How do we teach 21st Century Skills in music ensembles?
It’s a question every music educator faces as classrooms evolve to emphasize collaboration, problem solving, and self-assessment. In this article, composer and educator Anthony Susi shares a free, practical system that helps students record, evaluate, and improve their performances while building critical thinking, accountability, and technology literacy, which are all key 21st Century Skills for today’s performing ensembles.
My solution to this dilemma was to first research what free recording apps are available for a variety of handheld devices that my students possess so they could easily record their assignment from home and e-mail it to me. The standard Voice Recorder app on most cell phones works fine, but the m4a file format may not be compatible to play back on your laptop. You can use VLC Media Player: A free and popular open-source player that supports M4A on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It’s important to find Apps that record in a mp3 or m4a format rather than with a .wav extension because they are much smaller files and won’t fill up your e-mail box. There are free Apps to convert .wav files to mp3 but that’s one more unnecessary step and more App space students would require on their personal device. For the few that only have a computer at home without a skype mic, I purchased inexpensive clip-on mics with an 1/8” jack on Amazon for only $3 each that students can sign out as needed. Our music department had worked collaboratively on designing performance assessment rubric last year so I posted it on our band webpage where students could download it from home. I also posted on our webpage what song and measures/passages each grade level band and instrument had to record and evaluate for their quarterly “Spot Check”. Then I set up a free Gmail address that is used exclusively for students to email their recordings and rubric to me that can store up to 15GB. This simple process not only saves rehearsal time but also helps students apply 21st century ensemble learning skills through independent practice and digital self-assessment.
Prior to assigning the first “Spot Check” to be completed from home, the definitions and application of the musical terms used in the scoring rubric need to be constantly addressed during group rehearsals whenever there is a performance discrepancy so students can begin to correctly identify the musical element in question. I also played a few individual recordings from previous Spot Checks and projected the scoring rubric on the screen, and we evaluated them together to establish what a “4”, “3”, “2” or “1” in each category sounds like. An essential part of the self-assessed performance rubric is that students need to also identify what measure(s) were incorrect in each category so they know specifically what they should practice. I would recommend giving a quiz on these categories (elements of music) as well to check for student understanding that can also be completed and emailed from home using “For All Rubrics” but that’s a useful 21st Century tool for another related article.
It’s important to email your feedback directly on each student’s scoring rubric you receive to guide their ears when there are elements they overlooked. This does take time on your part outside of class, but you will find it takes less and less time each quarter as the students’ self-assessments become more and more accurate.
