Lauren Fischer

MUSIC 512
October 16, 2020

Assessment Portfolio

Annotated List:

Rubrics:
 Rubrics can be used to assess a wide variety of music assessments including video
playing tests, in-class playing tests, and self and peer assessment. A rubric is a great way
to assess a student’s ability to play a passage of music correctly, or to assess their
progress on a specific technique. Rubrics can show how a student has progressed and
improved on a specific thing over time. A rubric should be a grid with specific
descriptions in each section so that you can easily tell which section the student’s
performance falls into. When assessing using a rubric, you can select the sections of the
rubric where the student’s performance falls, and also give extra written feedback so
students know what their strengths and weaknesses were during the performance. A
rubric could also be used for a student to assess their own performance from a video, or
for classmates to assess other student’s performances during class.

Checklists:
 A checklist will give students a list of tasks they need to complete, and they can check
them off as they complete them. For most checklists, I would also have students write a
short reflection on how they thought completing that task went for them. One
implementation that I think would be useful to use a checklist for could be having
students practice their scales. I could give them specific scales that I want them to
practice a certain amount of times that week and have them check off each time they
play through those scales. After they play through them, they could write a reflection of
how they thought that play through of those scales went.

Journals:
 I would use journals to have students reflect on what they experienced during rehearsal,
or to reflect on our concert. In a journal, student will write about their thoughts and
feelings of what is happening both technically and musically during class or a
performance. I think journaling during rehearsal would be beneficial for students
because then they would have a representation that is written down of the progress
that was made during rehearsal, and they wouldn’t need to rely completely on their
memory. This would also give me as the teacher an insight to what the students are
experiencing during rehearsal so that I can guide the students to experience what I want
them to experience during rehearsal. A journal where students reflect on their
performance during a concert would also be beneficial both for the students and for me
as a teacher. I would use a concert evaluation journal for students to evaluate how the
 ensemble did as a whole on our concert. I think it is beneficial for students to watch
their performances and make observations of what they did well and what still needs to
be improved.

Practice Charts/Journals:
 A practice chart/journal would be used for students to track and document their
practice throughout the week. I believe the goal with a practice chart shouldn’t be to
see how long students practiced, but to see how much progress they made. The practice
chart would have students write throughout the week to document what they
practiced, how they practiced it, and what they think they still need to work on. Each
week I would give students a list of things that I think they should focus on in their
practice so they have a guide to help them know what to work on.

Exit Tickets:
 An exit ticket would be something students could fill out at the end of class so I could
see what they learned during class, and what questions they still have. This could help
me assess students listening and error detection skills, as well as get information from
them on what they are struggling with. Through this student could also give suggestions
for warmups, or what we should work on in the next rehearsal and I could implement
those which would give students more ownership of their learning. I could also use an
exit ticket to see what information students retained about the history and culture of
the piece, and what questions they still have about the music, time period, or composer.

Essays:
 A short essay could be used to give students an opportunity to research the history and
culture of a piece, or to write about a specific aspect of the piece, and what meaning
they found in it. I think it could be beneficial to have students write a short essay for one
of the pieces for each concert and give them the option of which piece they want to
write about, and if they would rather write about history, culture, or meaning of the
piece. This will give the students the opportunity to learn more about music in a way
that is interesting to them.

Written Tests/Quizzes:
 A written test/quiz would have questions on it that students would give a written
response to. This could involve them identifying different key signatures or parts in the
music or writing about the history and culture the music comes from. This could be used
as a short quiz during class to assess where they are in learning the music or the concept
that we are working on, or could be used as a final at the end of a semester or concert
season to see if they learned and retained the concepts that they should have learned
during that time.
Program Portfolio:
 A program portfolio would be a collection of students work throughout their time in the
program. This will allow students the chance to see how they have progressed from the
time they started playing their instrument to where they are now. I think the best way
to keep something like this could be to make a google folder to keep everything in and
organize it by year and type of documentation. At the end of the year I would have
students look back at their portfolio and write a reflection about what progress they can
see that they made throughout the year.
Implementation:

