Assessment Ideas for Creative Dance
Assessment of student learning in creative dance is challenging but not impossible., Due to the expressive nature of creative dance the goal of assessment is to encourage student individuality whilst at the same time acknowledge their growing ability to move effectively to music.
Assessment can be developed in three areas
Norm-based assessments: A teacher compares students’ performance to students who have taken the same test.
Criterion-based assessments: A teacher writes them to include only what he or she wants covered, to reflect specific kinds of outcomes.
Self-based assessment: Students, with teacher guidance, assesses own progress towards specific outcomes that they may or may not have designed
In norm-based assessment teachers might comparing a student's learning to peers to gauge the progress of the student but this form of assessment can be very damaging to the class and the student if the students focusing on comparing rather then their own personal development and growing confidence. If done in creative dance this form of assessment should be done for teacher information rather then student achievement.
Criterion-based assessment has potential to guide the student to see what is valued and how they are achieving based on the criteria. However, the criteria should e board enough to allow individual expression to be noted and success to be seen in multiple ways.
Some potential ideas for assessment that do not involve grading in the traditional sense. Listed below are some ideas to consider.
Group projects, Multimedia presentations, Activity logs, Personal journals, Oral examinations, “Show and tell” presentation, Interviews with Teacher, peer and self-observations with performance checklists, and Portfolios Rubrics.
Here are links to assessment strategies developed by student teachers for creative dance.
Michelle and Tim - Rubric, Student checklist, Self and Peer assessment and Peer feedback
Critical advice to make assessment practical and worthwhile:
- Don’t try to assess all learning outcomes—assess only most important
- Teach students to do self- and peer assessments
- Use small, continuous assessments as much as possible
- Build assessment into learning tasks
- Use technology to gather, store, and analyze assessment information