48 Festival Judges?!?

If the band director or music teacher world had political parties, I would probably be placed in the ultra-liberal, radical party. I have ideas, and views, and ways of doing things that are not always traditional. I do them in search of additional avenues of teaching my students and guiding them to be musicians, not to make waves in the music education community. But it seems as if the waves are a natural side-effect of my choices.

My latest wave-making idea is the "Comments-Only" festival attendance. For the first time, my band participated in our county festival for comments-only, no rating given by the panel of judges.

I believe my students do need the ears and eyes of other music professionals to help them progress and improve. I absolutely LOVE band clinics, where the "clinicians" listen to the band perform then work with them to make the performance even better. I am no so in love with the festival which keeps the "judges" and the band separate. I do not feel the comments have as great of an effect when they are written and recorded as when they are personally delivered and immediately performed.

I explained to the students about the "comments-only"status and we discussed as a group how that can be beneficial to us: instead of having just 3 judges, we will have 48 - each student in our band will be a judge, plus we will have the comments from the 3 official judges.

While performing at the festival, I made a "clean" recording of our performance using a digital recording device on the conductor's podium. Not the greatest placement for getting a good sound, but at least I had something to immediately share with the students. I then received the recorded comments on CD and written comment sheets from each judge following our performance.

The next class, the students received a "Compliments & Critiques" sheet to use while listening to the clean recording. As they heard great aspects of our playing, they would jot down these thoughts under Compliments. As they heard aspects of our playing that were not so great, they would write them under Critiques. I have worked with them all year learning how to write specific thoughts: "we played good" is not a compliment, instead we write "the trumpets entered at the right time with good volume."

After listening to the entire clean recording, the students turned to the back of the Compliments & Critiques page where they found a ratings chart. It is the same concept as what the judges complete, however simplified for a middle school student to complete. The students places a mark (check, star, shade-it-in) for the letter grade (A, B, C, F) they would give the band for each category (intonation, tone quality, etc.). Then they completed some quick math (add, multiply, & add some more) to find our overall rating.

It was amazing to find that 95% of the group had the same result, with 3% rating slightly higher and 2% rating slightly lower. The students believed this rating had more weight and meaning than when it comes from a judge they don't even know or have not met.

During the next class, we listened to parts of the judges recordings (not the entire performance from each judge due to time constraints) and I shared all of the comments from the recordings and comment sheets. The students placed a mark (star, check, underline) on their Compliment & Critique sheet if a judge mentioned the same thing they had written. Every students had multiple items with these additional marks. Definitely an eye-opening experience for many of them.

The students kept these sheets in their folders to refer to whenever we play these selections in preparation for our spring concert. Although my method breaks with tradition, it seems that my students gained musicianship skills from this experience: better listening skills, a more discerning ear, better use of performance-based vocabulary, and improved problem-solving skills (how to fix what they critiqued).

The Reflective Musician: My MdMEA Session

I presented (for the first time!) at the Maryland Music Educators Association Conference. For those who were not able to attend my session (since you were busy or live in another state) and for those who wanted a chance to review the info, here is my presentation in a nutshell (but not literally "in a nutshell", although that would be an interesting delivery system):

THE REFLECTIVE MUSICIAN

This session will provide methods and resources in teaching student reflection techniques to gauge personal learning and progress in instrumental music classes. Methods range from instant reflections using only a few seconds of class time, to complete projects involving multiple class sessions and methods of reflecting. Session attendees will leave with a packet containing worksheets & prompts that can be used immediately, and concepts & examples of how to implement reflection methods daily. 

(Confession of dishonesty: I did not create packets since I could hear the trees screaming. Instead I provided my contact information so those who wanted electronic documents could request them... as can you.)

Why Teach Reflection?

• Reflection is an inherent task in the Arts. An artist must evaluate what they produce in order to learn and grow from the experience.
• Growth is achieved through mistakes and successes. Students often focus on success or mistake, but not both; we must teach them to look at both.
• The more we practice Reflection, the more comfortable the process becomes. Have you ever watched a video of yourself teaching? My first experience was one of the most uncomfortable moment of my life; now I find the practice invaluable!

 Reflection is in the Standards

• National Standards for Music Education #6 & #7
• Maryland Standards for Arts Education 1.0 & 4.0
• Common Core State Standards Math1, Math2, LiteracySL1, & LiteracySL2

         (This list is a quick touch on the standards; there are methods of linking reflection to practically every standard.)

Reflection is in Teacher Evaluation

Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching

• Components 2a, 2b, 3b, 3c, & 3d

How Much Time?

• Minimal Time & Preparation: Thumb Checks and Rating Scales
• Medium Time & Preparation: Recordings and Performance Reflections
• Extensive Time & Preparation: Portfolios and Projects
  

Minimal Time & Preparation

These practices do not need any preparation time or equipment and take minimal class time. These are "instant" reflections.