Rubrics:
 Rubrics should be used to evaluate all playing tests, and any other projects or essays
that are open ended. Playing tests will be given every few weeks and each one will have
a specific rubric made for that test. The students will be given a copy of the rubric when
the playing test or project is assigned so that they understand exactly what is expected
of them. The rubric will be assessed by determining what categories the students’ work
falls into and giving extra written feedback to help the student understand how to
improve their mistakes. The data from the rubrics will be collected so the teacher can
easily see what areas of the rubric the students struggled with and should focus on
those areas in class after analyzing the data. If a rubric is used for peer feedback or self-
evaluation they should be used in the same way by the student as they are used by the
teacher. In these situations, one copy of the rubric will be for the student being
evaluated to keep, and one will be given to the teacher. This will give the teacher an
opportunity to see how accurate student’s evaluation skills are, and what areas of
evaluation should be focused on more in class.

Checklists:
 A checklist will be used to guide a student in performing a certain task multiple times. A
teacher could use a checklist to have students practice a specific scale a number of
times, or to work on one section of a piece. A checklist could also be used to help a
student with getting music up to speed. If a checklist is being used for a student to play
through the same thing multiple times, students should write short reflections or
observations for each time they play through. If a checklist is for something such as
speeding up part of a piece, short reflections or observations should be written and in
addition a playing test should be recorded at the end so the teacher can assess the
student’s final performance after completing the checklist. Checklists will be assessed
based off completion. The teacher should be continuously assessing the class’s
improvement to see if the items on the checklist are improving with the checklist. If
students do not seem to be making progress with the checklist, more specific
instructions and documentation should be implemented.

Journals:
 Journals are individual assignments and are largely opinion based and reflection
exercises. Journals will be assessed according to how deeply and fully the student is able
to explain their ideas. Ideally, students will do a few journals a week, but most likely not
all of them will be assessed by the teacher. Journals will be picked at random to assess
and make sure student are putting the effort into them that is necessary for the journal
to be effective. All concert reflection journals will be assessed. The information that
students write about in these journals will help the teacher to make decisions about
what to focus on in class. These journals will let the teacher know what information
 students are getting out of rehearsal, as well as how students think their concerts are
going. As a teacher, you may have a different idea of how things are going than the
students do, so having students write journals and reading them will help the teacher to
understand where the class is at and how comfortable they are feeling with things so
you can see the class from their point of view.

Practice Charts/Journals:
 A practice chart/journal can be used to assess how effectively students are practicing.
Students should fill out a practice chart/journal weekly using the teacher’s
recommendations on what to practice, as well as their best judgement. Students will be
asked to document what they are practicing, how they are practicing, and write short
reflections for each practice session. The teacher should be assessing not the amount of
time students are practicing, but the effectiveness of their practice. From this, the
teacher will be able to see how students are practicing. From this, the teacher should
determine what practice skills and techniques students are missing and demonstrate
those during class.

Exit Tickets:
 An exit ticket can be used as a quick way to assess what students learned during class
that day. It will have between 1-3 questions on it, and they will all have relatively short
answers. These questions could be about things that happened during rehearsal,
cultural or historical information about a piece, or anything else that was brought up
during class that is important. Exit tickets are also a place for students to write down any
questions that they want to ask but may not feel comfortable asking during class so that
the teacher can see those and address those questions during the following class period.
The exit ticket will be assessed based off how accurately and fully the student answered
the questions. The teacher can use these answers to gauge if there was something in
class that students didn’t understand, or if all of the students seem to have understood
what was covered in class. The teacher should use the results from the exit ticket to
determine what information needs to be reviewed or revisited in the following class
periods.

