This was a question that I came away asking myself after the first ever Music Education Twitter Chat which took place recently on March 2nd, 2010 involving approximately thirty music educators worldwide. It was a very busy hour with interesting tweets coming from all directions and loads of different opinions, resources and articles to check out.

Throughout the talk we discussed what effective methods of assessments were currently being used and are available to a performance based class or teaching situations. There were many different ways of tracking student’s progress highlighted and loads of resource options to use throughout the talk which are definitely interesting to use and look at.

Grading certainly has it’s place with older students, however I have strong feelings when it comes to young students. I feel that grading a young child with anything lower than an A can harm much more than it helps.

I believe that it doesn’t really matter how good our students at younger ages are at the subject, it’s the enthusiasm and motivation the student has for it that counts most.

If a student is enthusiastic, progressing and is having fun then this should deserve an “A” and as specialized music teachers, we should be able to provide the interest, variety and fun to the lesson so that every student can succeed at a high level in their own way.

I would love to have a discussion of your thoughts on this issue. I know everyone has different teaching requirements within their school settings and studios and I would love to hear your ideas and stories. Just leave a comment in the feedback box below.

Click here to get a full written transcript of the talk.

Some useful resources and comments:

Smart Music is worth every penny – I make my college students use in techniques classes”-MiamiFlute

Just got a Promethean Board. Using the ActivExpressions for “instant” assessments has been eye-opening!-@FamiliarLtlFrog

“I once set up a BLOG and had all of my students list 3 pros and 3 cons in the comments of what/how they were learning.”-@Zweibz7

“I’ve had good success with Hyperscore. Kids seem much happier with their songs”- @Guitarguy73

There’s an interesting TED talk by Tod Machover and Dan Ellsey which I found on the Hyperscore website about about making music accessible to everyone and what various programs and interfaces do.