grades to specific learning objectives, provides students with direct and specific information to guide their study, and often
involves less grading time for the instructor than traditional methods do. The inverted class moves information transfer and
memorization outside of class time so that students’ time with their peers and professor can be devoted to more difficult,
cognitively demanding tasks. Just-in-time teaching uses fast, concept-oriented quizzes (usually online) before class meetings
to guide and motivate student engagement outside class, as well as gauge which concepts require more attention in class.
[1.3] None of these pedagogical techniques are our own creations. Rather, in the spirit of hacking, we have taken these three
techniques, developed and rigorously tested in other fields, and applied them in our own music classes. When we have
discussed these music theory pedagogy hacks with others—at SMT, regional conferences, and FlipCamp Music Theory, on
Twitter, etc.—the number one response is not “show me the data,” but rather “what would it look like in my class?” A
number of pedagogical studies have already demonstrated the positive impact of these hacks in a wide variety of academic
fields. The question, then, is how to apply these now-established innovations in our classes, particularly in the undergraduate
theory/musicianship core.
[1.4] In Part I of this article, we review the scholarly literature on these three hacks and explore their advantages for
college-level students. In Part II, we describe in detail how the four of us have integrated these techniques into the core
theory/musicianship sequence at four very different kinds of music programs: a traditional school of music within a large
state university, a large private institution with a focus on jazz and commercial music, a department of music in a mid-sized
university, and a small, private university with music classes that combine theory and aural skills.
Standards-Based Grading
[2.1] Standards-based grading (SBG) is a system of assessment and record-keeping that explicitly links course goals with
assignments and provides both students and instructors with a wealth of information. In their survey of various approaches
to assessment, Guskey and Bailey write that “standards-based grading facilitates teaching and learning processes better than
any other grading method” because it is data-rich and provides clarity to students and instructors (2001, 91). SBG is criterionreferenced
as opposed to norm-referenced (Smith 1973, O’Donovan et al. 2001), meaning that students are assessed and grades are
assigned in reference to a set of standardized criteria or learning objectives, rather than according to class rank. Instead of
rewarding students who outperform their classmates, a standards-based approach to assessment has across-the-board student
success as its goal (Stiggins 2005). Criterion-referenced grading can also help create a supportive learning environment that
encourages collaboration and peer instruction, as opposed to norm-referenced systems, which involve competition between
students.
[2.2] SBG at its core involves laying out a list of learning objectives for each student—the skills and concepts that instructors,
departments, or accrediting bodies want students to master during the semester or unit of study. (See Gawboy 2013 for a
discussion of aligning core music-theory course standards with the musicianship standards set by NASM, the National
Association of Schools of Music.) Students are then graded, based on those standards, so that final grades reflect the students’ degree
of mastery over the material, and grades along the way provide students with feedback to help them achieve that mastery.
[2.3] The biggest challenges this system poses are conceptual and philosophical. Though NASM gives general guidelines for
undergraduate musicianship competencies, there is no higher-education analogue of the Common Core State Standards.
Thus individual instructors and departments must decide things like: What should students do to demonstrate knowledge of
music theory? What are the learning goals for a given course? How should outcomes be broken down into content areas or
demonstrable skills or some combination of both? And of course, how should the expectations for each standard be
presented to the students in order to ensure that they have the potential to achieve them?
[2.4] The task of setting standards for a class raises seemingly simple questions such as: what should students know or be
able to do at the end of the course? And what do you want your students to remember six months after your course has
ended? While many instructors explicitly address these questions as they are teaching (regardless of the grading system), the
use of standards-based grading makes these decisions both essential and transparent for both instructor and students (Huba
and Freed 2000, 94–98). In defining the proficiencies and knowledge students are expected to have at the end of a course,
instructors clarify their pedagogical priorities and ensure that those priorities are emphasized. By thinking through these
issues and questions and defining standards, students and instructors gain a clear focus on the learning goals of the course
(for some sample syllabi, see Appendix 2).
[2.5] One possible strategy to come up with a list of standards is to break down successful past assignments into the skills
2 of 23
and knowledge required. It can also be helpful to have two (or more, depending on the course) larger skill categories of
standards to help students organize their learning. These could be consecutive units or modules, but could also be broken
down by overarching topics such as “Analysis” and “Composition/Writing.” Some of the primary advantages to a
standards-based system are that it provides students with clear course goals to strive for, has an efficient method of giving
feedback on work, and reveals a wealth of information for the instructor on how the class is progressing.
[2.6] From a student’s perspective, one of the biggest changes in a class using standards-based grading is that they will often
receive multiple grades on each of the assignments that they submit. As opposed to being given an assignment or project that
has a single score out of 100%, or a single letter grade at the top, students instead get several grades on a single piece of
work.
