How Do You Assess Improvisation?


 

Do you have any tips for assessing improvisation? I always feel strange assigning a grade since I view improvisation as something personal and subjective. Thanks!

 

 
How Do You Assess Improvisation?
 

There’s a video on this topic inside the assessment course.

Definitions:

  • Improvisation - thinking and outputting musically

  • Assessment - how we know what students need from us

1 - Clarify Improvisation Goals

The assessment is directly tied to the purpose of the activity. What is the point of students improvising?

Some goals are broad (“I want to develop musical thinkers who can actualize their ideas”). For the purpose of assessment, it’s helpful to look at more narrow goals.

These goals are dictated by the larger curriculum planning process.

Here are some sample goals for an improvisation activity:

  • Improvise 8 beats

  • Improvise with fluency

  • Improvise in question and answer form

  • Improvise within a specific toneset or rhythmic set

  • Improvise with speech

  • Improvise in a head voice

  • Improvise with an instrument

  • Improvise with a clear recorder tone

  • Improvise

2 - Determine the Type of Evidence

Qualitative Data and Quantitative Data

  • Quantitative Data: Data that show quick summarizations through numbers or other means that show an absolute value

  • Qualitative Data: Data that narrate or describe characteristics

  • Which gives the best evidence of growth or achievement?

  • Should we combine them?

Improvisation Examples with Quantitative Data

  • Improvise with speech - yes or no

  • Improvise - yes or no

  • Improvise with fluency

    • 4 - complete fluency throughout the entire improvisation

    • 3 - clear sense of pulse throughout the entire improvisation. Some articulations may occur slightly ahead of or behind the beat

    • 2 - Improvises with an inconsistent pulse

    • 1 - Does not improvise

Improvisation Examples with Quantitative Data

  • Improvise!

    • Describe the improvisation - lovely phrasing, question and answer form, repeated rhythms, good use of rests

  • Improvise a specific scene

    • Describe the text painting and use of phrasing

  • Improvise with speech

    • Describe the situation around a classroom management error that could have contributed to a low score

3 - Partner with Students

  • “How do you think you did?”

  • “Why do you think that?”

  • Asking students to narrate their thinking and describe their performance can give us valuable insight into their musical development


When we assess improvisation, we’ll start with clear goals as defined by our larger curriculum planning process.

We’ll choose the type of data - qualitative or quantitative - that best represent our goals.

We’ll partner with students so the feedback loop stays strong.

When we combine all these approaches, improvisation assessment becomes much more fun and manageable, both for us and our students.

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