Coursework

Outside-of-class work

There will be two kinds of assignments to be performed outside of class: preparatory work, which is expected to be completed before class and which will serve as the basis of class activity, and lab assignments, which are due online at 8am the day after the previous class meeting. Most class meetings will require one, the other, or some of both.

Preparatory work primarily includes practicing performance (singing, rhythmic performance, or keyboard harmonic progressions) in advance of class. When preparatory work is assigned, a significant portion of the following class meeting will be devoted to working through it—checking for errors, engaging the material more deeply, discussing strategies that were (not) successful, etc.

Lab assignments include things like error detection, transcription exercises, practice recognition of musical structures (such as meter, mode, schema, etc.), answering conceptual questions about a written or video resource, and the like.

Lab assignments serve two primary purposes. First, they provide you with resources and practice opportunities that are designed to help you reach course objectives. Second, they provide the instructor with information about your understanding in order to better prepare class activities that best help you progress in your understanding.

In light of these two purposes, lab assignments will typically be due 8am the day after the class meeting in which they were assigned. This will mean that you will work on the assignment in the same day as the material was discussed in class, increasing the chances that the assignment will help you assimilate those concepts. It will also mean that you will get feedback on that assignment before moving on to the next topic or building on it. Lastly, it means that the instructor can use information from those assignments to plan class activities that will best serve you as you build on that work towards the objectives for the unit of study.

As stated in the course policies, we do not grade effort or compliance when it comes to assignment completion. The results at the end of a unit of study are what counts towards the final grade. However, late or missing assignments will break the cycle outlined above: you will not have the requisite experience that will allow you to take full advantage of the next meeting’s activities, and the instructor will not have the requisite information to plan class activities in the ways that will best help you to learn. It will lead to less opportunities to increase your understanding along the way, lesser quality results at the end of each unit (meaning a lower grade for relevant assessment criteria), and a lower professionalism grade.

In-class work

In-class work will involve practice performing (from sight and with time to practice or rehearse), peer review of daily assignment work, practice identifying musical structures by ear (transcription and dictation), occasional direct instruction relating to these tasks, and the like.

Generally speaking, these are practice opportunities meant to increase your musical fluency. Feedback, or opportunities to evaluate your own work or each other’s work, will be provided, but as a rule, these exercises will not be collected or graded.

On occasion, particularly in listening/aural analysis units, these practice exercises will take the same form as the summative assessments. In such cases, the instructor may provide you with an opportunity to “submit” work before the class moves on to evaluating and correcting that work. In such cases, the instructor will take a picture of any class exercise a student wishes to include in his/her portfolio before we move on to class discussion about that exercise. The student can then cite that exercise in their self-evaluation.

Summative assessments

At the end of each unit will be one or two scheduled summative assessments, an exam or major project that will serve as a final opportunity to demonstrate proficiency in an area. Performance units will end with a sight-singing exam, transcription units with a transcription project, and listening/aural analysis units with a dictation exam.

In general, the instructor will not “grade” these assessments. Where appropriate, the instructor will provide you with the “answer” (for example, the score played from during a dictation exam), and it is your responsibility to evaluate yourself and reflect on the fluency you demonstrated, as you write your self-evaluation.

Students not satisfied with the standard reached on a performance asessment (sight-singing only, not prepared performance) will be allowed one reassessment opportunity. In order to be allowed a reassessment, the student must submit the relevant self-evaluation and make arrangements for the reassessment no more than 48 hours after the original attempt. The reassessment must be completed no more than seven days from the original attempt to be accepted. Any other deadline extensions will be rare, and only considered when submitted in writing, in advance of the deadline.

N.B.: Keep in mind that grades will be determined according to fluency in each conceptual area, not directly according to these assessments. Each conceptual area will be relevant for (at least) three summative assessments (and other assignments), and most assessments will cover more than one conceptual area.

Deadlines

Exam dates and project deadlines for each unit will be announced well in advance. These deadlines are firm. Only work completed before a unit or reassessment deadline will be accepted as evidence in favor of the grade you propose in your self-evaluations. (See course policies document for exceptions.)

Preliminary deadline schedule (subject to change):