SO UN D I N G T H E T E A CH IN G
2
Exposition
EX A MI NI NG MU SI C LEA R NI NG EX P ER I ENC ES
EXPERIENCING MUSIC ASSESSMENT
Authentic Assessment
Tasks in Group Work
BY NG E NG K E E , PA YA LEBA R ME THODIST G IRLS’ SC HOOL (SE C ONDARY)
PURPOSE
The primary purpose of this research
is to examine how students experience
authentic assessment tasks in group
work.
QUESTION
How do students perceive and respond to
the assessment task?
To what extent do students participate
and contribute to the assessment task?
OPERATIONAL
DEFINITIONS
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Authentic assessments:
Mirror real world tasks or expectations
Are commonly used as classroom
assessment to engage learners
Often involves students, for example,
in the establishing of scoring rules and
in self-evaluation to increase student
ownership and commitment
LITERATURE REVIEW
Authentic assessment should involve
tasks that are “intellectually interesting
and personally meaningful”. Students’
commitment will increase if they are
involved in their own evaluation
(Frey, Schmitt & Allen, 2012)
One of the goals in music composition
is for students to develop a “unique
creative point of view and compositional
‘voice’ ”. Teachers must continually seek
to understand their students’ expressive
intentions and provide feedback
and assessment strategies that are
grounded both in the individual music
context of each composition and in the
context of each student’s unique profile
as a learner and creator (Deutsch, 2016)
ASSESSMENT TASK
Having gone through a series of lessons
on instrumental playing and basic
composition/song-writing techniques,
students formed friendship groups to
complete a group composition project.
The chosen theme was “PL 100”,
in celebration of the school’s 100 th
anniversary.
The students’ compositions were
assessed via a “live” performance at the
end of the project through the use of
assessment rubrics.
METHODOLOGY
The project is a descriptive research.
Data was collected through:
Questionnaire for all students
The students were posed 10 questions
which they answered using the Kahoot 1
platform.
Focus group discussions with two groups
of students (35 minutes per group)
The objectives were:
To further understand their perception
of their roles and contributions in a
group composition setting
To understand if the project was an
authentic one and helped the students
in their learning
1
https://kahoot.it/
Students’ reflections for all students
These were the reflection questions
asked:
Did you enjoy the project? Why?
Did the project benefit you musically?
Why?
What were some of the challenges
you faced when you embarked on the
composition project?
Do you feel that you contributed to the
group composition? Why?
Do you feel the music project task is an
authentic task that mirrors real world
expectations?
Did you find the teacher’s facilitation
useful? Why?
Any suggestions for future music
lessons?
The students’ reflections were analysed
together with the questionnaire and input
from the focus group discussion in orde r
to understand how to implement good
authentic assessment for quality learning
outcomes and how group composition
task could be better implemented in
a class with mixed music abilities and
motivation.
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