Chapter 10 of The Music and Literacy Connection dealt with a variety of material surrounding different standards. Common Core was discussed, as well as P21 skill sets, executive functions, and anchor standards. It was really beneficial for me to read through these different standards, as I have never had a good understanding of this area of education. In all honesty, I have often not thought of them as very important, but I am beginning to realize that they give educators everywhere something to strive for. No matter what type of standard set I encounter in any given school, I will make sure I know it thoroughly and strive to center my curriculum so that my students can meet and excel beyond those standards.
A large portion of this chapter centered on listening, viewing, and speaking skills. These specific skills are essential to the decoding and comprehension skills in every student, across all subjects. To be able to develop literacy in any subject, a child must have good listening, viewing, and speaking skills. These skills are fundamental, and any subject can help cultivate them, just in different ways, unique to their discipline. This discussion was very interesting for me, as I have never considered this deeply. The text stated, "Literacy development is a team effort that deserves the attention of all educators, but every educator need not employ the same method" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 173). Up until reading this chapter, I never realized how closely knit different subjects could play in developing foundational literacy skills. I also always never considered what I taught to extend beyond affecting their musical literacy. I had no idea that I could also enhance their language literacy as well. This encouraged me to think further into my lessons plans, especially with my little ones, to find ways to enhance their general language literacy.
The first skill in the LVS skill set, listening, can easily be addressed through musical practices that simultaneously help the enhance a student's musical literacy. The text states, "Well-planned listening lessons provide opportunities for students to develop skills that will support all types of literacy and encourage lifelong learning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 161). I have already done some reading about how good listening exercises are in the music classroom, and this justified listening exercises even more. During listening activities, students listen for different musical elements, such as pitch, intensity, and texture. The text goes on to state, "The listening activities suggested above contribute to literacy development by helping learners discriminate between same and different auditory stimuli, as well as bly encouraging learners to associate and/or describe sound with another form of representation (visual or kinesthetic)" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 162). Even if students do not realize it, the skills they are cultivating during a music class reach far deeper than their ability to understand music. They are being challenged in ways that reach far beyond their musical abilities and will not only help them in their musical endeavors, but in other kinds of endeavors as well.
Something that the authors talked about at the very end of the chapter was the difference between "know-how" and "know-that" musicians. "Know-how musicians are those who can easily mimic music. They can hear someone play a piece and be able to replicate it just by hearing it. This can be paralleled to when readers are able to fluently sound out words, but are unable to fully comprehend what they mean. They may understand how to do things, but they will not fully comprehend the process behind what they are doing. This can catch up to them as they step out of the classroom and into the real world. They will not always be teachers that can model an action for them to copy. Understanding the process behind a concept or action is so vital to being able to function in the real world. "Know-that incorporates the decoding along with comprehension and literacy skills that develop to a higher level of formality, and ultimately to the understanding of a specific code system for an area of intelligence" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 167). While we as educators should strive to cultivate "know-that" students, we should also recognize that more importantly, there is a balance we need to achieve. The authors state, "There is a real need to balance performance with musicology to foster true music literacy" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 167, 172).
Overall, the reading I have done on musical literacy has been so formative in my understanding of curriculum and how to teach students. I have learned that I have the potential to teach so much more than just music. I can help my students cultivate other foundational language skills that will carry them through other subject areas. I have also learned that there is so much creativity, intentionality, and detail I can and should put into my curriculum and lesson plans, as I should strive to teach both musical literacy, along with an underlying sense of language literacy as well. Even more, I have gained an incredibly amount of validation as a future music educator. I often viewed my profession as sectioned off from other subject areas, thinking it would only be worth it to teach those who would go on to play music the rest of their life. However, I now see how much collaborative work I do with other teachers of different subject material, and I feel validated and encouraged to teach even students who will not pursue music after middle or high school. Along with these important lessons, I have gained an abundance of ideas and strategies for developing literacy in my music students, and I really cannot wait for the day I am able to put them to practice. In fact, I will begin now with the different students I have, whether those are private violin students I teach over the summer, or the bands I work with during observation hours.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Blog 9: Considerations, Adaptions, and Differentation in the Music Classroom
Chapter 7 of The Music and Literacy, along with the corresponding article, "Differentation in the Music Classroom", does not necessarily focus on one specific strategy of developing literacy in the music classroom. Rather, it offers a wide variety of ideas for considerations, adaptions, and strategies one could use to enhance student learning. The texts discussed considerations, such as alignment and spacing, along with adaptions a teacher could make, such as graphic representation, pacing, and scaffolding, and ways to enhance learning, such as writing and text-reading enhancements. The article and last part of the book discussed differentiated learning. Though there was so much information that I could choose to discuss, I will choose to touch on just a few key methods and strategies that I have already used or will begin using after reading this chapter.
Some of the suggestions are ones that I have already been incorporating into my lessons. I just never realized how important and effective doing these things could be. One of the "adaptions" they suggested was repetition. This is something I have used in my lessons since I began teaching solely violin two years ago, and I have been using it more and more in recent months. One of my very first violin students had auditory and sensory processing disorder, and this created many obstacles and frustration for the both of us. Unlike other students I have taught, this little boy learned incredibly slow. His excessively short attention span, doubled with his inability to hold his violin for a long period of time caused us to only be able to get through only a few measures in a half an hour lesson. There were days when I thought this student would never progress past his first song. In an attempt to move past this huge hurdle, I taught him in the only way I knew how - repetition. It did not matter if we only got through four measures in one lesson. I would have him repeat those measures over and over again until he was able to play them well. We would then move onto the next four measures and use the same method. Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber state, "As previously state, repetition is one of the simplest adaptions available. "Let's do it again faster" is a hint that young leraners give their teachers to let hthem know that they are learning through repetition" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 121). I could not help but think of this little boy as I read this. Over the course of my time with him, he not only began asking me to play songs faster, but he would also ask me if he could try to play it without his music, or with piano accompaniment (which I would do occasionally to challenge them). I was always so encouraged when he would ask me if he could do these things, as I knew that the repetition was paying off and that he was, in fact, learning.
