A Critical Review of “Developing Critical Thinking and Assessment in Music Classrooms”

Pawitra C.

A Critical Review of “Developing Critical Thinking and Assessment in music classrooms”

As many American students have a difficulty to reach a goal of testing standard makes music teachers are required to add the reading and writing skills in their classrooms. Maria Stefanova has provided some options to solve this problem in the article called “Developing Critical Thinking and Assessment in music classrooms”. It was published in May, 2011 by American String Teacher. In the article, she presents five classroom strategies to fill the gap between music and literacy classes. The first strategy is a prior step of the class which requires teachers to survey the students about their interest and background, while the second one could be done at the end of the class as an “exit ticket”. The next two are tactics which conceal the knowledge behind the performances and inviting a musician as a guest to classroom. The last one is to ask students to record their homework constantly. The author says that “[these strategies are] not only strengthening music instruction, but also to develop active thinking and assessment tools in the music classroom” (Stefanova, 2001). Most of the strategies are agreeable, however, I have a different point of view in some issues.

Maria (2011) says that it is important for teachers to know more about their students’ interest and background to help them improve their skills, especially for new students. It is better to use written form of survey to collect the information from students as they would have less pressure (Stefanova, 2001). Questionnaires would help teachers develop the better program for students and it would authorize the students to have an opportunity to propose their lessons (Stefanova, 2001). I agree that teachers should know what type of students they are dealing with. Getting to know their interest and making a program which suit the students would make them enjoy the class more. Obviously, if they do enjoy the...