Interact with Music Assessment Friday, April 14, 2017
recommended by Jen Sper, School Choral & Classroom Music Specialist
The “Interact with Music Assessment” series by Manju Durairaj is a series of active music making assessments for the interactive whiteboard in three levels: Level 1 (PreK-1), Level 2 (Grades 1-3), and Level 3 (Grades 3-5). Each level is an extensive stand-alone collection of 30 sequential assessments for rhythm, pitch/melody, expressive elements (dynamics, tempo, legato, staccato, etc.), timbre, texture, form, and/or harmony. Each interactive assessment will involve students through movement, instrument playing, listening, creating, composing, and reading/writing their compositions using graphic or traditional notations. These activities will also promote 21st-century skills of critical reasoning, creativity, communication and collaboration. There are helpful “teacher talk” pull-out instructions, often with suggestions on how to use the same interactive page for a variety of activities. These comprehensive assessments provide a curricular framework for essential sequential instruction that also aims to make the fullest use of Interactive Whiteboards, IWB applications, tablets and apps. Watch your students become physically, cognitively and actively immersed in music making!
Level 1 (PreK-1) was released last year, and new for 2016-2017 is Level 2:
Interact with Music Assessment: Level 2 (Grades 1-3) by Manju Durairaj
Level II presents over 40 interactive formative and summative assessments with customizable rubrics. In addition to the interactive material, there are quizzes and worksheets that may be printed or sent to tablets for completion, and manipulatives that may be printed out and laminated. These assessments follow a sequential progression for teaching musical concepts:
• Rhythm: Meter (steady beat, duple and triple meter, time signature) and Duration (quarter note and rest, and eighth notes)
• Pitch: Solfege (moveable do, major and minor pentatonic) and Intervals (lines/spaces, skips, steps, repeats)
• Expressive Elements: Dynamics (pp, mp, p, mf, f, ff, sfz, crescendo, decrescendo) and Tempo (largo, andante, moderato, allegro, presto, ritardando, accelerando, legato and staccato)
• Harmony: unison, melodic ostinato-tonic and dominant, rounds-rhythm and melody, descant, partner song
• Form: Elemental, Binary, Ternary, Rondo
Stay tuned for Level 3 (Grades 3-5) in the future, and find more interactive resources for your music classroom on our website. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!
About the Author:
Jen Sper has been with Stanton’s since 2006. A former middle school and high school choral director, she holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music. An active choral singer and accompanist throughout the Central Ohio area, she also enjoys good food, running (to counteract the good food…) and the Muppets.