I am currently sitting at the kitchen table working on this assignment. My mom was just talking to me about a violin workshop that I am teaching this summer, and my little sister, who has been playing the violin for around six years and is very good, walked in and said, "Can you have us sight-read in the workshop? Sight-reading is so fun!" As I was reading about different enhancements a teacher could make for more advanced students, I could not help but think of MK, my little sister. In this enhancement discussion, the text first stated, "They may need encouragement, however, because their heightened abilities also may make them more fearful, or perfectionistic" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 123). This actually cleared up some things for me. I have always wondered why MK is consistently critical of her playing and has always resisted any comments I make about teaching her how to improvise. She is well advanced for her age, but has always seemed to fail to recognize that. Or so I thought. Her comment about sight reading, made while I was simultaneously reading about advanced students, has caused me to think that perhaps she does recognize her advanced level. She just does not want to make mistakes, which are bound to happen if she begins to learn improv. This text gave me a few good ideas for teaching my more advanced students like MK. The authors encourage sight-reading, along with teaching improvisation and composition skills. Perhaps I could begin pulling out different pieces of music and demanding that she sight-read them on the spot. I could also have her take a simple song that she learned years ago and ask her, over the course of her personal practice time, to create her own version of the song. Students like MK, who are advanced and thirsty for ways to challenge and build on what they know, need to be given activities like this to keep them advancing in their musical literacy.
Stephanie L Standerfer's article, "Differentiation in the Music Classroom", provides some great ideas and concepts behind differentiating learning in the music classroom. An incredibly important statement she makes is, "Teachers need to make modifications for students rather than assume students will modify themselves to fit the curriculum" (Standerfer 47). The whole article focuses on how each classroom will look distinctly different, and she also provides us with some key questions to ask ourselves as we assess our classroom to determine what kind of learning activities and methods we will incorporate into our curriculum. Three questions she tells us to ask ourselves are, "What are the characteristics of students in this class regarding readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles?", "Which elements of this lesson are important for each student: content, processes, or products?", and "What elements of this lesson are most flexible: content, process, or product?" If we guide ourselves with these three questions as we design our curriculum and lessons, we will be sure to attend to the wide variety of student needs in the classroom.
Altogether, I felt that the main point of both the book and the article concerning differentiation was that all students will process information and show their progress in different ways, and our job as music educators is to design learning activities that give each student an opportunity to utilize their own learning style. The book states, "Some students are better responders and describers of music. Other students are better performers. still others are better at creating music" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 138). I can attest to this. Remember that little boy I described above? While he struggled with performing music, he had a fantastic memory and could sing the fingerings of a piece with only one run through. It also did not take him long before he could play the violin piece without the music. In fact, the music was often distracting for him, and he would ask if he could play it memorized so that he wouldn't be distracted. And remember MK? She is a fantastic performer. It may take her longer to learn to memorize a piece of music, but once she does, she can kill any performance. She just recently received a perfect score at Solo Ensemble. One thing I realized as I pondered these thoughts was that I need to be giving my students a chance to practice what they are good at. I feel as if I have always found their weaknesses and centered on growing those. However, perhaps the little boy with the short attention span would be more interested, engaged, and confident if I allowed him to sing through the fingerings of a song more often. Perhaps MK would have less insecurity issues if she performed for people more often and received their positive feedback. Every student I teach, both now and in the future, will be wildly different, and this is both the challenge and the fun in teaching. I have the privilege to get to know so many students on an individual level, and I should always be striving for creativity in my instructions and curriculum.
"The key is to bring these same principles in to group settings so that each learner can reach his or her maximum potential, knowing that some learners will need more support than others" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 128). This is a statement we find in the book. This was convicting, as I have done much more private teaching than I have ensemble, though I have worked with both. There is more of a challenge for differentiated instruction in the ensemble setting, because you have to account for so many different interests and learning styles all at the same time, and somehow teach a musical concept in a variety of different ways. However, the article by Standerfer makes a point to say, "Differentiation is not individualized instruction. It does not require a dozen lesson plans to meet one learning objective. Instead, teachers look for shared characteristics among students within a class in order to group students in ways that make the most of the learning experience" (Standerfer 43). This was encouraging and got my mind spinning on a variety of different ways to recognize the students on an individual level and group them according to similar characteristics, thus giving them both companions and ways to learn that are specific to them. I anticipate this will be a challenge for me as I continue in my teaching education. It is simply easier for me to apply what I am learning to private, individual lessons, but the challenge as I move forward will be to take this gained knowledge and find ways to actively incorporate it in a group setting. Luckily I have the violin workshop coming up in a few weeks, and I can apply this knowledge then!
Some of the suggestions are ones that I have already been incorporating into my lessons. I just never realized how important and effective doing these things could be. One of the "adaptions" they suggested was repetition. This is something I have used in my lessons since I began teaching solely violin two years ago, and I have been using it more and more in recent months. One of my very first violin students had auditory and sensory processing disorder, and this created many obstacles and frustration for the both of us. Unlike other students I have taught, this little boy learned incredibly slow. His excessively short attention span, doubled with his inability to hold his violin for a long period of time caused us to only be able to get through only a few measures in a half an hour lesson. There were days when I thought this student would never progress past his first song. In an attempt to move past this huge hurdle, I taught him in the only way I knew how - repetition. It did not matter if we only got through four measures in one lesson. I would have him repeat those measures over and over again until he was able to play them well. We would then move onto the next four measures and use the same method. Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber state, "As previously state, repetition is one of the simplest adaptions available. "Let's do it again faster" is a hint that young leraners give their teachers to let hthem know that they are learning through repetition" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 121). I could not help but think of this little boy as I read this. Over the course of my time with him, he not only began asking me to play songs faster, but he would also ask me if he could try to play it without his music, or with piano accompaniment (which I would do occasionally to challenge them). I was always so encouraged when he would ask me if he could do these things, as I knew that the repetition was paying off and that he was, in fact, learning.