Thumb Check & Rating Scale: to quickly gauge student understanding or opinions

"Thumbs up if you completely understand Allegro, thumb middle if you kind-of understand, or thumbs down if you have no clue about the term."

"Thumbs up, clarinets, if you successfully shifted from A to C; thumb middle if you need more practice; thumb down if it did not work at all."

"Show me fingers of how well we followed dynamics when we performed this piece: 1 is we performed all the dynamics, 3 we performed some, and 5 we performed none."

Always incorporate follow-up questions. As the teacher, you can select any student and ask "Why did you give us that rating?" or "Why was your thumb in the middle?" You can also ask that student to then ask another student to share their reasoning and so on.

Medium Time & Preparation

These practices need preparation time and/or equipment and take some class time. These are reusable reflections once you create them the first time.

Recordings: of a professional group or of the student group. I keep a digital recorder handy at all times to record my group and do instant playback.

"Listen to this recording of Over the Waves; compare and contrast it to how you just sang it."

"I just recorded you as you played the chorale. What do you think of our balance?" 

Concert or Festival Reflection: listening to or watching a performance and completing reflection questions on a worksheet.

"List two things the band did well at the performance."

"List one thing the band needs to improve."

"List one critique from the festival judges." 

"What is one suggestion from the judges that you can implement immediately. Why did you select this suggestion?"

Depending on the experience level with reflection practices of your group, you may also keep the worksheet open-ended:

Using this form, the student lists the compliments (+) and critiques (-) for each piece of music, circling the one that can be fixed at the next rehearsal.

Practice Reflection: with an emphasis on goal-setting and reflection, instead of total time spent practicing.

The student sets two goals for the week and marks progress towards achievement at each practice session. Additional reflection questions are answered at the end of the week.

Extensive Time & Preparation

These practices need preparation time & equipment and will take class time, often spread over multiple days.

Portfolios: this method is primarily for goal-setting and performance preparation. Depending on the needs of your students, the goals can be performance-based (intonation, musicality, etc.) or behavior-based (bringing class supplies, talking when appropriate, etc.). Portfolios can be combined with a project, as shown below.

Projects: this method is used to achieve a task while setting and progressing toward goals. The task can be solo performance, small ensemble performance, or composition.

In the examples below, my students formed small ensembles and selected music to prepare & perform for the class. This process was spread over 15 class meetings, using only 15-30 minutes at a time.

This is the first task which occurred over 2 class sessions. The students were encouraged to write honest and thoughtful answers, not answers they believed I wanted.

The students then set individual goals to give them a focus during the project. I insisted on complete sentences for every item in the portfolio.

Open-ended question allowed them voice their opinion, while encouraging them to practice good writing skills.

Two of the items in the portfolio asked them to reflect on goal progress.

Prior to performing for the class, the groups had to record and assess their performance. I encouraged them to be honest in their evaluation, since the grade at the bottom of the chart would not be the grade at the top of the sheet; that grade is based on completion instead of performance.

As with all teaching practices, I continually tweak my methods as well as gather new methods. I attended a session the day before I presented my session and discovered additional reflection practices that I plan to use this year.

Keep your eyes and ears open, listen to and address the needs of your students, and remember to share, share, share!!! The more the students reflect, the more they will reflect without your guidance, which is something they can use in every facet of their life.

Getting Students to Reflect

Every year, I have insisted on having my students reflect on their musicianship. In my first year of teaching, I started with Post-Concert Reflections: having them write what went well, what can be improved, and their overall feelings in regards to the recent performance. After 10 years of teaching, it now has many layers.

DAILY REFLECTION
At any moment during class, I can teach students to reflect. We play an exercise out of the method book. I ask the students to think of one compliment and one critique for themselves, their section, or the entire group. Depending on time, I ask for them to share ("I would like 4 compliments and 4 critiques"). Then we play the exercise again with them applying what they just shared. Sometimes the results are amazing!

PROGRESS REFLECTION
I have also create Progress Portfolios where the students set goals and then monitor their progress over multiple classes and/or weeks. Depending on the age and level of the group, these can be simple goals ("I will use proper posture every time I play") to more complex ("I will improve my intonation by adjusting breath support and embouchure").

PERFORMANCE REFLECTION
After every performance, every student completes a reflection. We reflect on individual accomplishment and group accomplishment. If judging and comments were involved with the performance, I ask the students to reflect on which comment "stuck" with them the most and which suggestion they could immediately implement.

I sent a proposal to the State Conference planning committee and I hope to be selected to present a session on Student Reflection in the Performance-based classroom. I just have to wait and see :)