Evaluating our students

-Stathia Orwig

Each fall and spring, Music SO Simple teachers evaluate their students. The fall evaluation takes place about 6 weeks into the school year. It is primarily used to assess where each student is and what we see the goals for the student to be for the year. 

To help parents understand these evaluations better, I have put together a report on the accumulations of all students so that you can see where your student falls. All evaluations include critiques on musicianship, practicing, and technical development. The ratings for each category from lowest to highest: Not Applicable, Needs Improvement, Developing, Making Progress, & Excellent.

PRACTICE & PROGRESS WITH PRACTICE
We do like for our students to practice about 5 days per week. Obviously, more is great, but less contributes to less progress being made in lessons and overall. But, it's not always enough to just "practice" 5 times each week! Students need to be exhibiting good practice habits in order to make that progress! Your student may be sitting down to practice several times per week, but are they practicing their assigned work? Or are they practicing old pieces that they already know? Are they practicing in small sections or just playing through their pieces? All of these contribute to the practice and progress!​

THOROUGHNESS & FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS
How thorough is your student being while practicing? Are they following the directions of their teacher at home? Do they keep their binder out and look at the assignment sheet while practicing? It is our job to teach our students how to practice to make sure they are making progress, however we cannot be there during their practice time! You know that old saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't always make him drink....

ATTITUDE
This is a big one! And look at how our students scored- Excellent! This generally applies to attitude in the lessons. If your student scored low on this, we need to find out why. It could be various reasons- maybe they don't feel like lessons, maybe it's due to lack of practice or motivation or progress. Maybe it's not a good fit with teacher...it could be so many things! But, talking to your student is the first thing that should happen regardless of how they score. If they scored "Excellent", find out why and keep that going!

I hope this was helpful in looking at your student's evaluation. In the spring, we will be looking back at the entire school year. Obviously, we want scores to be even higher! That means progress was made!

But honestly, the most important thing is our communication with you, the parent, on how your student is doing. Many of us already have great conversations after lessons, however, it is my thought that it is written down and documented. 

Of course, if you have any questions on evaluations, please reach out to me. If I don't know the answers to your questions, I will definitely find them out!