Movement Composition: Assessment For Learning

Letting student choose assessment criteria they feel is most important 

We are now into our 3rd week of movement composition and it was extremely important for me to gauge if my students are grasping on to the big ideas of our unit. I am allowing the students to explore a multitude of movement composition activities to help open their minds to all of the possibilities that exist. Simply put, I don't believe that movement composition should only be about dance, there are so many other avenues that can be explored. 

I had my students focus on partner balances in today's PE class, in particular the 9 balances that you can see on the assessment sheet to the left. After having an initial discussion about what partner balances were, we discussed safety then moved into the activity. 

My first goal of the lesson was to have my students, in pairs, practice doing each of the partner balance activities and to self-assess themselves. They did this by circling one of the following three choices; EASY (to do) SO-SO (to do), or NOT SO EASY (to do). 

My second goal was to have them design their own mini partner balance routine by selecting 4 different partner balances. They had the option to copy any 4 from the assessment sheet or they could create their own. They had to record the balances they had selected in the 4 blank boxes that you can see above on the assessment sheet. Once they had selected and recorded their balances, they practiced for their routine which they ended up performing to a 40-second piece of music. 

The final goal which was by far the biggest one to me was to have each team discuss which assessment criteria that they felt was most important to remember when doing their mini routines. We have had ongoing discussions since the start of the unit about the big ideas in movement composition. These big ideas relate to how they can be successful when taking part in any of the movement composition activities that we have done to date. 

Keeping in mind that assessment for learning is about teachers adjusting their plans based on formative assessment tasks, I was very keen to see what assessment criteria they had selected. Over 90% of the class identified assessment criteria that was critical to success in movement composition. To help those who didn't, I can spend extra time with them to have important discussions in order to ensure that they get on track with their learning. 

Assessment tasks such as this are excellent for helping to guide are teaching and to plan accordingly based on what our students know. Have a look at some example student assessment below as well as a slide show of the fun that took place. Thanks for reading. 

---