Running head: Research-based Assessment

Research-based Assessment

Jonathan Pate

TESP 512

Azusa Pacific University

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Research-based Assessment
With all the changes in culture, technology, and standards, it is imperative to conduct

research and evaluate assessment. What is assessment, and how is it used? Is it just a test, or is it

more profound than that? How do I, a music teacher, assess in the music classroom? Dictio-

nary.com defines assessment as the act of assessing, appraisal, evaluation. (Dictionary.com,

2020) In other words, assessment is gathering data from the student. How do I gather such data

on how to use assessment in the best way possible? In this paper, I interview a general education

and a special education teacher, and do additional research on what and why we as teachers

assess. 

           My special education teacher is Mrs. Melissa Pryce. Mrs. Pryce works as a special

education teacher at Barstow high school and teacher social studies, geography, government, and

economics. I asked her the question. How do you utilize assessment data to guide your

instruction and to meet the unique needs of all learners?

“I do daily formative assessments by way of their bell works to make sure the students

are writing down and understanding the information from the day before.”

In other words, once the bell rings, there is a daily routine taught to the student since the

beginning of the year. Student comes in and immediately start writing what their thoughts are

from the day before. This shows Mrs. Pryce what the students can recall from the day before. 

“If I am seeing that students are not getting the information, I will find additional

resources (YouTube videos and excerpts from biographical novels on the topic

accompanied with photos on a slide show). The visuals help make the content more real

to them while providing a multimodal approach that includes children with all learning

styles. The students may not be able to read the vocabulary, but they can understand a

picture.” (Pryce, Melissa personal communication January 31, 2020)

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After assessing what the student were able to retain, Mrs. Pryce make the judgment if her

students need additional information illustrations on the subject. Her daily writing assessment is

graded; however, it shows the teacher what needs the student may have and she can additionally

add more content that can be beneficial to her students. I submit to you that Mrs. Pryce doesn’t

use assessment as a big test or benchmark, she uses it as a way to diagnose what students know

and don’t know in the form of daily writing assignments.

           My general education teacher is Ms. Brenda Banks. Ms. Banks is an independent study

teacher through Barstow unified school district. She has a wide range of students some with

extreme credit recovery needs and then some general education students.

“Assessment data is simply one more tool for you as an educator to use, especially if you

have a struggling student. Sometimes test reflects a deficiency in the student's academic

past, like poor comprehension or a lack of fundamentals in a skill. Nevertheless, other

times the assessment may not be a good indicator of issues at all. There is a population of

students who do not test well or do not test well in the traditional sense. That is why it

should be used as a tool and not the guide for establishing student’s needs.”

Ms. Banks indicates that assessment is a tool that can be used to detect deficiencies, issues in

fundamentals and comprehension. If you are noticing that students aren’t doing well on tests, but

they’re good verbally. This could be a sign literacy issues with the student. Ms. Banks goes on to

say:

“True student assessment is best done with the individual child, under various settings

and opportunities, true deficiencies will present themselves in a variety of activities and

modalities. However, assessments can be used as a red flag, allowing you as the teacher

to further investigate the true needs of the student. Because education does not depart
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from assessments often, sometimes students need to be educated about strategies on how

to complete them not necessarily on the content that they are being tested on. 

Ms. Banks states that is her best way to assess is the individual setting. There is also a point on

how student don’t necessarily need to know the content of the test, but how to take the test in

general. Ms. Banks’ personal philosophy is one on one assessment of the student because the

student may not have fundamental or comprehension skills in order to complete the test.   

“Other times IEP’s will be needed to modify some students testing to allow them to be

successful; it may be an issue of time or stress or even a lack of knowledge on assessment

language.” (Banks, B. personal communication, January 31, 2020)

Ms. Banks, like most teachers, has modified tests to allow the IEP students to be successful. That

is also because there may be other factors when the student is taking the test like stress, various

emotional problems, and lack of fundamentals in test-taking.