I am currently sitting at the kitchen table working on this assignment. My mom was just talking to me about a violin workshop that I am teaching this summer, and my little sister, who has been playing the violin for around six years and is very good, walked in and said, "Can you have us sight-read in the workshop? Sight-reading is so fun!" As I was reading about different enhancements a teacher could make for more advanced students, I could not help but think of MK, my little sister. In this enhancement discussion, the text first stated, "They may need encouragement, however, because their heightened abilities also may make them more fearful, or perfectionistic" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 123). This actually cleared up some things for me. I have always wondered why MK is consistently critical of her playing and has always resisted any comments I make about teaching her how to improvise. She is well advanced for her age, but has always seemed to fail to recognize that. Or so I thought. Her comment about sight reading, made while I was simultaneously reading about advanced students, has caused me to think that perhaps she does recognize her advanced level. She just does not want to make mistakes, which are bound to happen if she begins to learn improv. This text gave me a few good ideas for teaching my more advanced students like MK. The authors encourage sight-reading, along with teaching improvisation and composition skills. Perhaps I could begin pulling out different pieces of music and demanding that she sight-read them on the spot. I could also have her take a simple song that she learned years ago and ask her, over the course of her personal practice time, to create her own version of the song. Students like MK, who are advanced and thirsty for ways to challenge and build on what they know, need to be given activities like this to keep them advancing in their musical literacy.
Stephanie L Standerfer's article, "Differentiation in the Music Classroom", provides some great ideas and concepts behind differentiating learning in the music classroom. An incredibly important statement she makes is, "Teachers need to make modifications for students rather than assume students will modify themselves to fit the curriculum" (Standerfer 47). The whole article focuses on how each classroom will look distinctly different, and she also provides us with some key questions to ask ourselves as we assess our classroom to determine what kind of learning activities and methods we will incorporate into our curriculum. Three questions she tells us to ask ourselves are, "What are the characteristics of students in this class regarding readiness levels, interests, and learning profiles?", "Which elements of this lesson are important for each student: content, processes, or products?", and "What elements of this lesson are most flexible: content, process, or product?" If we guide ourselves with these three questions as we design our curriculum and lessons, we will be sure to attend to the wide variety of student needs in the classroom.
Altogether, I felt that the main point of both the book and the article concerning differentiation was that all students will process information and show their progress in different ways, and our job as music educators is to design learning activities that give each student an opportunity to utilize their own learning style. The book states, "Some students are better responders and describers of music. Other students are better performers. still others are better at creating music" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 138). I can attest to this. Remember that little boy I described above? While he struggled with performing music, he had a fantastic memory and could sing the fingerings of a piece with only one run through. It also did not take him long before he could play the violin piece without the music. In fact, the music was often distracting for him, and he would ask if he could play it memorized so that he wouldn't be distracted. And remember MK? She is a fantastic performer. It may take her longer to learn to memorize a piece of music, but once she does, she can kill any performance. She just recently received a perfect score at Solo Ensemble. One thing I realized as I pondered these thoughts was that I need to be giving my students a chance to practice what they are good at. I feel as if I have always found their weaknesses and centered on growing those. However, perhaps the little boy with the short attention span would be more interested, engaged, and confident if I allowed him to sing through the fingerings of a song more often. Perhaps MK would have less insecurity issues if she performed for people more often and received their positive feedback. Every student I teach, both now and in the future, will be wildly different, and this is both the challenge and the fun in teaching. I have the privilege to get to know so many students on an individual level, and I should always be striving for creativity in my instructions and curriculum.
"The key is to bring these same principles in to group settings so that each learner can reach his or her maximum potential, knowing that some learners will need more support than others" (Hansen, Berstorf, Stuber 128). This is a statement we find in the book. This was convicting, as I have done much more private teaching than I have ensemble, though I have worked with both. There is more of a challenge for differentiated instruction in the ensemble setting, because you have to account for so many different interests and learning styles all at the same time, and somehow teach a musical concept in a variety of different ways. However, the article by Standerfer makes a point to say, "Differentiation is not individualized instruction. It does not require a dozen lesson plans to meet one learning objective. Instead, teachers look for shared characteristics among students within a class in order to group students in ways that make the most of the learning experience" (Standerfer 43). This was encouraging and got my mind spinning on a variety of different ways to recognize the students on an individual level and group them according to similar characteristics, thus giving them both companions and ways to learn that are specific to them. I anticipate this will be a challenge for me as I continue in my teaching education. It is simply easier for me to apply what I am learning to private, individual lessons, but the challenge as I move forward will be to take this gained knowledge and find ways to actively incorporate it in a group setting. Luckily I have the violin workshop coming up in a few weeks, and I can apply this knowledge then!
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Blog 8: Strategies to Develop Deeper Level Understanding In Students
The authors kick off chapter 6 of The Music and Literacy Connection with a valuable discussion on memory. They tell us that according to statistics, 99 percent of sensory information is discarded as soon as it enters the brain (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 89). They further state, "So, in order for us to retain information, it must be reinforced by further experience and or maintained by interest spurred with emotion or meaning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 90). When I think back to my years of musical training, I can confidently say that the most important lessons and skills I acquired were through emotional experiences. For example, I did not learn how to perform by being lectured by my private teacher on how a performer should act on stage. Rather, it was through the nerves, anxiety, and thrill of actually being on stage and performing that I learned how to be a performer. As an educator, it will be so important for me to find ways to provide emotional contexts for learning for my students, and this chapter outlines a few ways I can do so.
