Assessment in Orchestra Classes: From Compliance to Ownership
Introduction
Over the past hundred years educational leaders, state and federal policy makers as well as the general public in the United States have been increasingly raising an awareness of the importance of systematic evidence of student learning through various forms of assessment. Tis awareness evolved through several eras, starting with an era of IQ tests and other stan- dardized tests in the early 1900s that progressed through an era that emphasized tracking and selection in the 1950s. Tis was followed by an era of minimum competency testing programs in the 1970s and then an era of accountability, first school and district accountability of the 1980s, then student-learning accountability emphasized in standard-based testing in the 1990s (Cobb, 2004). Even though the gathering and use of evidence of student learning appears to be well embedded in American educational systems, many educators find harnessing this evidence to be irrelevant and even disruptive to instruction and student learning. Educators oſten engage in assessment processes for the purpose of compliance with external demands, rather than for the purpose of ownership and the understanding of student learning and teacher’s instructional effectiveness (Kuh et al., 2015).
One of the possible reasons for educators to not engage in assessment procedures with greater eagerness is a lack of understanding of what counts as an assessment in a certain discipline as well as knowledge of how and when to as- sess. Te purpose of this article is to review for music teachers the basics of assessment proce- dures in general education and offer to teachers yet another way of thinking about assessment in music classes. Additionally, this article aims to provide music and orchestra teachers with concrete and useful assessment strategies and tools that have the potential to inspire a sense
Dijana Ihas
of ownership over understanding of their students’ growth in the domains of knowledge, physical skills, and attitudes that are unique to music and orchestra classes. Because of limited space, this article is not promising insights into analyzing and interpreting assessment results and/or suggestions for consequential use of as- sessment findings, all of which are, admittedly, indispensable parts of a meaningful assessment.
What counts as assessment?
Te Glossary of Education Reforms defines assessment as “the wide variety of methods that educators use to evaluate, measure, and docu- ment the academic readiness, learning progress, and skill acquisition of students from preschool through college and adulthood” (2015). Some methods of evidence gathering happen while learning is still unfolding and that assessment is known as formative assessment. Pretests and diagnostic tests are examples of this type of assessment, and their primary purpose is to inform and adjust instruction. Other methods occur at the end of a course or unit of study, and they are called summative assessments. Te final exam is a classic example of summa- tive assessment, and its primary purpose is to inform teachers and students of the level of accomplishment attained. Some assessment methods are informal while others come with higher expectations and are more formal. Re- gardless of what kind of assessment takes place in an instructional setting, its guiding purpose should be to help teachers understand students’ progress and to inform teachers’ instructional decisions.
Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005), au- thors of Understanding by Design, explain that: “Understanding can be developed and evoked only through multiple methods of ongoing as- sessment, with far greater attention paid to for- mative (and performance) assessment than is
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Instrumental
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