Putting It All Together

Standards and Assessment at the District Level

By NAfME President Denese Odegaard

Don’t know where to begin to implement the standards in your own district or classroom? This workshop will take you through the step-by-step process of:

trying standards-based activities for Creating, Performing, and Responding – you’re the student
writing a classroom or district standards-based curriculum
creating laser-focusing lesson plans and assessments to show student growth
learning collaboration techniques for writing standards-based curriculum and calibrating assessment with other staff to ensure “buy-in”
obtain lots of free templates to use with your music and other arts staff

Free templates are color-coded for recognition of the three separate Artistic Processes and include:

unpacked standards (the process will also be provided if you are adopting the national standards)
“I Can Statement” for the standards
performance tasks which are strategies for teaching the standard
assessment tools
knowledge, skills and vocabulary
21^st Century Skills used
differentiation

In many instances, we are already teaching to the standards since the nine previous standards are embedded into the three Artistic Processes. It’s important to honor what the teachers are already doing and identify the gaps presented by our new standards.

It’s important to honor what the teachers are already doing and identify the gaps presented by our new standards.

There will be time to view examples of assessments to show growth/proficiency towards the standards (begin with the end in mind) for all levels of general music, choir, band, and orchestra. Rubrics, checklists, self-evaluation, and peer evaluation examples presented and a Dropbox link will be provided.

Developing standards-based lesson plans, especially for areas that are not as popular such as creating and responding, and assessments are important to the success of incorporating the 2014 standards into your classroom. When teachers collaborate on lesson plans and assessments, student data can be gathered and student work exemplars can be collected.

These standards are about process not product and do require a different way to approach teaching. Teachers first have to understand how to teach our 2014 Music Standards before they can teach students to be independent in the processes of creating, performing, and responding. These standards help students learn the aspects of the three artistic processes to become independent creators, performers, and responders to music the rest of their lives. These processes keep music alive for their lifetime and beyond because they are valued by the students and public.

About the author:

Denese Odegaard, National Association for Music Education (NAfME) President (2016-2018), is currently the Fargo (North Dakota) Public Schools Performing Arts Curriculum Specialist, and has taught orchestra for 33 years. National service includes board member on both the American String Teachers Association Board (ASTA) and the NAfME Board. While on the ASTA Board, she was chair of the Committee on School Orchestra and Strings and received the ASTA Citation for Leadership twice. She was a member of the NCCAS 3^rd-5^th Grade Writing Team as the Research Advisory.

Denese Odegaard authored Curriculum Writing 101: Assistance with Standards-based Music Curriculum and Assessment Writing for Band, Choir, Orchestra and General Music (GIA), co-authored the ASTA Curriculum (Alfred) and e-Book, ASTA String Curriculum: Assessment Companion, and has contributed to several GIA, NAfME, ASTA, Alfred, FJH, and Corwin publications.

Denese Odegaard presented on her topic, “Putting it All Together – Standards and Assessment at the District Level,” and led two Presto Discussions at the 2017 NAfME National Conference last November in Dallas, TX. Register today for the 2018 NAfME National Conference!

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