Something that the authors took time to discuss is the strong connection between strategies used in the reading classroom and strategies use in the music classroom. These strategies are specifically targeted towards developing long-term memory in students. This was touched on in recent chapter, but not as strongly as it was addressed in this chapter. Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber state, "If our goal is to foster understanding and love of music, perhaps we can borrow instructional strategies from those who teach reading comprehension" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 91). Before I go on to discuss some of these strategies, I would like to say that I really appreciate how the authors state that our primary goal should not be to teach students how to play music, but rather, to teach students to love music. I have met so many educators who believe that teaching musical technique is the most important thing. However, in my experience, I have found that teaching this way can often cause students to become bitter towards music. If music is about learning technique, then learning can become dry, frustrating, and centered around perfection. However, I deeply resonated with the authors as they stated that our goal should be to help students foster an understanding and love of music.
One of the long-term memory strategies they gave focused on finding the main idea. In an English class, this would look like finding critical facts and details in a narrative or expository literature. However, this can be applied to music by challenging students to find themes, melodies, or motifs through repeated rhythmic and melodic patters, tonal centers, and so on. By challenging students to do this, we are greatly increasing their musical literacy. In fact, we could teach the idea of themes and motifs to students by comparing them to a story. I could explain to my students that just as stories have main ideas, characters, and themes, music is the same way. Even better, I could first give my students a short story about music (maybe even about the music they are currently learning), and ask them to identify the main ideas and facts in that story. After we discuss the story, I could then play them a piece of music or have them play through the music and discuss the "main ideas" in the music. There were many other strategies given and many other ideas I had centering around those strategies, but this was idea I thought would be readily applicable and easy to incorporate in almost any type of music classroom.
The authors also discussed how these strategies related to standards. Standards have been one of the hardest things for me to learn and deal with in my quest to be a future music educator, so I appreciated seeing distinct connections between strategies and the different standards they align with. For example, one of the standards they highlight is the National Core Music Standards, Grade 5, Anchor Standard 2a, which is to organize and develop artistic ideas and work. This would include activities like demonstrating selected and developed musical ideas for improvisations, arrangements, or compositions to express intent, and explaining connection to purpose and context. This parallels with the given strategy to "Retell" the music. Just as an English teacher might prompt their children to respond to a story by retelling it in their own words or acting it out with their classmates, a Music teacher could challenge their students to retell a piece of music by describing an image that the music causes them to think of and by improvising to an already existing melodic or rhythmic motif presented in the music. I had always thought that meeting standards meant formal assessments that took the "fun" out of learning, but this made me realize how creative and fun I can be in making sure my students meet standards while learning.
Some of the other strategies for teaching a deeper understanding of music were inquiry, modeling, building a vocabulary, and cooperative learning, but I would like to focus in on vocabulary. One of the strangest things I feel I deal with when teaching students is when I ask one of my older students who has been playing music for many years to define a simple, musical term, and they stumble over their words in an attempt to define it. I do understand that many musical terms are more abstract than terms taught in other types of classrooms (like science or math classrooms), but that does not give musicians an excuse to not understand how to use and define them. One clear sign of literacy within a subject area is their ability to fluently use the vocabulary that accompanies that subject area, and I often find that musicians lack this. They may know how to see a term and play it, but they also need to know how to define it and use it in conversation.
This chapter gave some very good ideas for enhancing students' musical vocabulary. One of the ideas I made note of was to keep word journals where students are encouraged to write down and explore words that interest them specifically, as well as words they really do not understand. If I were to have my students do this, I would be able to read through these journals on a weekly basis and pick out which vocab words my students were struggling to understand. I could then slightly adjust my lessons to incorporate further learning of these words. Another idea was to simply use musical language as I teach lessons about music. This was convicting. Even when I am teaching violin lessons where I am proficient in violin vocabulary, I often find myself shying away from using certain terms, simply because I am afraid my student will not know what the term means and become intimidated. However, this simply gives them room to ask more questions, which they should be doing anyways. I could also use a term and kindly ask them if they are familiar with it. Either way, I need to be using my knowledge of music (and violin) vocabulary to its fullest potential while teaching lessons. This way, my students will be able to understand different terms within specific musical contexts, which can essentially help them to learn the terms on a deeper level.
Overall, this was one of my favorite chapters I have read thus far. I feel as if the ideas presented readily encompassed practical ways I can enhance my students' musical literacy. The ideas caused me to consider my current teaching techniques, as well as helped me to devise specific ways I will structure future curriculum. Not only that, but I felt as if every idea was so creative. This chapter not only gave me ideas on how to better teach my students to deeply comprehend music, but it made me very excited for the day I get to do so.
Blog 7: Developing Comprehension Skills Through Music
In the previous chapters of The Music and Literacy Connection, the discussion has primarily centered on how music can help develop lower level literacy skills. This chapter moved further to discuss how teachers can use music to develop higher level literacy skills in their students. We have moved from discussing decoding to comprehension. The authors state, "In the process of moving children into higher-order thinking, the children are constructing meaning - comprehending the text... Asking them to use higher-order thinking sparks creativity and problem-solving skills" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 84 & 85). Essentially, comprehension is the ability to decipher the meaning of a text, and this chapter outlines some ways we can use music to help students to comprehend texts after they have learned how to decode texts.
The authors first talk about how important it is that we strive to help students develop conceptual understanding. They discuss that students will have schemas, which can simply be described as preconceived images and ideas that students have towards certain topics, simply due to experiences and prior learning. The authors state, "While it is essential for students to develop schematic representation, conceptual learning pinpoints the characteristics of the learning at hand and helps alleviate misconceptions" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 75). Essentially, they are saying that students should develop schemas, but with many subjects, students will need break away from their preconceived notions in order to truly comprehend different texts - both musical and non-musical.
The text gives the example of not only teaching Mexican music through learning how to perform it, but by learning about the culture and interacting with Mexican art and dance. This way, students do not read the text, learn the music, and apply their already developed ideas towards Mexican music. By actively interacting in Mexican culture, they can form a new schema that helps them to understand Mexican music so much better and break any misconceptions about it. This was an idea I appreciated reading about. I have often simply thought that learning to perform certain types of music was enough interaction, but I never thought to have the students interact further with the culture of pieces. I eventually hope to work with an orchestra, and I think it would be a wonderful idea to find ways for them to interact in the cultures of different musical eras, since we will certainly encounter that in our repertoire. This way, they are not simply learning the techniques needed to play different types of music, but they are developing a deep understanding of the history of music, which will eventually lead them to be able to play the given music with more musicality. I would also say that a deep understanding of musical context would lead them to enjoy learning the music more.
