Katie Fries

Measurements and Assessments

IMEA Summary
22 November, 2014
The first session I attended was for first year teachers and
college students training to be teachers. It was led by Dr. Sean Burton
from Briar Cliff University. Essentially, he had us just sit in a circle and
bring up any concerns for our future as music educators, as well as
giving a little background on his training. I liked that he has a similar
background to me- he did both choir and band all the way through
college, and now teaches both! I also liked how straightforward he was
with addressing serious issues but then approached other topics with
humor to keep the conversation light and engaging.
Before lunch, I went to a really interesting session on how to
incorporate rock and roll music in the general music classroom. The
teacher from Mitchellville, Iowa, actually went to the workshop at the
Rock Hall back when that was still a thing, so shes essentially certified
to teach about rock and roll, and she is also a Kodaly enthusiast. I was
a little concerned to think that an entire curriculum could be based on
that because most of her lessons focused on critical thinking of
analysis and the historical context of the pieces, but that inspired me
to dig deeper into rock and roll curriculum to see if there is a way to

link that music to the fundamentals of music we are teaching in

elementary school.
The keynote speaker was a hoot and a half! I loved his attention
getting device of playing Beyonc and Beethoven tunes in the same
key to demonstrate how certain trends in music stay the same
throughout the course of history. I also liked how he got the audience
involved by telling little anecdotes. I learned a lot of funny tidbits from
those teachers experiences, and I really enjoyed learning from the
speakers experiences, too.
After the keynote, the last session I attended dealt with
assessment in the general music elementary classroom. A lot of the
presentation was exactly what we talk about in class, such as how
useful a rubric can be when you need a visual representation of your
assessments. I also liked how the speaker made a point of stressing
the difference between formative and summative assessments- some
of the older teachers in the room did not know the terminology so we
took time to discuss options for both. One unique idea the speaker had
was to make sure we use a step-by-step process to make sure the
individuals have learned the concept. We should not just spring a
written test on the individuals, but reinforce the concepts with group
activities that arent necessarily written assessments.