           How about assessment in my subject, music? In choir, how can we assess, God-given

talent? The teacher in the choir setting is supposed to teach the tool for the students to take and

develop their own unique voice. How can the music teacher set a benchmark for all students to

achieve? It is unfair because student develops their voices at different rates. Sheila Scott is a

music education professor at the University of Calgary, she states: 

“Assessment for learning represents a constructivist perspective in which students, as

active learners, use assessment feedback to extend their current levels of understanding.

Teachers use the information gained through assessment to modify instruction to meet the

needs of individuals.”
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Instead of listening to a singer and comparing them to the best singer in the class (in most cases,

the instructor), the teacher listens to them and apply future instruction to inspire the student to

grow in their craft. Scott goes on to say:

“Thus, assessment takes on a formative role through its integration with instruction.

Assessment for learning is criterion-referenced. A student's levels of attainment are never

compared to those of his or her peers. Rather, a student's achievement is related to the

expected outcomes of the educational experience.” (Scott, S. Rethinking the Roles of

Assessment in Music Education, 2012)

In this way, we have instruction and assessment placed for the induvial. In choir, there are some

assessments, for example, concerts that are an assessment for the whole class. However, if there

were an individual test done via Fliprid, we can then assess the student as an individual musician.

           In music, there is a team element, and most music groups are judged as a musical

ensemble and not individually. The key is every individual being prepared so that the team effort

is maximized. If music teachers focused on making sure every individual was prepared and gave

them tools on how to grow musically, then there is an argument that the results of the

competition or show will be far greater. 

           How about regular/non-performance biased classes? We have learned about assessment,

now let us look at the instruction that leads to assessment. Me being a first-year teacher, I’m

always considered if I am doing the right thing with my instruction or lesson plans. When I

observe other teachers, they the room running so smooth and relaxed. The interaction with

students was almost planned or rehearsed. A student raises their hand to ask a question and the

teacher will pursue their question, and I have seen it time and time again. The teacher ends up

getting semi-off track to satisfy the want and curiosity of the student. Is it worth it? I came across
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a perfect article explaining this issue. The article is coincidently titled Differences in novice and

experienced teachers’ perceptions of planning activities in terms of primary instructional tasks.

The authors Koni and Krull state:

“Experts entered the classroom with flexible lesson plans that were easily followed in

teaching and enriched with explanations, guided problem solving, summarization, and

other aspects. A similar study has been conducted by Westerman, D. A. 1991 who studied

the thinking and decision-making of novice and expert teachers when planning,

implementing and reflecting the lessons. Her study results indicate that novice teachers

tended to stick to their original lesson plans even when unexpected circumstances in

student learning occurred; expert teachers were more flexible making adjustments in their

plans to meet student needs.” (Koni, I., & Krull, E. 2018)

Seasoned teachers could walk in with a lesson plan, and they are prepared to adjust if needed.

The teachers with little to no experience stuck with their original plan regardless of the situation.

If a student brings forth a question that everyone could benefit to know, the teacher should be

excited and jump on it to totally fulfill student excitement and curiosity.

           Throughout this paper, we have seen how assessment is used by our Special Education

and general education teacher. They use it to measure how the student is doing as an individual,

not how they are doing amongst the rest of the class. When they see poor results, they do not

necessarily mark them down in grade but see how they can improve the student, leading them to

mastery. We also can translate this to assessment in music. We should not be comparing them to

the best musician in the room but helping them become the very best they can. Telling a student

that they are not as good as another student can be very depressing for the student. If the teacher

focuses on the individual student, then, real assessment can occur, help the student develop.
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Finally, we see that when instructing, we should be flexible in teaching. Answering questions of

students who are curious about the content will help with the mastery process. You may be

behind a day in lecturing, but the students will learn and memorize so much more if you take the

time to satisfy their creativity and curiosity. 

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References:

Banks, B. personal communication, January 31, 2020

Koni, I., & Krull, E. (2018). Differences in novice and experienced teachers’ perceptions of

planning activities in terms of primary instructional tasks. Teacher Development, 22(4), 464–480

Pryce, M. personal communication January 31, 2020

Scott, S. (2012). Rethinking the Roles of Assessment in Music Education. Music Educators

Journal, 98(3), 31-35.

Westerman, D. A. 1991. “Expert and Novice Teacher Decision Making.” Journal of Teacher

Education 42: 292 - 305.