Assessment and Evaluation in K-12 Music
Assessments of the National Standards for Music have been developed and are in use by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). While NAEP has been assessing student achievement in music for more than twenty years, current assessment procedures have been developed from the National Standards as published by the Music Educators National Conference in Performance Standards for Music: Strategies and Benchmarks for Assessing Progress Toward the National Standards. (1996) "In this publication, one sample assessment strategy is provided for each achievement standard appearing under the nine voluntary national content standards for music for grades K-12" (p. 11) While the district curriculum in music does not precisely duplicate what the national standards call for, many of the same assessment techniques, or others very similar, would be appropriate.
NAEP assessment procedures are published and in use nationally. They call for assessing student learning in three basic processes, "creating, as in a student's generating new work; performing the existing work of others, a process which calls upon the interpretive or re-creative skills of a student; and responding which varies from the response of an audience member to the interactive response between a student and a particular expressive medium" (page 3). If, as expected, the Music section of the New Hampshire Frameworks for the Arts is very similar to the national standards, then the assessments developed by NAEP would provide a basis from which to derive district procedures.
Oyster River's Curriculum Assessment and Student Evaluation Strategies.
At the district, school, and classroom level, teachers will assess student progress in music using an array of assessment strategies to ascertain what each student knows and is able to do in each of the eight strands of the district's music curriculum. Alternative strategies include performance-based and language-based assessment of individual student and group accomplishment.
Assessment is a continuing process which informs the music teacher and guides the planning and development of curriculum. In music making situations, evaluation and assessment are integral to the teaching process; evaluation and assessment occur continuously throughout class, and teaching could not occur without them. Assessment indicates each individual's process, product, and progress towards meeting Oyster River's K-12 curriculum expectations in music.
Methods of assessment are selected as appropriate to the individual needs of teachers, students, content areas, and instructional objectives. For example:
Finally, we perhaps need to remind ourselves that the major purpose of a state-wide or school-based assessment program is to provide teachers, administrators, and parents with information which can be used to foster continued improvement of student instruction and learning in our classrooms and communities.