Assessing Music Performance: A Valid System for Measuring Student Performance and Growth - Softcover

McNulty Sr., Mr. Kevin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0989796582 ISBN 13: 9780989796583

Publisher: KMC Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

"Assessing Music Performance...A Valid System for Measuring Student Achievement and Growth," by Kevin McNulty, Sr, published by KMC Publication, Inc. © 2018."Assessing Music Performance...A Valid System for Measuring Student Achievement and Growth" is a new approach to assessing bands, orchestras, and choirs in elementary, secondary and collegiate music schools. It is based on seven decades of professional adjudication techniques, including years of applied research by the author. The system is blended with the assessment principles currently being deployed in elementary and secondary schools around the country. The work is a complete guide to implementing the system and is also a text for undergraduate and graduate music education majors. This is a very different approach than any other system being developed in music education today and goes much deeper into the actual principles and methodology of arriving at a score for performance assessments and auditions. It discards the current imposition of rubrics used by nonperformance-based subjects to assess students, including those used in general music. The work examines the history of music education in American schools and then establishes the aesthetic and philosophical bases for the assessment system. It contrasts the pedagogy of nonperformance classroom teaching versus rehearsal techniques and explains the stark difference between traditional or standardized testing and performance-based assessment best used in music performance. It details how assessment is, in fact, intuitive to the music performance teaching process and therefore allows music directors to assess in the same way they teach. McNulty then provides directors a way to measure their student’s performances objectively after a detailed process of subjective listening.“Assessing Music Performance...A Valid System to Measure Student Performance and Growth” shows directors how to assess in ways that measure the true desired outcomes of music performance classes – namely quality performance. The author examines in detail how standards are deployed in the process and how all assessment must be drawn through the prism of a musician-directors background and experience. McNulty makes the case for localizing standards based on the current growth of a program and the abilities of each ensemble. He explains how a director’s musical standard, school-level standard (i.e., high school), program standard and ensemble standard are also utilized. In addition, the book presents a very practical way to apply the system to student-musicians who are either significantly behind their peers or advanced beyond the current standard established in a program. Drawing on his over forty years of professional adjudication at a national level, McNulty creates a detailed explanation of how director-adjudicators can arrive at a raw number that communicates each student’s ability and translates to any school system grading policy. Finally, the numerical-based system allows students, parents, directors, and administrators to understand individual, instrument, voice, ensemble, and program growth. For the first time, music performance educators can provide school administrators with objective data that measures the subjective nature of the music performance capabilities of each individual student and the program overall.

About this title

About the Author

Kevin McNulty, Sr. is currently on the music faculty of Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, Illinois. He is the retired Orchestra Director and Assistant Director of Band at Bradley Bourbonnais Community High School in Bradley, IL. He was director of Bands at Hobart High School in Indiana and Hall Township High School in Spring Valley, Illinois, and Bishop McNamara High School, in Kankakee, Illinois. He is the former Associate Executive Director of Bands of America and the former Executive Director of the Central States Judges Association where he received his judge's training. He has been a regular instructor at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois since 1987 and has judged bands and drum and bugle corps since 1977 - including 23 state championships and DCI National Finals in the 80’s. McNulty is a composer, arranger and an author of six books. He is a frequent clinician and speaker on various topics including his new system on assessment designed for band, orchestra and choir programs. He also had a business career for twenty five years and is currently, President of KMC Ventures, a publishing and consulting firm. McNulty holds a BA in Music Education from Illinois State University and MS in Music Education from the University of Illinois and did his MBA work at Keller Graduate School of Management.

Edition details

• Publisher: KMC Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0989796582
• ISBN 13: 9780989796583
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 254