A Case for Integrative Assessment from a Freirian Perspective

Abstract

This chapter argues for the efficacy of integrative assessment to help teachers know if students have learned what they intended to teach them and how the teaching and learning have changed both student and teacher. Considering teaching and learning as a partnership between students and their teacher, integrative assessment focuses on the teacher, providing both formative and summative opportunities for teachers to be self-reflective and assess their teaching performance and its impact on student learning. Adding this component to the general discussion of assessment links the student/teacher and teacher/student paradigms in positive ways. Integrative assessment is framed by the ideas of Paulo Freire that teaching and learning are a partnership—and that learning takes place only when both teacher and student are changed. This type of assessment is different from the models of teacher evaluation that focus on quantitative analysis of formative and summative data and measures. These models connect outcomes to student grades and performance on standardized tests and are factored into teacher performance. The chapter argues that the most important goals of music education are to promote musical agency among students, empower musicianship, and foster the acquisition of what Freire labeled a critical consciousness. It then discusses four types of validity from the qualitative research tradition and uses them to inform questions teachers might ask themselves about the impact their teaching had on student learning.