CHOOSING THE RIGHT ASSESSMENT TASKS!

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TASK: ONE-MINUTE ESSAY!
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The 7th grade choir is currently on male/ female pieces so while I rehearsed with a
group, I asked the others to fill out a form with the following question.!

Write one paragraph talking about what you have learned about singing this semester.
Think about warm-ups and each song we are working on. Think about principles you
can apply to any song. Think about what youve learned that helps you be a better
singer individually and singing with others.!

Since the second week of student teaching, Ive been leading warm-ups for all choirs.
My warm-ups usually consist of general (vocal explorations, stretches, scales) & piece
specific warm ups (theory, diction, vocal), solfege singing with Curwen hand signs
(audiation & interval). I choose this assessment task to 1) assess if students are
correctly understanding my instructions on vocalism during daily warm-ups and
rehearsals (ex. breathing exercises, tone and balance, my vocal models) 2) and also to
use class time efficiently and keep one group quiet while I was working with the other
group. I found this effective because it did not take any extra class time but helped me
understand how and what each student understands about singing. It also gave me
some insights on what to clarify: breathing (several students gave unclear or vague
explanation on breathing) and reinforce: tone (most students did not mention about the
tone- warm, round, and supported). Several students answered without reading the
question/ answers unrelated to singing and I had them redo the next class. Reading the
responses was insightful and entertaining for me!