Essays:
 Essays can be used once per concert to give students a chance to explore one piece and
topic for the concert to dive deeper into. Students could write about the history or
culture of one of the pieces, or the musicality and emotion behind it. Essays will be
assessed on the depth and completeness of the student’s answer to the prompt. The
teacher will be able to gain a more complete understanding of how the students view
and understand the pieces they are working on for the concert through these essays.
The teacher should address gaps from the student’s essays in class to ensure that
students have a complete understanding of the music they are performing. These
should be assessed according to the content within the essay rather than grammatical
accuracy.
Written Test/Quiz:
 A written test/quiz would be given to easily see how well students can identify things
visually. These could cover note names, rhythms, key signatures, or history and cultural
information about a piece of music. Students will be assessed based on their responses
to the questions asked on the quiz/test, and I will use those responses to see what areas
I still need to spend more time addressing during class.

Program Portfolio:
 A program portfolio will contain multiple forms of assessment that were used to assess
a student’s progress throughout their time in the program. This will include documents
from when they were first starting on their instrument in the program to when they are
graduating from high school. Students will be asked yearly to write reflections about
their progress they can see within the portfolio. This can include journals, performance
videos, rubrics, and written assignments. As a teacher, this can be helpful in assessment
because you can look back and see how a student performed previously and see if they
have improved since then. If you can see that a student is not making improvement
throughout their portfolio, more data should be documented to see why that student is
struggling to make progress, and what you can do to help that student improve.
Examples:

Rubrics:

Beginning Orchestra Bowing Rubric

String
and Bow 4 3 2 1 0
Direction
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
G - Down the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
G - Up the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
D - Down the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
D - Up the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
A - Down Student Student Student Student Student
performed 2 performed 2 performed 2 performed 2 performed 2
 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel ot
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
A - Up the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
E - Down the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Student Student
Student Student
Student performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 performed 2
performed 2 measures of measures of
measures of measures of
measures of quarter notes quarter notes with
quarter notes with quarter notes with
quarter notes with the bow the bow rarely
E - Up the bow parallel the bow rarely
keeping the bow parallel to the being parallel to
to the bridge being parallel to
parallel to the bridge some of the bridge, and
some of the time, the bridge, but did
bridge and using the time and did not use the
but did not use use the entire
the whole bow used the whole entire length of
the whole bow length of the bow
bow the bow
Middle School Orchestra Bowing Style Rubric
3 2 1
Space While playing the While playing the While playing the
excerpt, the amount of excerpt, the amount of excerpt, the amount of
space between notes space between notes space between notes
was accurate to the was accurate to the was inaccurate to the
Baroque style most of Baroque style some of Baroque style with
the time with 2 the time with 3-5 more than 6 mistakes
mistakes or fewer mistakes

Bow Placement While playing the While playing the While playing the
excerpt, the student excerpt, the student excerpt, the student
was in the correct part was in the correct part struggled to stay in the
of the bow the entire of the bow most of the correct part of the bow
time time with 1-3 mistakes with 4 or more
mistakes
Amount of Bow Used While playing the While playing the While playing the
excerpt, the student excerpt the student excerpt the student
consistently used the used the correct struggled to use the
correct amount of bow amount of bow some correct amount of bow
of the time with 1-3 with 4 or more
mistakes mistakes
Checklists:

Date Task Reflection

Practice C Major Scale

Practice C Major Scale

Practice C Major Scale

Practice C Major Scale

Practice C Major Scale

Journals:

Sample Journal Entry Questions:

Each journal entry should be no less than a paragraph long. You are welcome to write as much
as you feel you need to fully answer the question.

 What was one thing you discovered during rehearsal today that you should spend some
time practicing at home? Name two techniques you could use to practice this.
 What do you think the meaning is behind the fourth movement of Holst’s St. Paul’s
Suite? What emotional qualities would you give to the different sections? Justify your
answer with examples from the piece.
 How did you feel our concert went? What went well and what do we still need to
improve on? How was your own performance? How was the performance as an
ensemble? What should we try to improve on before the next concert?

