Behavorist Objectives and Assessments in Music

Another assignment this week was to create four behavioral objectives for a music classroom, with a means of determining whether the students were successful in meeting the stated objectives.

The first objective would be students will demonstrate proper rehearsal etiquette during class.  This would need to be established through classroom rules that would be both discussed and visually posted such as: no talking or playing while the teacher is giving out instructions on the podium, use time before rehearsal to warm-up (play through scales, long-tones, work on difficult musical passages), raise hand to ask questions, listen even while teacher gives instruction to other sections, have a pencil to mark mistakes at every rehearsal, and never make disparaging remarks about someone else's playing.  Assessment in a behavioral way would be easy as they would be based on visual and auditory means.  Hearing and seeing the student talk in front of me is obvious, and I could give negative reinforcement through bad looks and step off the podium every time a student talks while I am on the podium.  Engagement during "warm-up" time with random individual student to ensure they are on task, asking questions on what they are doing (i.e. scales, long-tone, ect.) and also use it as an opportunity for quick one-on-one instruction.  For the raising of hands, visual assessment is obvious, but reinforcement could come from multiple methods like ignoring students who talk out of turn and continuing with the lesson, or stopping everything until the student has asked the right way.  Having students raise their hands holding pencils during a "pencil check" and marking all students that do not have one ready is an easy assessment.  In all of the above, if simple teacher assessment is not enough for the students to comply, simple participation grades based on the criteria already stated could be utilized, with points being deducted for consistent infractions. 

Another objective would be for students to correctly and accurately demonstrate usage of both the RL and LR fingerings for C and B on the clarinet.  The means for assessment for this could be through the playing a a simple multi-octave scale, using both visual assessment (fingers on correct keys at correct times, with no physical increased tension using one method as opposed to the other) and auditory assessment (correct notes played with no decrease in volume, no tone wavering, and no "blips" in the sound.

Yet another objective that could work for both high school and younger level students would be to:

·      Effectively demonstrate proper practicing techniques while working on new musical material.

 This is one I have spent some time developing in the past, and believe that it could be assessed by:

Their ability to take a piece of music that is new and challenging to them and within an established time limit tailored to the individual student (typically the following private lesson in either one or two weeks) show adherence to the written music through performance to include: dynamics, tempo, correct notes and fingerings, tone, and articulations, while also incorporating non-written aspects of music (conveying the unwritten mood/feeling) using the following rubric: 4 = Mastery—accurate throughout the entire performance while also including unwritten elements of expression throughout entire selection 3 = Competent—accurate for almost all of the performance while adding occasional experimental additions of unwritten expression (expected level for majority of students) 2 = Developing—accurate for part of the performance with little addition of unwritten expressive ideas

  1 = Emerging—very little accuracy and no unwritten expression 

A final objective for consideration is: students will demonstrate the ability to distinguish between simple musical forms to include: ABA, AABA, and ABCA 

Assessment for this objective would initially rely on students verbally indicating based on background and examples provided in earlier lessons the correct form based on listening examples that were reinforced by discussion, but then could end in a formal or informal quiz to assess the quality of student assimilation when they do not have others and the teacher to help guide them.

All of the above are based on a stimulus approach, where the task is defined by the instructor, and positive/negative reinforcement is given when students to when they correctly and/or incorrectly respond to given scenarios that are being learned gearing up for the various assessments.