The authors state at the very beginning of the chapter, "It is important that students experience a concept or topic in multiple ways to reinforce and solidify their understanding" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 73). After discussing the importance of teaching conceptual understanding, the authors further discuss the idea of teaching music in diverse ways. They state, "By studying the music in context with its history, culture, musical concepts and elements, artistic expression, and composer intent, we are able to approach the learning in all related disciplines with integrity" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 77). Once again, they are essentially telling us to strive to teach students to understand music through more than just performance and knowledge of technique and theory. They even give the idea of collaborating with other teachers. This was another thing I had never considered before. They give the idea of talking with the history teacher and asking to coordinate your lessons. Going back to my desire to teach orchestra, if I was teaching them a piece by Bach, I could ask my history teacher if he/she would consider taking some time to cover the Baroque period and the way of life that was prevalent in that era. If students had this knowledge, I truly believe they would learn the piece better, play it with the musicality that Baroque music calls for, as well as simply enjoy learning this piece, since they would have specific cultural images in their head as they learned it.
One of the last things that the authors discussed was pre-reading exercises and questioning strategies. They state, "But having students actively involved in the pre-reading exercise is usually more effective" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 79). This was good for me to read. I had always assumed that simply teaching different musical techniques was all the students needed to know before learning a piece of music or reading about music. However, I realized how incredibly wrong this mindset was. This chapter encouraged me to develop other teaching strategies that have my students more involved with the music and its meaning before they learn to play or sing it. The example given in the text was to have one's students actively dissect the meaning of a choral piece by learning about the culture of the lyrics prior to learning how to sing it.
The authors further discuss that one of the best ways to get students actively involved with the text is through questioning. They say, "Questioning is a very important skill for teachers to master in order to help students construct meaning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 80). They use the "Question-Answer-Responses" approach, which has four levels of questions that students should work through in relation to the text prior to learning it. Level 1 asks literal questions with answers found in the lyrics. Level 2 involves answers that are found in the story, but the reader needs to put together different parts of the story to find the information. Level 3 involves answers that are not in the story, but rather in what they know and other texts they have read that relate to the piece. Level 4 requires answers that are based on one's experiences. I had never before heard of this method or considered doing something this extensive with my students prior to learning a piece of music. However, I am very inspired and encouraged to incorporate this into my future curriculum.
While the strategies given in this chapter were specific to choral music and texts about music, I found the ideas and strategies to be very helpful, and I anticipate still being able to use them as I teach instrumental music. Before reading this chapter, I was unaware of how teaching students about a piece's historical and cultural context could affect how they learn and play the piece. However, I am now fully convinced of the effectiveness of doing this, and I will strive to make this an integral part of my future curriculum, no matter what type of classroom I teach.
The authors first talk about how important it is that we strive to help students develop conceptual understanding. They discuss that students will have schemas, which can simply be described as preconceived images and ideas that students have towards certain topics, simply due to experiences and prior learning. The authors state, "While it is essential for students to develop schematic representation, conceptual learning pinpoints the characteristics of the learning at hand and helps alleviate misconceptions" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 75). Essentially, they are saying that students should develop schemas, but with many subjects, students will need break away from their preconceived notions in order to truly comprehend different texts - both musical and non-musical.
The text gives the example of not only teaching Mexican music through learning how to perform it, but by learning about the culture and interacting with Mexican art and dance. This way, students do not read the text, learn the music, and apply their already developed ideas towards Mexican music. By actively interacting in Mexican culture, they can form a new schema that helps them to understand Mexican music so much better and break any misconceptions about it. This was an idea I appreciated reading about. I have often simply thought that learning to perform certain types of music was enough interaction, but I never thought to have the students interact further with the culture of pieces. I eventually hope to work with an orchestra, and I think it would be a wonderful idea to find ways for them to interact in the cultures of different musical eras, since we will certainly encounter that in our repertoire. This way, they are not simply learning the techniques needed to play different types of music, but they are developing a deep understanding of the history of music, which will eventually lead them to be able to play the given music with more musicality. I would also say that a deep understanding of musical context would lead them to enjoy learning the music more.
The authors state at the very beginning of the chapter, "It is important that students experience a concept or topic in multiple ways to reinforce and solidify their understanding" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 73). After discussing the importance of teaching conceptual understanding, the authors further discuss the idea of teaching music in diverse ways. They state, "By studying the music in context with its history, culture, musical concepts and elements, artistic expression, and composer intent, we are able to approach the learning in all related disciplines with integrity" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 77). Once again, they are essentially telling us to strive to teach students to understand music through more than just performance and knowledge of technique and theory. They even give the idea of collaborating with other teachers. This was another thing I had never considered before. They give the idea of talking with the history teacher and asking to coordinate your lessons. Going back to my desire to teach orchestra, if I was teaching them a piece by Bach, I could ask my history teacher if he/she would consider taking some time to cover the Baroque period and the way of life that was prevalent in that era. If students had this knowledge, I truly believe they would learn the piece better, play it with the musicality that Baroque music calls for, as well as simply enjoy learning this piece, since they would have specific cultural images in their head as they learned it.
One of the last things that the authors discussed was pre-reading exercises and questioning strategies. They state, "But having students actively involved in the pre-reading exercise is usually more effective" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 79). This was good for me to read. I had always assumed that simply teaching different musical techniques was all the students needed to know before learning a piece of music or reading about music. However, I realized how incredibly wrong this mindset was. This chapter encouraged me to develop other teaching strategies that have my students more involved with the music and its meaning before they learn to play or sing it. The example given in the text was to have one's students actively dissect the meaning of a choral piece by learning about the culture of the lyrics prior to learning how to sing it.
