Week 12

PART I: Review the Assessment Project. What did you learn about what your students know?

As I was working on my assessment project, I realized how much the set up of the assessment matters to really understand what the kids know. For example, since my second quiz was worded a little differently and asked them for something more or different than what was on the first quiz, a few of the kids skipped those directions and ended up actually doing a little worse on the second quiz than they did on the first one, just because they assumed they knew what the directions were. Oops. I also put little lines below each interval for them to label, but it seemed like the more intuitive thing to do from the kids’ perspective was just to write in between the notes and not down on the line – and then I think kids made mistakes when they copied their answers down to the lines.

In terms of what they know, it was really interesting to read the definitions of step, skip, and leap that the kids gave on the first and second quizzes. After the first one, I realized that even though I was pretty sure they knew what those intervals meant, the students were not always able to express in their own words what the definitions of each term were. That gave me the chance to work with them and give them the tools to express the terms in their own words, and many of them were better able to express the definitions on the second quiz. In both quizzes, they generally did well with labeling steps, skips, and leaps (usually only missed one or two), and in the second quiz they had more experience with actually writing notes into a staff, so they performed better on that the second time. I hadn’t given them any specific instructions on the written notation before the first quiz, so I could tell from their quizzes that they didn’t yet know how stems worked or how/why you could only use four quarter notes in each measure. We were able to discuss those things in later classes, and then they improved that skill by the time of the second quiz.

PART II: Reflection

This week I did a lot of assessment in my classes in general because it’s the end of the middle school trimester, and since we also had our assessment project due this week it worked out nicely to do both at the same time. In 6th grade (the class I used for the assessment project), they were eager to move on from steps/skips/leaps (ha) and learn about something else, so we got to really dig into our repertoire after they finished their quizzes early in the week. They are really into The Schuyler Sisters from Hamilton, and they have so many creative ideas and they all want solos or duets in the song, which is awesome to see because I can tell they are really invested and enjoying themselves, and they are gaining confidence in their voices. We are trying really hard to give everyone a significant part to sing by themselves, and so it’s been sweet to see them be really intentional about trying to even it out for everyone. If one student realizes they have a few more lines than another student, they are all so willing to give up some of the parts they were assigned so that their peers can get a chance to shine too!

In 7th grade on Tuesday, I had them do an assessment where they labeled the solfege on a short 4 bar phrase in C major in treble clef, and then below as a sort of pre-test I asked them to label the note names (given that the first note was C). About half the class got perfect scores on both sections, about a quarter of them knew the solfege pretty well but couldn’t figure out the note names, and then about another quarter really seemed to have no idea what they were doing. Based on that, I realized I needed to be doing some more in class assessment/check-ins because some of the kids had fallen pretty far behind. So, on Tuesday, instead of singing our solfege immediately, I buzzed around the room Around-the-World style and had each kid say the name of one of the notes on the board. This felt like a good strategy for that class because it meant that no one could zone out and everyone got at least a few seconds of individual help if they needed it. (But, I did it with two sight-reading exercises and I think I should have just done it with one – ha!) They also had time on Thursday to work in the hall in small groups with Ben to correct their quizzes. Finally, I had them write a journal entry about how they’re feeling about their voices, and what they’d like to work on in chorus as we move through the year. Most of them gave really thoughtful answers about both things, and it was nice for me to see that many of them do want to work on expanding their range, not making their voices crack, and reading music and learning about solfege. A few of them also requested music games, so now I made a system where they can earn their way to a game day. (They start the day with 10 points, and they can lose points when there’s extra talking or unfocused behavior, and they can gain points back by being focused and singing well. 50 points – so 5 excellent classes or a lot of mediocre classes – earns them a game day.) I’m hoping this will change their investment as a whole, even though I don’t love using extrinsic motivation to get some of them on board.

In 8th grade and upper school, we are working on introducing the note names on the treble clef with ways to remember what the lines and spaces are. The 8th grade had taken a short quiz last week on labeling solfege, and I had given them a bonus question to see if they could look at notation and figure out what the song was (Mary Had A Little Lamb) which they DID and I was so proud of them! So, this week I knew we were definitely ready to move on and start connecting those with note names. Also, in faculty meeting this week, I found out one of my 8th grade students is really slacking off in her other classes, which surprised me because she’s such a leader in every way in my class. It seems like when it’s something she’s interested in and cares about, then she’ll work hard, but if not, she doesn’t care very much. I’m thinking about ways to motivate her to keep up with her work in other classes too.