Assessment Literacy in Music Teacher Education: Using edTPA Data to Question How We Prepare our Students to Use ANY Data Matthew Borek, Ph.D. Coordinator, Academic Affairs and Music Education School of Music

Background My background When I arrived at the School of Music at the University of Illinois: – Curriculum changes planned – Council on Teacher Education relationship

Motivation to change edTPA pilot data In first draft of curriculum revisions, MUS 339 went away Then, idea to change it rather than remove it

WARNING! The following statements do not necessarily reflect the view of the Music Education faculty at the University of Illinois and are the opinion of the presenter!

The Process / Story of Change Reviewing the data Tone of conversation changed when high- quality, actionable data was presented Learning from local teachers

Changes to MUS 339 Formerly, collection of loosely-related topics – Material covered elsewhere – Relevance to (novice) classroom teacher? Redesigned to: – Keep focus on practical application of materials for classroom teachers – Attempt to connect, and build on, topics

“Assessment literacy” What does this mean in music education? Production, consumption, interpretation, analysis Popham (2009) framework: – Classroom assessments – Accountability assessments

Positive signs Faculty willingly reviews edTPA data (often with minimal eye-rolling) Some are embedding edTPA-like projects (or recognizing they were already doing this) Local teachers express an interest in performance assessment and designing larger assessment programs

WARNING! The following statements do not necessarily reflect the view of the Music Education faculty at the University of Illinois and are the opinion of the presenter!

Not all believers yet The “We don’t want the assessment to drive the curriculum” concern Skepticism over top-down style out of the blue: “Would this ‘pass’?” – Link to blog on the evils of grading; sad stories of rubrics destroying the love of learning – Confuses grading with assessment

Next Steps Continued revision of MUS 339 Supporting the willing adopters on the faculty to include elements in their courses that align Encourage the resistance to articulate their thoughts and seek connections Ongoing conversations about assessment of EFEs

Thank you