Interview with Band Director Glen Funderburk

Megan Reagan interviews Mr. Glen Funderburg, a band director. They discuss the definitions of assessment, evaluation, measurement, and test. Mr. Funderburg emphasizes the importance of assessment for feedback and improving performance. He enjoys giving specific feedback but finds it challenging to fit formal assessments into class time. He believes that using rubrics helps students understand expectations. Mr. Funderburg incorporates assessment into lesson planning by gauging students' ability levels. He assesses students informally and formally throughout a unit, focusing on areas that evaluators would expect. Community partners provide feedback through performances and events, and other musicians and clinicians offer different perspectives. Immediate community feedback helps plan events for the public and communicate with school administration and parents. Hello, my name is Megan Reagan and I am interviewing the band director at my school, Mr. Glen Funderburg. Mr. Funderburg is finishing his 24th year teaching and he has directed middle school and high school bands. Mr. Funderburg, how would you define the following? Assessment, evaluation, measurement, and test. Assessment, I would probably say more along the lines of, at least for me, I would define it as constant feedback. Evaluation, I do believe that maybe I would think more along the lines of trying to get an idea of where students are, you know, just kind of almost from a pacing standpoint, you know, to kind of evaluate where are we in the process. Measurement would be if I decide, you know, or if I felt like that you're trying to actually hold it to a specific type of standard. And then a test, of course, now you're wanting to know of a given unit, you know, is the knowledge there of what you're expecting students to know. Alright. How important do you believe assessment is in the job of teaching? From the standpoint of feedback, and especially for us being performance oriented classes, I think it's probably the most important thing we do. Because even though most of it's probably done informally, it's, you know, we're constantly doing it. Not only for individuals within the ensemble, but then also with the ensemble as a whole and what you're trying to achieve with everybody. Alright. What do you enjoy most and least about assessing students? I enjoy giving feedback and I enjoy being very specific with the feedback I give students. The hardest part with more formal feedback is finding the time when you're trying to get performance ready. You know, 45 minute classes, trying to figure out how you're going to fit in more formal assessments into that. And then if you do find a way, you know, and I know for me it would be having kids probably submit recordings. Then it's having that time on the back side to actually go and evaluate it and then give back the constructive comments in hopes that it's going to be meaningful to the students. Right. What is the most effective method for reporting student performance and progress? Definitely a rubric to which the students understand. You know, I feel like that if, you know, if you're giving them the parameters of performance, you know, again, here again, talking about what we do. If you're giving them parameters of what is expected about what makes a superior level performance, then they understand that there are certain aspects of performance that they have to improve. Not necessarily that it's everything's got to improve. There's just certain things that and, you know, I think as long as that rubric is well defined and that you can give that constructive feedback on it, it just helps them. Definitely. Explain your lesson planning process and how assessment is incorporated into planning. For me, it's taking a look at where the ability level is. And of course, with that constructive feedback, you know, I feel like that I pretty well know where students are. Right. Because I still think of units being literature, being, you know, performance literature that we're going to, you know, put on the next performance, next concert, whatever it might be. So, for me, it's really just, you know, getting a gauge of where we are and where the ability levels truly lie within the ensemble. All right. When and why do you assess students during a unit, informally and formally? That's probably something I've already mentioned. I mean, you know, because it's ongoing. It's constant. I tend to do it mostly with thinking about what an evaluator, if we were to go take the ensemble to perform somewhere, what an evaluator is going to truly be expecting the ensemble to be able to do. And I try to make sure that my students understand that language to where I'm using that lingo in all those different captions. Right. And, you know, so whether it's tone quality, intonation, you know, technique things, balance and blend, you know, just all of those articulations, you know, all of those types of things are what I'm always going to be honing in on. And I also try to use that to where when we're doing skill building, letting our weaknesses be what structures our warm-up material that will lead us into making those fundamentals stronger into the literature when we're going to perform it. Right. And I think something to connect back to my class as well with band and chorus, like you said, they have to know the lingo. They have to know the language that we use in order for them to be successful because if we tell them sing or play in tune and they might say, well, what is that? And we have to be able to explain it and model it for them. Good. All right. Well, last question. Describe how you and or your district utilize community partners. What do you do with feedback that community partners or community engagement provide? So, don't really get a whole lot of community if you think about our immediate community. If you go a little further out, again, the adjudicated community, it's a different story because then you're getting that real feedback live throughout a performance with the way those events are run. Right. Your other community-based thing that we do here would be to pull in other musicians, other clinicians to work with the students. That way, now they're getting other types of feedback. Some of it reinforcing what it is that we try to do on a daily basis. Right. But, flip side, they also maybe hear something from a different perspective, mostly just because we as musicians have our different pet peeves. And so, therefore, we hone into something differently. Definitely. Now, as far as the immediate community, you know, the feedback you're getting there is, you know, are they enjoying, you know, hearing their students perform? Right. Do they like the events that we hold here for, you know, just the public community to where you're trying to get a gauge on what you might plan for your immediate community, and especially when it comes to your school administration and or the parents that, you know, where our kids come from. Right. All right. Well, that concludes our interview. Thank you, Mr. Funderburg. No problem.