Blog 13

4h. Teachers use a variety of methods to assess what each student has learned. 

Today we talked about many ways to retrieve data from our students and about their learning. I really enjoyed what our speaker said, that she would rather call it "student driven" assessment, rather than "data driven" assessment. 

I think that it would be so easy for schools and teachers to treat their students as just numbers, rather than human beings. I don't quite know how much this fits into the music classroom, but I still thought it was very interesting to learn about. I know that we will have to assess our students on the regular in music classrooms. I already have began to notice how much I do it naturally when I teach my peers in Secondary Music Methods class. But we don't have quite as many huge grades that go into our books by which to inform us on student's progress. We don't have mandated testing or anything like that, so if we were to do such a thing (which I think I would like to look into when I teach), it would still look a bit different than it does in a normal classroom.

I definitely identify with the differentiation of content in music classrooms. I know that everyone who walks in my door will have different background knowledge of music and musical concepts. It will be my job to move them forward and help those who are behind catch up to speed. Luckily, I feel that most students who are in a music class are there because they want to be, rather than because it is mandatory.

Austin