Like students working in a formative assessment process, teachers implement formative assessment in their classrooms, document, reflect upon, share the results, plan improvements, and make revisions.
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Creating Choreography1/8
“How can a combination of rubrics and peer feedback protocols help students to improve their original dances?”
Ana Nery Fragoso pursued this inquiry with 5th grade dance students at PS 315 in Brooklyn.
2/8
“Using a rubric helped my students, almost in a more mature way, get into the creative process.”
Ms. Fragoso views formative assessment as an integral part of a creative process. Much as a dancer would, she performs, assesses, and revises her teaching in a continual cycle. Yet she feels she is still discovering formative assessment’s gifts.
3/8
Ms. Fragoso introduced a primary rubric at the start of the project.
Students began with a clear understanding of Ms. Fragoso’s expectations of them, and this focused their work in teams.
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Each team created a piece integrating elements of José Limón’s technique. Guided by the rubric, student dancers collaborated on choreography, and coached each other’s movements. Then, at the end of each practice session, students assessed their own progress using the rubric.
Dancers took ownership of the process while Ms. Fragoso listened and helped them reach their own goals.
5/8
In multiple rehearsals, student dancers performed their works for review. The more they engaged in feedback sessions, the more efficient the classroom became. Ms. Fragoso found her class gaining time as the project went on.
Classmates were eager to share their feedback based on the criteria, and formative assessment protocols helped them verbalize this in much more constructive ways.
6/8
Dance ensembles also received ideas for improvement through peer-assessed rehearsals. Their classmates, aided by the rubric, respectfully articulated helpful comments. Ensembles were able to consider their classmates’ comments, and collaboratively determine whether and how to make revisions.
As they grew more skilled, Ms. Fragoso encouraged their independence.
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After implementing formative assessment in her classes, Ms. Fragoso has grown even more confident in its value.
“One of the most beautiful things that happens with formative assessment is the ownership that the students have of their own learning.”
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Creating Choreography: Self & Peer Assessment
With Ana Fragoso, Brooklyn PS 315-
“One of the most beautiful things that happens with formative assessment is the ownership that students have of their own learning.”
–Ana Fragoso, Dance Instructor
My 5th grade students used a Dance-Making Rubric and a Collaboration Rubric to support their creation of original choreography integrating concepts from the Jose Limon Dance Unit. The dancers learned about Jose Limon's life and artistic work while creating their own dance studies based on some of Limon's concepts and choreographic themes. The ease of their collaborations and the quality of their dance-making was improved through use of the rubrics and self and peer feedback.
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