3-1 Assessment

The candidate understands how to use multiple measures to monitor and assess individual student
learning, engage learners in self-assessment, and use data to make decisions.

I possess an accurate knowledge and understanding of assessment and effectively utilize

multiple measures of assessment in my teaching. Assessment is the continuous process of
documenting a student’s understanding on a given piece of knowledge. Good assessment
requires constant documentation. In order for my assessment to be truly effective, I seek to
constantly be documenting and reflecting how well perceived the assessment was. An effective
assessment must be able to clearly show students exactly what and how they are being
assessed. If students do not know what they are being assessed on, I have failed in providing
clarity. While the norm may be to base assessments purely on direct, formal assessments, I do
not believe this accurately assesses all students. Within each classroom consisting of multiple
learning types from a variety of cultures, it is to the benefit of both the teacher and student to
provide a multitude of means for assessing. This ensures that students are keenly aware of
needed course content and that the teacher is keenly aware of where each student needs more
assistance.

In the classroom, I plan to utilize student surveys to provide myself with knowledge of how my
students perceive their learning. This is beneficial to the educational process because it will
show me how my assessments need to be altered to best fit the primary criteria I am trying to
assess. This information is particularly useful in the music classroom because if done properly,
students can analyze and respond to the music they are performing in a professional manner
that serves to further enrich their knowledge of any given piece. I believe all teachers should
live in a constant state of assessing. In music, this comes relatively naturally. However, the
documentation of it lacks. I plan on being well documented in the assessments of my students.
The more time I spend documenting assessment, the more capable and informed I am to better
scaffold lessons for my individual students.