What if I told you I use the same rubric to assess everything
you're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher in the elementary music Summit, each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that musicteacher.com Welcome
back to that music Podcast. Today we are going to dive into a way that I simplified assessment by using more or less one rubric. And I want to first off by saying I kind of learned bits and pieces of this through my different field placements here in Ohio. So this is by no means a Bryson original, but I really used it in my classroom to simplify assessment so much, because when we get to it, assessment is about figuring out if our students are understanding what's going on and if they're ready for more, if they need more assistance, and things like that. So really, what we're looking for in an assessment is to figure out what our string student learning is, our student achievement and our understanding of the concept that we're placing in front of them. So sometimes we like to really make this complicated. And I think a lot of this comes from No Child Left Behind, and all the pretty data. And, you know, putting glitter on data and using data for the sake of data, even we don't have time to look at the data, which is why I think data gets a bad rap. Because when it really comes down to it, data based curriculum, and, you know, assessment based data is really where it comes down to whether or not we are we as teachers should move on to a new concept or continue to explore the concept in the that we're on in different ways. So when you're truly having data driven instruction, I know that's kind of a buzzword that gets thrown around, but it actually is really helpful, and I think it doesn't need to be as complicated as sometimes we think it is, or sometimes our administrators think it is, which is why I'm going to tell you today about the four point rubric that I use for everything. Before I dive into what those four points are, I want to talk about why I choose to use one one rubric, rather than having rubrics for recorders or rubric for this and then that the other thing and the issue, or the kind of the main point is simplicity. We have how many standards as music teachers between all the different grades, a bunch, right? So if we were going to create rubrics for every single one of those standards, not only would that just take a lot of time, but every time, when we do the assessment, we have to relearn this rubric. And it's going to take us longer and longer to actually do the actual assessment, which, let's be honest, if it's going to take us a lot of time, we're probably going to do it less so by using a four point rubric that's pretty similar. No matter what the concept is we're assessing, we're able to assess more often because it's simpler. So here's what my four point rubric is. So whether we're doing a singing voice assessment or understanding rhythm, I'm going to use the same four point rubric. So whether I'm doing same voice or trying to figure out if a student has rhythmic understanding for a new concept, I'm going to be using the same four point rubric. So a level four is the highest you can be, and a four is that you are able to demonstrate demonstrate mastery of the concept without teacher support. So if it was singing voice, you are able to match pitch, you're able to use your head voice, and you're able to sing without any teacher support. That's a four. A three would be able, you're you're able to show mastery of the concept with teacher support. So if you're not able to match pitch on your own, but if I, if I sing it, and you echo it back, and you're able to do it, that would be a three. In this concept, a two is you're progressing towards mastery. So you're working on it, you're getting a little better. Maybe, in this case, it might be, maybe you're in head voice, but they're not quite matching. And then a number one, it was, they're not showing any mastery of the concept. So basically, we're still a lot of work to be done. So I use that for everything, and you can use that in a lot of different ways. First of all, I love that there's no middle ground. So you can't say they're just in the middle they're either, you know, getting it, or they're not. Also, you can make this a little bit more complicated if you need to. So for instance, if I was wanting to do make my my singing voice a little bit more specific, I could have one through four for pitch matching, one through four through head, voice, one through four through I don't technique or whatever. You could make them more complicated, but by having the same criteria, the same four four levels, it's going to make the assessment so much faster and so much easier. So I am fully aware that there are probably some of you that feel a little uncomfortable with how simple these rubrics are, and I'm also aware that there are probably some administrators that will not like this system. What I say to that is this, again, simplicity makes it easier to do, which means you're going to do it more often, which means you're going to get more meaningful data points, rather than just a couple big assessments throughout the quarter, you're going to be able to see that growth, show that growth, and chart that growth and. Additionally, it may, it's, it's, like I said, you can make it more complicated by having multiple domains on that four point scale. But you don't need to, like, for instance, if you want to know if a student is able to to tongue in the recorder, that's going to be a simple thing. Can they do it? Can they not? So that would be a one. What a four point rubric. If you are wanting to know, can a student play recorder with good technique that's going to be a little bit more complicated that's going to be maybe you have the tongue, maybe you have the overblowing, you know, things like that. So it really comes down to what actually are you assessing? Are you assessing a larger concept, or are you assessing something that's a little bit more granular, like tongue in on a recorder, or building a tart than clapping one? So you can assign your assessments in different way, or you can design, excuse me, your assessments in different ways to make them a little bit easier. To go with this four point scale. And again, I think that allows us to really get to the core of the concept that we're teaching. Because let's be honest. You know, you would not use a four point rubric to see, does a student understand what a quarter note is? Because that is so nebulous and vague, and there are so many different aspects. Can they read it? Can they write it? Can they clap it? Can they build it, different things like that. So obviously, there's different parts of assessment within each standard. And if you have administrators are like, Oh, I don't really like this. Or like, hey, well, that's not, that's, that's not a rubric. You need a rubric for everything. My challenge for you them is this is when we when we are able to do more assessment, like I said, more often, and then write it down. Because, let's be honest, music teachers, we are the worst at writing down our assessments. We're constantly doing informal assessment. We're just terrible writing it down. If we write it down, we're going to have more data to use. So my challenge for you is this, do it this way, and show your administrator the data that you have if they start pushing back. Say, Hey, you know, I saw that this student was able to match pitch on this for this day, but then they started being able to do it with my assistants. And then now, look, they're able to do it without my assistance. And kind of use that as proof of, hey, this is working. It might not look what it looks like in another classroom, but this is working for me and the students in the number of students in the wide concepts that we teach in the music classroom. So I know this isn't going to be for everyone. I know not every administrator is going to let this fly, unfortunately, but I really think that simplifying a rubric to something like this makes it so that you can use it more often. You can use it between different grades, and you don't have to memorize or even have a physical rubric with you. You can just write a number down as you're doing assessment, rather than having to print out, you know, 4700 whatever different physical rubrics, you can actually do it more just kind of writing it in your grade book. So I hope this episode got you thinking a little bit differently about how we do assessment, how we write down assessment, and how we use rubrics in the classroom, because I think that so often data gets a bad rap because we have administrators who are told, right, but their superiors that we need data and we need to show data, data, data data, No Child Left Behind. Data, data, data, data, all these things, right? But the reality is, data is a good thing. Having high quality student data is really important to allow us as teachers to know what we need more of, what we need less of, and where we are to go from here. It's kind of like when you have a GPS, right? What I love about GPS is, is it's not like a map where, if you make a wrong turn, you have to go figure out how to get back to where the map is, but a GPS, if you take a wrong turn, you'll get a constant. It'll recalculate, right? It'll say, hey, something is a is a little bit off here, and you're able to recalculate from that, and that is exactly what using high quality data and having constant having a lot of data and then writing it down and analyzing it can do for us as teachers. It can help us recalculate to get us back on path to a curriculum and to our high student learning. With that being said, thank you so much for listening to this episode of that music podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please send us an email Hello at that music teacher.com we would love to support you in any way that we can. And if you haven't already subscribed to this podcast, go ahead and hit that little Follow button on iTunes and leave us a review that would make us so happy. We read every single one of them. And in case nobody has told you lately, thank you so much for making a difference in the lives the students that you teach you.