The authors further discuss that one of the best ways to get students actively involved with the text is through questioning. They say, "Questioning is a very important skill for teachers to master in order to help students construct meaning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber 80). They use the "Question-Answer-Responses" approach, which has four levels of questions that students should work through in relation to the text prior to learning it. Level 1 asks literal questions with answers found in the lyrics. Level 2 involves answers that are found in the story, but the reader needs to put together different parts of the story to find the information. Level 3 involves answers that are not in the story, but rather in what they know and other texts they have read that relate to the piece. Level 4 requires answers that are based on one's experiences. I had never before heard of this method or considered doing something this extensive with my students prior to learning a piece of music. However, I am very inspired and encouraged to incorporate this into my future curriculum.
While the strategies given in this chapter were specific to choral music and texts about music, I found the ideas and strategies to be very helpful, and I anticipate still being able to use them as I teach instrumental music. Before reading this chapter, I was unaware of how teaching students about a piece's historical and cultural context could affect how they learn and play the piece. However, I am now fully convinced of the effectiveness of doing this, and I will strive to make this an integral part of my future curriculum, no matter what type of classroom I teach.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Blog 6: Further Analysis of Language Skills Taught Through Music
In contrast to the last chapter, this chapter focuses on how reading skills can be grown and worked within an actual music classroom. I enjoyed reading this chapter a lot, as the material and ideas given were easier to grasp. Since I will be teaching a music class eventually, I was able to readily pick up ideas I thought would be fantastic for my future classroom. This chapter essentially focused on different literacy skills that could and should be targeted in the music classroom through musical activities. As music educators, we have the opportunity to not only teach music skills, but language skills as well, so why not take those opportunities? Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber hit the nail on the head by saying, "We need to examine the parallel metacognitive and metalinguistic skills that students can acquire through good music instruction. Well-trained music educators have a unique role as they teach multiple systems of reading through the medium of music. Music teachers complement the reading curriculum" (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 70). Of course, we are not supposed to be English teachers, but we have readily available opportunities to teach different language skills through music, and we should strive to do nothing less in the classroom. In the following paragraphs I will be expanding on scenario extension, sight identification, cueing systems, and then I will further expand on my discussion of fluency from my last blog post. These were a few different concepts discussed in this chapter that I considered to be great things to teach in my future classes.
"Scenario Extension" is essentially the idea that an added activity in the music can complete the learning loop that connects music and language reading and symbol interpretation (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 70). The encouragement that I received from this was that as music educators, we should be looking for activities that help students to learn language along with music. There are already ways that we are subtly teaching students language skills through music, but through intentional activities, we can make sure our lessons are effective. The activity suggested in the book was to sing a song about animals and to outline the syllables on the board. A teacher would write __ __ ___ on the board if the animals in the song matched this short, short, long pattern. This visual should help the students to begin to understand the idea of syllables - what they look like in relation to how they sound. An added idea was to have the children eventually think of other animals whose names fit within the structure of the song. This challenges them to consider syllabic structure and rhythm pattern, all while challenging them to be creative and use their imagination. I really loved this idea, and I think I may use this in one of my elementary classrooms. I am a firm believer that creativity needs to be one of the biggest things children are challenged to do, so any idea that encourages creativity is one I will consider using.
So much of music is subjective, internal, and conceptual. Especially considering that young students have not been introduced to theory, there are not a lot of solid "rules" to teach elementary music students. Because of this, I feel it will be difficult for me to have strict sets of vocabulary words that I am teaching my younger students. Though I understand that vocabulary is incredibly important in the education of every student and within every subject, I fear it will be easy to get lost in simply learning music and discussing vocabulary "along the way". For example, this last semester I worked with a middle school band. As I think back on that experience, I recall that the only activity we ever did was play through the music. Every once in a while I would stop and ask, "What does p mean?" Of course, a student would give an answer and we would move on. However, I also recall that it was the same set of kids who always answered those types of questions. The authors state that a musical sight vocabulary is important, and I have already experienced how easy it can be to neglect that in a music classroom (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 63). To target this issue, I will seek to put up posters, write vocabulary words on the board. Perhaps I will even require weekly vocab quizzes, even within my ensembles. I will need to make sure that each and every student has a strong musical vocabulary, and that they are able to explain vocab words, not just play them.
Cuing systems was another concept that grabbed my attention. Though I am still a little confused as to what a cueing system specifically is, I do understand that the cueing system deals with context, syntax, graphophonic, and semantic skills and students' abilities to use those properly. The authors gave the example of the song "If You're Happy and You Know It". This song is frequently used to challenge students to make up new verses, and students must use cueing systems to insert words and sentence that make sense and "fit" within the song. They do not necessarily have to exactly match pitch or use the exact same rhythmic pattern as previously used, but they must still work inside the general structure of proper pitch, time, intensity, and timbre. The authors state, "By giving students opportunities to improvise along the four major parameters (pitch, time, intensity, timbre) we are helping them understand verbal language as well as the language of music". Once again, I love this exercise, as it prompts students to be creative. However, I now understand how effective it could be in the students' understanding of language. This concept works a little deeper than simply rhyming one word with another or finding a word with the same anount of syllables as another. This exercise makes students aware of the fact that there is room for flexibility within the English language, but they still must understand and work with some of the overriding language concepts.
Finally, I will expand on my discussion of frequency from my last blog post. The authors state, "After children have some mastery over the earlier skills (phonological awaremess, phonemic awareness, sight identification, orthographic or graphophonemic awareness, and cuing systems), they will automatically push for opportunities to test their fluency. Children in a music class who think they have finally "mastered" a song will openly ask, "Can we do it faster?" This was a huge realization for me. Through my time teaching violin lessons, I have had so many students ask me that question, but I had never realized that it was them wanting to test their fluency. Even in the band that I worked with last semester, I would have some kids say, "We need to play it faster", and others who would say, "No! That's a good speed!" I never considered that this could be a very obvious indicator of which students were progressing faster than others. I can use this as a form of informal assessment. I anticipate that from now on, whenever a student says this to me, whether in an ensemble or a private lesson, I will make a mental note that this is a sign of the student progressing.