Exit Ticket:

Sample Exit Ticket for St. Paul’s Suite Mvmt. 4

Be sure to fully answer the question. Exit tickets will be turned in at the end of class.

1. What is a Dargason?
2. What are three character terms you would use to describe this movement?
3. What is one way we could warm up that would help prepare us to work on this
movement?
4. Do you have any questions about this movement?

Sample Exit Ticket for Russian Dance: Trepack (from the Nutcracker)

Be sure to fully answer each question. Exit tickets will be turned in at the end of class.
1. What is the connection between The Nutcracker ballet, and the piece we are performing
from it in class?
2. How does your part in the piece we are performing relate to the rest of the piece, and
the rest of the ballet?
3. What other observations have you made about either the ballet or the piece we are
playing?
4. What questions do you still have?
Practice Chart/Journal:

Practice Chart for St. Paul’s Suite Mvmt. 2

This week’s focus:

 Eighth note sections
 Melody phrasing
 Musical Pizzicato

Date What did you practice? How did you practice? Reflection
Written Test/Quiz:
Counting Quiz for Peachtree Pizzicato:

Name:

Write in the counting for the following excerpts found in Peachtree Pizzicato

1.

2.

3.
Essay:

Sample Essay prompts for Middle School Orchestra Winter Concert:

Pick one topic and write a comprehensive essay over it. Essays should be at least one page long
double spaced, and include references to the music. Essays will be assessed on how fully the
topic was addressed and the use of examples from the music.

 Discuss the history and culture of A la Media Noche arr. Bob Lipton
 Discuss the musicality and emotion of A la Media Noche arr. Bob Lipton
 Discuss the history and culture of Russian Dance: Trepack (from The Nutcracker) by
Tchaikovsky/arr. Robert Frost
 Discuss the musicality and emotion of Russian Dance: Trepack (from The Nutcracker) by
Tchaikovsky/arr. Robert Frost
 Discuss the history and culture of Dance of the Tumblers (from The Snow Maiden) by
Rimsky-Korsakoff/arr. Sandra Dackow
 Discuss the musicality and emotion of Dance of the Tumblers (from The Snow Maiden)
by Rimsky-Korsakoff/arr. Sandra Dackow
 Propose your own essay topic for one of these pieces – topic must be approved

Rubric for assessing Essays

3 2 1
The topic chosen for
The topic for the
the essay was fully The topic for the
essay was not
addressed and the essay was somewhat
addressed and the
Topic Addressed student wrote a addressed and the
student’s essay did
comprehensive essay student’s essay
not relate to the
encompassing the touched on the topic
topic
entire topic
At least one musical A musical example
example was was included, but it
Use of Musical A musical example
included from the was not from the
Examples was not included
piece discussed in piece the essay was
the essay discussing
Program Portfolio:

The program portfolio is a comprehensive portfolio of a student’s assessments and

achievements that happen throughout their time in the program. The student should add all of
their assignments into their portfolio, and it will be assessed with a reflection at the end of each
semester. Here is an outline of what the portfolio should include.

Folders:
 Playing tests
o Every video playing test that the student completes should be added to this
folder. Within this folder there should be a folder for each semester that the
student has been in the program. The completed rubrics for each playing test
should also be included in this folder
 Journals
o A record of your journals should be in this folder. Journal entries should be typed
and dated. These should be organized by date.
 Practice Charts/Journals
o A record of your practice charts/journals should be kept in this folder. These
should be dated by week.
 Essays
o All essays should be kept in this folder, and should be named with the piece the
essay is over and the concert they were written for.
 Written Tests/Quizzes
o Copies of written tests and quizzes should be kept in this folder. They should be
organized into separate folders for each year in school that the test/quiz was
taken.

Assessment:
 At the end of each semester each student will go back and look over the work they did
that semester, and how it compares to where they were at previously. They will then
write a short reflection (1-2 paragraphs) stating what they think their strengths and
weaknesses are and how they have improved. Students should also state in their
reflection a plan for how they will practice and continue to improve.