Self-Assessments and Student Created Rubrics

Part of becoming an independent musician is learning to assess yourself musically.  Fourth Grade students recently completed a self-assessment of their knowledge and representation of FORM in music.  Students worked for several class periods analyzing Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride and performing various rhythm patterns to represent the form (or layout/pattern) of the music.  As a group, the students and I created a list of skills they should be able to demonstrate with this activity and we turned this list of skills into a rubric.  Students were also working on making connections between the importance of sequence in both music and reading/writing.  After completing a self-assessment, I went back and assessed the students as well.  We discussed how having more than one person assess our performance can be an important learning experience.  Below are some examples of student completed rubrics and assessments.  I am so proud of our Fourth Grade Musicians for being so mature and intellectually critical during this assignment.

The Performance Skills/Objectives assessed during this activity include:

• I stay focused while performing.
• I stay with the beat/tempo of the music.
• I perform quarter notes and eighthm notes correctly.
• I perform sixteenth notes correctly.
• I know the form (sequence) of Sleigh Ride.
• I perform with a positive attitude.