Assessment

In a choir class, assessment is not necessarily something that students

are used to. However, that doesnt mean that its not important, it may just

look different than in a traditional classroom. For example, many students at

NorthPointe dont even bring pencils to choir so it is more difficult to test

them in a traditional way. In a class thats so hands-on and performance-

based, it makes the most sense to assess the students based on their

performance.

For most of my lessons, I didnt use any pre-assessments because in

my opinion, there was no reason for me to test them like this. Rather, I used

formative assessment for learning so that I could tell where the students

were at before continuing on with the lesson. For these, the main way that I

assessed them was by asking them to close their eyes and rate themselves

on a scale of 1-5 with their fingers to show how well they felt about what we

had just gone over. This was a great way for me to quickly see how confident

people were and whether we were ready to move on or if we needed to keep

working on the same section.

The main way I assessed them formatively as learning was by asking

questions. Each day I would have a lesson about a new choral habit and I

would often ask review questions like, Which were the habits we discussed

yesterday? or Who remembers which parts of our bodies are important for

singing posture? Questions like these both help me to see if they remember
what we had worked on and help them think through what we had learned so

they can remember it.

The last way that I used assessment was through a summative

assessment on the last day of the unit. I took a video of the choir as far as

they had gotten that day, then projected it on the screen and played it for

the class. Before showing it to them, I told them that they would be

evaluating themselves and to think about specific things that weve been

working on and how they performed on those things. I had them talk with a

few people around them about some pros and cons of the song, then share

these things with the group. This next part was hypothetical because not all

of the students have phones/computers and I couldnt assume that they all

had access to the internet. But in an ideal classroom, I would have sent the

students an email with a link to this video, a link to a video of a professional

choir singing the same segment, and a rubric. I would ask them to listen to

both choirs before evaluating, then evaluate their own performance first

before the professional choir. They would evaluate them on separate rubrics

and write a short 1-2 page reflection on what their choir did well and what

they could improve on.

There were many reasons why I formatted the assessment in this way. I

wanted the students to hear their performance next to a professional choirs

performance to show them that they still have a lot to work on, but also to

help them see that they have the potential to sound better. I would want
them to evaluate each choir separately so they could compare the two and

see that maybe the scores were fairly similar, but the overall sound was still

quite different. I chose a recording that was very advanced and therefore

produced a beautiful sound and made the song more than just words on a

page. I would hope that the students would see this and would aspire to work

toward achieving a sound like this as a group. And since simply evaluating

isnt enough in my mind, I wanted to see what they thought our choir could

work on for two reasons. First, so I could see what they thought we needed to

do and I could plan that into future lessons and refer back to their comments.

Second, so they can think of concrete things that can be changed and will

have a better motivation to work on these things.

By assessing the students in all of these ways, I would have a good

grasp on what the students have learned. Some of choral singing is

knowledge-based with certain terms and rules, but the other half of it is

performance-based because even if a student knows everything they need

to, if they cant put it into practice the class isnt doing them much good. I

hope that these assessments would help the students in both of these areas.

(No pre-assessments?)

Assessment: This section is outlined in Stage 2, plus the pre-

assessment and Progress Monitoring portions of Stage 3 of your
Unit Plan Overview. You will expand the outline in a summary essay.
In this section you will design and describe an assessment plan that will be
used to monitor the students progress toward the goals and objectives for
your unit. You must include pre-assessment(s), formative assessments (to be
used during instruction), assessments as learning (for students to use), and
summative assessments (after the unit is complete). A variety of
assessments should be used, including traditional paper-and-pencil
assessments and performance assessments.

The key to quality assessment is two-fold: 1) clear alignment between the

assessments and the goals and objectives of Stage 1; 2) assessment
approaches that account for student diversity. All assessments indicated in
the 5 lessons must be included in this section. At least one assessment rubric
for student use should be included in the unit, and noted in this section.
Make the argument for how this assessment plan will help you monitor
students progress in this unit.

NOTE- Assessments with a real-world purpose beyond assessment are

encouraged. About 2 double-spaced pages