Unwrapping assessment: powerful tools for student progress.(Pedagogy Friday: Exploring Evaluation and Assessment)

To set the stage for the sessions that followed, Janet Lopinski and Scott McBride Smith shared their thoughts on the role of evaluation and assessment. The clinicians approached the topic from a broad perspective. No matter what type of teaching is done, assessment is essential. Students are being evaluated all the time: by their teachers, families and everyone who hears them play.

Introduction and Overview

The session began with a general overview of the concept and the importance of developing the ability to step back and evaluate skill execution, in music or any other discipline. The need to acknowledge strengths and identify areas of weakness and work to improve both was highlighted. Each lesson we have with our students includes the process of assessment in some shape or form.

The definition of assessment as "the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs" was discussed as a general concept, applied in the work of studio teachers on a daily basis: when we decide where our student is at a given moment, where we want him to be in a week or a month or a year and how we will get him there. An important aspect of this is training our students to develop self-assessment skills; critical listening, goal-setting, motivating and inspiring are all related to this concept.

Aspects of learning theory relating to assessment were discussed, including the controversy surrounding testing in the school system on both sides of the U.S./Canada border.

Examples of how assessment tools can be tailored to each student's needs were explored, leading to the conclusion that as teachers come to know their students as individuals, they can best decide which form of assessment will be most appropriate.

Assessment in the Studio