideration

Questions 1-5 are terms
matching.

Question 6: Give the note
names for mi, sol, ti, do’ in G
Major.

Critical thinking

Abstract

Many skills needed to answer
this one question
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Formative Data
 Which
 True
measure is louder, m. 39 or m. 41?
or False: The steady beat is faster in
m. 39 than in m. 46.
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Formative Data
Unpack
all of the skills needed to
answer the question in order to
foresee incorrect student transfer of
knowledge.
Measures
 Beat versus rhythm
 Dynamic markings
 Articulation markings

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Teach each other how to teach.

Reflect on your personal students’ data.


Reflect on the data of your students versus the student data from
another school.





What do you and your students do well?
What can you share with your colleagues?
At what do your colleagues excel?
What can you learn from them?
Reflect on your team’s collective data.



What do you learn about your own teaching?
What is working?
What is not working and how are we going to fix it?
Do not tell people how they must teach.
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Summative Data
 Assessment
OF learning
 Accountability
 Celebrate
to the collaborative team
student (and teacher) progress
 Plan
and revise for the next group of
students in your class
 This
kind of data provides only one limited
perspective
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Agree to disagree.

Consensus comes only after lengthy debate.




Create group norms.






Disagreements are inevitable.
Your ego will heal.
You will learn little if you are more concerned with avoiding conflict.
Starting and ending on time
Providing thoughtful agendas before meetings
Not interrupting, allowing each member to speak
REALLY listening and considering all ideas
Bringing treats
Celebrate all of your team’s efforts, even the failures.
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Revelations

RIP: “I taught it, not my problem if they didn’t learn it.”

Brilliant, unassuming students are hiding in your classes.

The “Why do we have to learn this?” question is less terrifying.

The initial investment of time to teach curriculum at the
beginning of the year leads to quicker learning of repertoire,
more singing as the year continues.

There is no more your students and my students. They are our
students.

Process versus product

Group construction of knowledge in the PLC
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New Standards

The Artistic Processes are Creating, Performing, Responding,
and an overarching Connecting.

There is no Reading (music in notational systems) Process.

Can you still create, perform, respond, and connect to music
if you cannot read notation?

Does reading notation help in the creation, performance of,
response and connection to music?

Standard notation is explicitly mentioned in AS2 (Creating) &
AS4 (Performing).
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Where Notation Fits in the
New Standards

Specifically mentioned in:



AS2: MU:Cr2.1.E.8b
AS4: MU:Pr4.1.E.8a, MU:Pr4.2.E.8a
Implied in:








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AS1: MU:Cr1.1.E.8a
AS2: MU:Cr2.1.E.8a
AS3: MU:Cr3.1.E.8a, MU:Cr3.2.E.8a
AS4: MU:Pr4.3.E.8a
AS5: MU:Pr5.1.E.8a
AS6: MU:Pr6.1.E.8a
AS7: MU:Re7.2.E.8a
AS8: MU:Re8.1.E.8a
AS9: MU:Re9.1.E.8a
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New Standards

Understanding by Design



Stage 1: Big Ideas
Stage 2: Real-World Performance Assessments
Stage 3: Skills and Knowledge Required

1994 National Standards now constitute the Stage 3 skills and
knowledge of the 2014 Standards.

Shift from behavioral objectives to constructivist objectives

The majority of our PLC work historically has focused on basic
skills and knowledge.

A powerful conversation led us to develop performance
assessments this summer.
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New Standards:
What’s the Big Idea?

For this PLC work currently? Big Idea? Enduring
Understanding?

Essential Questions for Anchor Standards 4 & 5



How do performers select repertoire?
How do performers interpret musical works?
How do people pass music on from one to another?




Culture to culture
Throughout history
This question could be asked fruitfully over and over and over…
There are multiple answers and multiple avenues for students to
make meaning.
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PLC Practice: An Analogy to
New Standards

Music - Traditional and Emerging Ensembles Strand

Anchor Standard 3: Refine and complete artistic work.

Enduring Understanding: Musicians evaluate, and refine their
work through openness to new ideas, persistence, and the
application of appropriate criteria.

Performance Assessment (MU:Cr3.1.E.8a): Evaluate and
refine draft compositions and improvisations based on
knowledge, skill, and collaboratively-developed criteria.

This is what you are doing with curriculum and assessment
within a PLC!
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What now?

Use assessments with us; share and analyze data with
us.
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What now?
+
What now?

Use assessments with us; share and analyze data with
us.

Use assessments within your own PLC; share data
amongst yourselves to inform your teaching practice.

Use assessments as a starting point in your own PLC,
and then adapt/create assessments that better meet the
needs of you and your students. Will you share them
with us?

Begin working in a PLC of music educators on
curriculum of your choosing. Please share your journey
with us.
Camille Kingman
ckingman@
+ alpinedistrict.org
choirplc.com
choirhelp.weebly.com