Discussion
While the final outcome of my observation procedure proved to be positive beyond my expectations, I was concerned about the method of gathering data. My students were as- sessed by me for the first two tests, and then assessed by a professional judge from MSVMA for the final test. My teacher bias may have affected the reliability and validity of the project. In addition, the MSVMA rubric for sight reading has not been tested for reliability or validity.
State law requires that I be evaluated each year. While ad- dressing the reliability and validity issue this year, I decided to measure my student’s improvement through performance. I recorded my fall (October) and winter (December) concert, chose two songs from each concert that the 9th grade chorus performed, and submitted the recordings to MSVMA judges
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for ratings. A third and final performance rating will be given at district festival in February. My hope is that the data are more reliable and valid as a result of the following factors: 1. Three independent judges were used to rate the performanc- es, mimicking the authentic festival procedure, 2. All three performances were recorded in my high school auditorium, and 3. The MSVMA performance rubric has a high degree of reliability and validity (Norris and Borst, 2007).
During my interim evaluation meeting, my administrator challenged me to think about my teacher-directed instruc- tion. He noted that most to all of my teaching was giving directives to my students, observing their response to the directives, and then giving directives again. He stated that, while the quality of directives was excellent, there was little checking for understanding from me with questions or dis- cussions. While I rebutted that this direct-teaching approach
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