[2.7] Example 1 shows a typical part-writing assignment. The boxes at the top left of the page tell the students important
pieces of information: namely, which standards or learning goals are related to this assignment. As they work, the students
know that they will receive separate grades in each of the following categories: realizing figures, voice leading, writing the
final cadence, and the use of a chromatic chord (in this case, the Neapolitan). These skills are a subset of the standards for
the course; they are four of the fundamental goals that the students are working towards over the course of the semester.
[2.8] Importantly, each box at the top left contains an individual score that is not totaled. In this way, a student’s performance
is delineated in terms of how he or she is meeting each objective. By giving a series of grades on an assignment, SBG
explicitly acknowledges both what students do well and also where they need to improve. A single grade, on the other hand,
represents both strengths and weaknesses, and can be more difficult to interpret. McTighe and Ferrara (1998) have noted
that detailed feedback, such as that provided in a rubric, is more useful for student improvement than single letter grades
(which they see as more appropriate for summative assessments). In standards-based grading, learning objectives are given
more attention than grade averages, which encourages students to focus on specific skill areas. This series of scores maps out
how students are progressing toward course goals, and like the use of rubrics, a standards-based system gives more detail
than a single grade. Students also appreciate seeing that they did well on certain aspects of an assignment instead of just
focusing on what they did wrong.
[2.9] From an instructor’s perspective, there are quite a few differences in the grading approach. Instead of counting up the
number of points missed, SBG allows for a holistic assessment within each standard, which can speed up grading time. This
is well suited to complex projects, such as model compositions. An instructor can give feedback on multiple aspects through
the separate scores, instead of copious written comments. This is especially useful when a student has put a lot of effort into
an assignment, but misunderstood a crucial concept (or even misread part of the directions). For example, instead of giving a
B+ on a model composition that did everything else well, but did not include an augmented-sixth chord, an instructor can
give high marks on all of the standards except for the one associated with using a chromatic chord.
[2.10] Even at the level of a single assignment, some stark philosophical differences can be detected between a
standards-based approach and a more traditional grading method. Some of the important distinctions are captured in
Example 2. One apparent advantage of a traditional grading method is that it provides students with a clear idea of how
individual assessments affect their final grade. SBG can make this relationship more complex depending on which model of
determining final grades is used (see below). But crucially, students’ attention is shifted away from how this assignment fits
into their final grade, and instead toward how and whether they are progressing in relationship to the course objectives.
Getting multiple grades on an assignment forces students to think of their class progress in terms of the individual standards
instead of an overall average or grade.
[2.11] SBG tracks student performance according
grades to specific learning objectives, provides students with direct and specific information to guide their study, and often
involves less grading time for the instructor than traditional methods do. The inverted class moves information transfer and
memorization outside of class time so that students’ time with their peers and professor can be devoted to more difficult,
cognitively demanding tasks. Just-in-time teaching uses fast, concept-oriented quizzes (usually online) before class meetings
to guide and motivate student engagement outside class, as well as gauge which concepts require more attention in class.
[1.3] None of these pedagogical techniques are our own creations. Rather, in the spirit of hacking, we have taken these three
techniques, developed and rigorously tested in other fields, and applied them in our own music classes. When we have
discussed these music theory pedagogy hacks with others—at SMT, regional conferences, and FlipCamp Music Theory, on
Twitter, etc.—the number one response is not “show me the data,” but rather “what would it look like in my class?” A
number of pedagogical studies have already demonstrated the positive impact of these hacks in a wide variety of academic
fields. The question, then, is how to apply these now-established innovations in our classes, particularly in the undergraduate
theory/musicianship core.
[1.4] In Part I of this article, we review the scholarly literature on these three hacks and explore their advantages for
college-level students. In Part II, we describe in detail how the four of us have integrated these techniques into the core
theory/musicianship sequence at four very different kinds of music programs: a traditional school of music within a large
state university, a large private institution with a focus on jazz and commercial music, a department of music in a mid-sized
university, and a small, private university with music classes that combine theory and aural skills.
Standards-Based Grading
[2.1] Standards-based grading (SBG) is a system of assessment and record-keeping that explicitly links course goals with
assignments and provides both students and instructors with a wealth of information. In their survey of various approaches
to assessment, Guskey and Bailey write that “standards-based grading facilitates teaching and learning processes better than
any other grading method” because it is data-rich and provides clarity to students and instructors (2001, 91). SBG is criterionreferenced
as opposed to norm-referenced (Smith 1973, O’Donovan et al. 2001), meaning that students are assessed and grades are
assigned in reference to a set of standardized criteria or learning objectives, rather than according to class rank. Instead of
rewarding students who outperform their classmates, a standards-based approach to assessment has across-the-board student
success as its goal (Stiggins 2005). Criterion-referenced grading can also help create a supportive learning environment that
encourages collaboration and peer instruction, as opposed to norm-referenced systems, which involve competition between
students.
