Tips For Creating Clear Performance Assessment Rubrics
Musicians are masters at assessment. We assess our personal music making and those of our students constantly and make real time adjustments and observations. Live performance is an “in the moment” creation. During a performance, musicians are called to listen, interact, and adjust to their fellow musicians in the moment to make a performance all the more beautiful.
Furthermore, we assess our technique, intonation, tone production, the rhythmic feel, balance, and blend all while creating music, in the moment, with others. As educators, we strive to foster that type of self assessment in our students so that they can develop and grow as young musicians.
The challenge then in assessment for a music educator is taking music – which is often subjective and abstract – and evaluating it in such a way that helps our students grow and progress. Therefore, it’s helpful to both teachers and students to develop clear measuring tools for what a successful performance looks like. In this post, we will discuss how to develop clear, easily understandable rubrics for performance assessments.
What Do You Want Your Students To Learn?
Many of us know what we want our students to learn and accomplish even if we don’t formally write it down. However, before I develop a rubric for an assessment, I have found it extremely helpful to formally write down what I want my students to accomplish through the assignment. This process helps me to establish more concretely what concepts I want my students to focus on and master.
Once the learning goals have been established, create clear directions for what your students will be required to do on their performance assessment. Indicate all specific details pertaining to the assignment. Provide a due date and any additional information they will need to be successful. It might look something like this:
Playing Assignment #1: Perform measures 1 to 15 of our arrangement of Hornpipe by G.F. Handel at quarter note equals 80 bpm. Play with correct pitch notes, rhythm, accurate intonation, articulations, and expressive markings.
Due: In your small group lesson on May 1st.
The assignment is clear and students should know exactly what they are to focus on and how they are to practice.
Developing A Rubric
Once the goal of the assignment is identified, students will need to know what a successful performance or mastery of the skill looks like. A rubric is the measuring tool for which students (and teachers) can evaluate a performance. Rubrics are helpful because they are a way to measure performance based tasks that can often be subjective.
When developing a rubric, I try to think about the following criteria and create rubrics that are a.) clear and easily understood by the student (and teacher – me), b.) measure the skills I want students to learn, c.) align not only with the goal of the assignment, but with the standards and curriculum.
Rubrics should clearly communicate what is to be learned and be a guiding tool for the student. When used most effectively, our students should refer back to their rubric as they are working on a performance excerpt to assess their growth and progress.
Logistics of a Rubric
Determining how students will be evaluated and scored is up to the teacher and based upon the assignment. Refer back to the initial steps to determine what aspects of a performance you want to evaluate your students on. As an example, if I wanted to measure rhythmic accuracy, the scoring for my rubric might look something like this:
Rhythm
4 points – Mastery – Student performed with no errors and all correct and accurate rhythms, tempo, and a steady beat
3 points – Applying – Student performed with a few errors (1 – 2) and mostly correct and accurate rhythms, tempo, and steady beat
2 points – Developing – Student performed with several errors (3-4) with incorrect rhythms, tempo, and/or unsteady beat.
1 point – Beginning – Student performed with many errors (5+) and incorrect rhythm, tempo, and/or an unsteady beat.
In this example, the student should be able to understand what is expected of them and how they will be measured. Additionally, they would be able to evaluate their performance at home based upon the criteria and use this rubric as a guide for their home practice.
Conclusion
Whatever way you choose to measure student learning, your rubric should work for the purposes of you and your students. Rubrics should be clear and easily understandable. What assessment tools have worked for you and your students? What ideas do you have on the creation of performance assessment rubrics?
Further Reading:
- Understanding and Developing Rubrics for Music Performance Assessment
- Habits of a Successful Orchestra Director by Christopher Selby