Lastly, while this last concept has more to do with students' musical skills, it does tie over to one's language skills as well. The authors state, "The more we assist students in developing "musicianship", the more we may be assisting them in language fluency as well" ((Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 68). As students are challenged to read and learn music faster, they are simply challenging their mental ability to decipher any type of text faster. This will overlap with their reading abilities and how fast they are able to decipher literary texts.
"Scenario Extension" is essentially the idea that an added activity in the music can complete the learning loop that connects music and language reading and symbol interpretation (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 70). The encouragement that I received from this was that as music educators, we should be looking for activities that help students to learn language along with music. There are already ways that we are subtly teaching students language skills through music, but through intentional activities, we can make sure our lessons are effective. The activity suggested in the book was to sing a song about animals and to outline the syllables on the board. A teacher would write __ __ ___ on the board if the animals in the song matched this short, short, long pattern. This visual should help the students to begin to understand the idea of syllables - what they look like in relation to how they sound. An added idea was to have the children eventually think of other animals whose names fit within the structure of the song. This challenges them to consider syllabic structure and rhythm pattern, all while challenging them to be creative and use their imagination. I really loved this idea, and I think I may use this in one of my elementary classrooms. I am a firm believer that creativity needs to be one of the biggest things children are challenged to do, so any idea that encourages creativity is one I will consider using.
So much of music is subjective, internal, and conceptual. Especially considering that young students have not been introduced to theory, there are not a lot of solid "rules" to teach elementary music students. Because of this, I feel it will be difficult for me to have strict sets of vocabulary words that I am teaching my younger students. Though I understand that vocabulary is incredibly important in the education of every student and within every subject, I fear it will be easy to get lost in simply learning music and discussing vocabulary "along the way". For example, this last semester I worked with a middle school band. As I think back on that experience, I recall that the only activity we ever did was play through the music. Every once in a while I would stop and ask, "What does p mean?" Of course, a student would give an answer and we would move on. However, I also recall that it was the same set of kids who always answered those types of questions. The authors state that a musical sight vocabulary is important, and I have already experienced how easy it can be to neglect that in a music classroom (Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 63). To target this issue, I will seek to put up posters, write vocabulary words on the board. Perhaps I will even require weekly vocab quizzes, even within my ensembles. I will need to make sure that each and every student has a strong musical vocabulary, and that they are able to explain vocab words, not just play them.
Cuing systems was another concept that grabbed my attention. Though I am still a little confused as to what a cueing system specifically is, I do understand that the cueing system deals with context, syntax, graphophonic, and semantic skills and students' abilities to use those properly. The authors gave the example of the song "If You're Happy and You Know It". This song is frequently used to challenge students to make up new verses, and students must use cueing systems to insert words and sentence that make sense and "fit" within the song. They do not necessarily have to exactly match pitch or use the exact same rhythmic pattern as previously used, but they must still work inside the general structure of proper pitch, time, intensity, and timbre. The authors state, "By giving students opportunities to improvise along the four major parameters (pitch, time, intensity, timbre) we are helping them understand verbal language as well as the language of music". Once again, I love this exercise, as it prompts students to be creative. However, I now understand how effective it could be in the students' understanding of language. This concept works a little deeper than simply rhyming one word with another or finding a word with the same anount of syllables as another. This exercise makes students aware of the fact that there is room for flexibility within the English language, but they still must understand and work with some of the overriding language concepts.
Finally, I will expand on my discussion of frequency from my last blog post. The authors state, "After children have some mastery over the earlier skills (phonological awaremess, phonemic awareness, sight identification, orthographic or graphophonemic awareness, and cuing systems), they will automatically push for opportunities to test their fluency. Children in a music class who think they have finally "mastered" a song will openly ask, "Can we do it faster?" This was a huge realization for me. Through my time teaching violin lessons, I have had so many students ask me that question, but I had never realized that it was them wanting to test their fluency. Even in the band that I worked with last semester, I would have some kids say, "We need to play it faster", and others who would say, "No! That's a good speed!" I never considered that this could be a very obvious indicator of which students were progressing faster than others. I can use this as a form of informal assessment. I anticipate that from now on, whenever a student says this to me, whether in an ensemble or a private lesson, I will make a mental note that this is a sign of the student progressing.
Lastly, while this last concept has more to do with students' musical skills, it does tie over to one's language skills as well. The authors state, "The more we assist students in developing "musicianship", the more we may be assisting them in language fluency as well" ((Hansen, Bernstorf, Stuber 68). As students are challenged to read and learn music faster, they are simply challenging their mental ability to decipher any type of text faster. This will overlap with their reading abilities and how fast they are able to decipher literary texts.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Blog 5: Language Taught Through Music
Chapter three of The Music and Literacy Connection centered more on reading and the technicalities behind learning to read. The discussion focused on phonemic awareness, rhyming, fluency, and other crucial skills that younger students must learn and the different ways that music can help promote the learning of these skills. Though this chapter focused more on how a teacher in a non-music classroom could use music to help teach their students how to read, it helped me to view music in a different way. It has been easy for me to focus more on the emotional side of music and how it can help students in that way, but I had never before considered that it can be extremely helpful in one's initial reading skills. When considering how I could apply this knowledge to my future music classroom, I concluded that the information I gained in this chapter could be applied if I found myself teaching lower level elementary students. Overall, this chapter discussed how music can be used to help students in their phonological awareness, their phonemic awareness, rhyming, syllabic understanding, graphophonemic awareness, cueing-system awareness, fluency, etc. I realized that there is a whole other world that music can help teach, and I will expand on a few of the different parts of this world in the following paragraphs.
