7. Assessment

Artifact 1: Field Placement Assessment Project

The artifact linked above is a final project that I completed as part of a practice-EdTPA assignment for my Middle Grades Literacy course in the fall of 2017. The project consists of an assessment that I created and delivered to my 4^th grade brass students at Laidlaw elementary over the course of two lessons along with its correlating commentary. The first three pages contain the range of assessments that were administered – one for baritone, one for trumpet, and one for trombone. In the commentary, I address the objectives that were measured, student performance (whole class and three focus students), feedback given, and finally, plans for follow-up lessons and logical next steps to be taken instructionally.

Through the production of this assessment for students in the beginning brass class setting, I have provided evidence that I understand that assessment is a means of evaluating how students learn and what they know and are able to do in order to meet Illinois Learning Standard MU:Pr6.1.5.a (IPTS 7B). Within the context of this class setting, the assessment is also evidence that I understand how to select, construct, and use assessment strategies and instruments for diagnosis and evaluation of learning and instruction (IPTS 7E). I used assessment results to determine student performance levels, identify learning targets, select appropriate research-based instructional strategies, and implement instruction to enhance learning outcomes (IPTS 7J) to provide feedback to students and develop continued instruction plans for future lessons. To maintain useful and accurate records of student work and performance, I charted student assessment data for both the pre-assessment and post-assessment (IPTS 7M).

I believe that, in the creation and implementation of this project, I developed a good idea of what it takes to create and deliver an assessment that is relevant and reflective of the objectives that are to be measured. To truly measure progress in music, however, there must be a performance aspect to accurately measure authentic student learning. For future assessments, it is imperative that I employ some type of performance in the assessment rather than rely on written assessment exclusively.

Artifact 2: Exit Tickets from 3 Consecutive Beginning Band Lessons

These three exit tickets served as formative assessments during a series of elementary band lessons I delivered at my student teaching placement in the spring of 2018. The lessons were based on reading and interpreting basic music notation with novice levels of artistic expression. The first lesson in the series was based around playing notes in a new time signature (¾), dotted half notes, as well as piano and forte dynamics. In the second lesson, tempo markings, accent articulation, and mezzo-piano/mezzo-forte dynamics were introduced. In the third and final lesson of this learning segment, students put all of their newly learned concepts into action by performing and then self-evaluating using their newly learned academic language. In addition to addressing students’ understanding of major concepts presented in the lessons, these exit tickets also allowed the students to provide a brief self-evaluation by answering the question, “How did you feel about your playing today?”

In understanding that assessment is a means of evaluating how students learn and what they know and are able to do in order to meet the Illinois Learning Standards, I created these assessments (IPTS 7B). Specifically, I selected, constructed, and used assessment strategies to inform my teaching strategies (IPTS 7E). The results of these formative assessments allowed me to make data-driven adjustments to meet the needs of each student (IPTS 7G). The exit tickets are thus an example of my appropriately using a variety of formal and informal assessments to evaluate the understanding, progress, and performance of individual students and the class as a whole (IPTS 7K). The exit tickets themselves as well as the lessons they were assessing involved students in self-assessment activities to help them become aware of their strengths and needs and encourages them to establish goals for learning (IPTS 7L).

The creation of these exit tickets served as a way for me to gather data on my students’ grasping (or not) of the concepts I presented within the lessons. Ultimately, through the implementation of the exit tickets and other various formative assessments, I was able to adapt my lessons to cover concepts that were not completely clear to all students. These assessments also allowed me to differentiate my instruction to meet the needs of students who were struggling to understand new terms and the ways in which they apply to musical performance.