Direct Measure
All music majors and minors will take various examinations and evaluations of learning in the music classes of their degree program. All music majors and minors will demonstrate their applied musicianship skills at the piano by taking a piano proficiency examination to determine their ability to perform scales, chord inversions and progressions, sight reading, harmonization and transposition, and repertoire. The music faculty evaluates these examinations.
All music education majors will demonstrate their understanding of music education by teaching in the public/private schools for a semester. The university supervisor and the cooperating music teacher evaluate several categories of the student's work in the school setting: classroom management, planning and instructional strategies, professional practice, teaching behaviors, and classroom student behaviors.
Some music students will demonstrate their knowledge and skills in music and will be judged or rated by external expert evaluators in the field while in competition with other students through state and regional vocal and instrumental competitions of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), the Nebraska Music Teachers Association (NMTA), and the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), and the University of Northern Colorado/Greeley Jazz Festival.
All music business majors will experience an internship that will allow the student to apply what has been learned to a professional situation within a close mentoring relationship in a business in the music industry, with the mentor evaluating the students' performance. See Addendum for a copy of the assessment document. Piano pedagogy students will experience internships that will allow the student to apply what has been learned to a professional situation within a close mentoring relationship with professional private and group piano teachers, with the mentor evaluating the students' performance.
Each semester, during juries for private instruction, all music majors and minors will be evaluated in their musical abilities on their primary instrument or voice by the expert faculty in their area of concentration. The jurists comment on numerous aspects of the student's performance such as intonation, technique, musicality, and expression. In the jury of a music major's third semester of private instruction, the jurors will assess all music majors and minors as to their musical ability on their primary instrument or voice to recommend or deny Advanced Standing in their applied area. All music majors must achieve Advanced Standing before graduation in their primary performance medium.
All music majors will be evaluated through a portfolio containing a systematic collection of the students' work during their undergraduate experience. Several faculty will evaluate the portfolio by the standards set forth in the undergraduate handbook for evidence of learning and development.
Indirect Measures
The Department will collect information from recently graduated alumni about student learning outcomes through questionnaires administered by mail with a specific set of questions and a carefully constructed data collection instrument.