[2.2] SBG at its core involves laying out a list of learning objectives for each student—the skills and concepts that instructors,
departments, or accrediting bodies want students to master during the semester or unit of study. (See Gawboy 2013 for a
discussion of aligning core music-theory course standards with the musicianship standards set by NASM, the National
Association of Schools of Music.) Students are then graded, based on those standards, so that final grades reflect the students’ degree
of mastery over the material, and grades along the way provide students with feedback to help them achieve that mastery.
[2.3] The biggest challenges this system poses are conceptual and philosophical. Though NASM gives general guidelines for
undergraduate musicianship competencies, there is no higher-education analogue of the Common Core State Standards.
Thus individual instructors and departments must decide things like: What should students do to demonstrate knowledge of
music theory? What are the learning goals for a given course? How should outcomes be broken down into content areas or
demonstrable skills or some combination of both? And of course, how should the expectations for each standard be
presented to the students in order to ensure that they have the potential to achieve them?
[2.4] The task of setting standards for a class raises seemingly simple questions such as: what should students know or be
able to do at the end of the course? And what do you want your students to remember six months after your course has
ended? While many instructors explicitly address these questions as they are teaching (regardless of the grading system), the
use of standards-based grading makes these decisions both essential and transparent for both instructor and students (Huba
and Freed 2000, 94–98). In defining the proficiencies and knowledge students are expected to have at the end of a course,
instructors clarify their pedagogical priorities and ensure that those priorities are emphasized. By thinking through these
issues and questions and defining standards, students and instructors gain a clear focus on the learning goals of the course
(for some sample syllabi, see Appendix 2).
[2.5] One possible strategy to come up with a list of standards is to break down successful past assignments into the skills
2 of 23
and knowledge required. It can also be helpful to have two (or more, depending on the course) larger skill categories of
standards to help students organize their learning. These could be consecutive units or modules, but could also be broken
down by overarching topics such as “Analysis” and “Composition/Writing.” Some of the primary advantages to a
standards-based system are that it provides students with clear course goals to strive for, has an efficient method of giving
feedback on work, and reveals a wealth of information for the instructor on how the class is progressing.
[2.6] From a student’s perspective, one of the biggest changes in a class using standards-based grading is that they will often
receive multiple grades on each of the assignments that they submit. As opposed to being given an assignment or project that
has a single score out of 100%, or a single letter grade at the top, students instead get several grades on a single piece of
work.
[2.7] Example 1 shows a typical part-writing assignment. The boxes at the top left of the page tell the students important
pieces of information: namely, which standards or learning goals are related to this assignment. As they work, the students
know that they will receive separate grades in each of the following categories: realizing figures, voice leading, writing the
final cadence, and the use of a chromatic chord (in this case, the Neapolitan). These skills are a subset of the standards for
the course; they are four of the fundamental goals that the students are working towards over the course of the semester.
[2.8] Importantly, each box at the top left contains an individual score that is not totaled. In this way, a student’s performance
is delineated in terms of how he or she is meeting each objective. By giving a series of grades on an assignment, SBG
explicitly acknowledges both what students do well and also where they need to improve. A single grade, on the other hand,
represents both strengths and weaknesses, and can be more difficult to interpret. McTighe and Ferrara (1998) have noted
that detailed feedback, such as that provided in a rubric, is more useful for student improvement than single letter grades
(which they see as more appropriate for summative assessments). In standards-based grading, learning objectives are given
more attention than grade averages, which encourages students to focus on specific skill areas. This series of scores maps out
how students are progressing toward course goals, and like the use of rubrics, a standards-based system gives more detail
than a single grade. Students also appreciate seeing that they did well on certain aspects of an assignment instead of just
focusing on what they did wrong.
[2.9] From an instructor’s perspective, there are quite a few differences in the grading approach. Instead of counting up the
number of points missed, SBG allows for a holistic assessment within each standard, which can speed up grading time. This
is well suited to complex projects, such as model compositions. An instructor can give feedback on multiple aspects through
the separate scores, instead of copious written comments. This is especially useful when a student has put a lot of effort into
an assignment, but misunderstood a crucial concept (or even misread part of the directions). For example, instead of giving a
B+ on a model composition that did everything else well, but did not include an augmented-sixth chord, an instructor can
give high marks on all of the standards except for the one associated with using a chromatic chord.
[2.10] Even at the level of a single assignment, some stark philosophical differences can be detected between a
standards-based approach and a more traditional grading method. Some of the important distinctions are captured in
Example 2. One apparent advantage of a traditional grading method is that it provides students with a clear idea of how
individual assessments affect their final grade. SBG can make this relationship more complex depending on which model of
determining final grades is used (see below). But crucially, students’ attention is shifted away from how this assignment fits
into their final grade, and instead toward how and whether they are progressing in relationship to the course objectives.
Getting multiple grades on an assignment forces students to think of their class progress in terms of the individual standards
instead of an overall average or grade.
[2.11] SBG tracks student performance according
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