Digital Recording Platforms and Integrated Performance Assessments in Second/Foreign Language Learning

The teaching and learning of a new language can be daunting for both instructors and learners. Second/foreign language teachers must overcome a multitude of impediments in which to bring students to higher levels of language learning. Research using digital voice recording software indicates that by integrating such technology into the curriculum, there are multiple benefits for both instructors and students. In this chapter, the author discusses the challenges language teachers face and then outlines six free digital voice recorder options that are available to teachers. Afterward, the author advances a series of curricular and procedural considerations for the integration of digital voice recordings in the language-learning classroom before discussing findings from studies focused on the use of digital recordings for educational purposes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of best practices using digital voice recordings for integrated performance assessments and a discussion of new avenues for future research

Creating Authentic Assessments for Online Music Courses: Mapping a Learning Task

The need for identifying authentic assessments, or learning tasks, in online music courses is becoming integral as the rate of online music course offerings has been exponentially increasing. Supportive research also suggests that instructors teaching in higher education may require a paradigm shift in their pedagogical approach as they develop social-constructivist based authentic assessments for music subjects taught in an online environment. To assist with the understanding of both why and how to generate authentic assessment for a Bachelor's-level online music course, the chapter explores the nature of authentic assessment for music and Koh's Criteria for Authenticity in Authentic Assessment. Finally, to provide a practical exemplar of how online discussions can be used as an authentic learning tool in the online music class, an online discussion task for a songwriting class is identified and examined through the lens of Koh's characteristics