This past week I had my third observation of Mrs. Valla's seventh grade choir. My colleague, Marcus, and I asked Mrs. Valla about her grading and evaluation policies. She began by telling us that she does small-scale, informal evaluation daily through her own listening and observation. Mrs. Valla also offers up "candy questions" in which she will ask the class a question, and if a student answers correctly, she tosses a piece of candy to them. (We have seen this in action during her rehearsals, and I must say it is quite effective!) In addition, Mrs. Valla has sporadic assignments such as worksheets that count for a grade. She also collects the students' music from time to time to check their markings. Mrs. Valla also explained to us the state required evaluations. She told us that there are two state evaluations, and that the goal is to show growth from the first test to the second. The students often do short sight reading examples or writing samples about the text, meaning and context of a piece for these evaluations. Mrs. Valla's grading/evaluation policies provide a good amount of structure and responsibility for this age group, and make for a really productive classroom.
The issue of assessment is so fluid in the teaching field right now. She's right, showing IMPROVEMENT from one assessment to another is what is valued. This causes unintended consequences such as dumbing down initial assessments so that progress can be easily documented. She is also right that choral teachers are doing formative assessment all the time as they listen to both the choir and individual singers.
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