I am not an English major, so there were many terms that I had to learn for the first time while reading this chapter, one of them being "phenomes". The authors describe phenomes as the smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 45). They also described phonemic awareness as the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 45). Essentially, phonemic understanding is the understanding that different sounds work together to make words, and this chapter outlined some ways that music can help to build that understanding in children. Later on in the chapter, the authors gave the example of "Old MacDonald", since it is one of the most well-known songs amongst children. They explained how this can be incredibly helpful in a student's phonemic understanding, as they are working through specific animal sounds, such as "ee-i-ee-i-oh", "moo", "bah", and "neigh". They discuss that these sounds are easy for children to make, as they are simply vowels, or a vowel with an added consonant. When singing these sounds, children are not only relating sounds to images ("moo" to the image of a cow), which can also be very helpful in one's general literacy understanding, but they are learning and practicing specific sounds that make up words. This was so interesting to me. I had never considered music helping the growth of an individual in this way, and I had also never considered that a simple song such as "Old MacDonald" could have this much of an impact on a child. This was all incredibly new to me, but it made me begin to consider the usage of these simple songs with my very young music students.
Rhyming was another area of language that was discussed in relation to music. This ties into phonemic awareness, as the authors state, "Developing a sensitivity to rhyme is an important first step toward understanding the complexities of phonemic awareness" (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 46). If I am honest, I have never really considered different methods and techniques to teach elementary age students, as I have always wanted to teach older students, primarily high school. However, reading through the importance of learning rhyme helped me to come up with some fun ways to incorporate rhyme learning into my music class. One idea I had that the chapter did not necessarily touch on was to give students the opportunity to create rhymes themselves. For example, I could take a familiar tune, such as "Twinkle, Twinkle", and rewrite the words, so that there is a different story line. However, I could leave space for the students to come up with certain words at the end of each line, with the only rules being that they must be appropriate and must rhyme. Not only does this challenge students to consider what words rhyme, but it also challenges them to be creative, which is something I will be constantly striving for within every assignment in my classroom.
Another concept introduced at the end of the chapter was fluency, and this caught my attention. The authors discussed how fluency is important, because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 54). The idea of fluency when reading music is to encourage the students to simply continue singing even if they hit a wrong note, sing a wrong word, or must use substitute words such as "la-la-la" to keep moving forward. Hansen, Bernstof, and Stuber state that, "Rather than stopping - an interruption to fluency - the participants will finish the task and then do it again to get it right. One of the best ways to facilitate reading and fluency is when students in a music setting sight-read without stopping" (54). As with other concepts mentioned in this chapter, I had not considered how this might help a child in their reading skills. I have always considered fluency to be an important technique and have sought to teach this to different students. However, I did not consider that teaching fluency to students, especially vocal students or choirs, would be so advantageous to their reading skills. This caused me to feel the importance of teaching fluency even deeper, and I know that this will be a technique I emphasize consistently, especially in my younger music classes.
This chapter was more difficult for me for a few reasons, the first being because I am not an English major. There were many terms I had to learn and had a more difficult time comprehending. Also, this chapter dealt with singing, and I am an instrumentalist. I have always thought more along the lines of when I teach a band, orchestra, or private instrument lessons. This chapter forced me to consider techniques that I would teach not through instruments, but through singing, which is something I have not often considered. However, this chapter was extremely helpful for me. I feel as if I have a whole new set of techniques, ideas, and priorities in place for if I find myself teaching elementary music classes.
Perhaps the greatest thing I learned through reading this chapter was that I have the ability to essentially collaborate with other teachers. I never considered what I teach to parallel with other subjects. However, I learned that through music, I can help teach essential and fundamental language skills that eventually help students learn how to read. I now view teaching young music students in a whole new light, and I look forward to not only teaching them fundamental music skills, but to teaching them fundamental language skills as well.
I am not an English major, so there were many terms that I had to learn for the first time while reading this chapter, one of them being "phenomes". The authors describe phenomes as the smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 45). They also described phonemic awareness as the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 45). Essentially, phonemic understanding is the understanding that different sounds work together to make words, and this chapter outlined some ways that music can help to build that understanding in children. Later on in the chapter, the authors gave the example of "Old MacDonald", since it is one of the most well-known songs amongst children. They explained how this can be incredibly helpful in a student's phonemic understanding, as they are working through specific animal sounds, such as "ee-i-ee-i-oh", "moo", "bah", and "neigh". They discuss that these sounds are easy for children to make, as they are simply vowels, or a vowel with an added consonant. When singing these sounds, children are not only relating sounds to images ("moo" to the image of a cow), which can also be very helpful in one's general literacy understanding, but they are learning and practicing specific sounds that make up words. This was so interesting to me. I had never considered music helping the growth of an individual in this way, and I had also never considered that a simple song such as "Old MacDonald" could have this much of an impact on a child. This was all incredibly new to me, but it made me begin to consider the usage of these simple songs with my very young music students.
Rhyming was another area of language that was discussed in relation to music. This ties into phonemic awareness, as the authors state, "Developing a sensitivity to rhyme is an important first step toward understanding the complexities of phonemic awareness" (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 46). If I am honest, I have never really considered different methods and techniques to teach elementary age students, as I have always wanted to teach older students, primarily high school. However, reading through the importance of learning rhyme helped me to come up with some fun ways to incorporate rhyme learning into my music class. One idea I had that the chapter did not necessarily touch on was to give students the opportunity to create rhymes themselves. For example, I could take a familiar tune, such as "Twinkle, Twinkle", and rewrite the words, so that there is a different story line. However, I could leave space for the students to come up with certain words at the end of each line, with the only rules being that they must be appropriate and must rhyme. Not only does this challenge students to consider what words rhyme, but it also challenges them to be creative, which is something I will be constantly striving for within every assignment in my classroom.
Another concept introduced at the end of the chapter was fluency, and this caught my attention. The authors discussed how fluency is important, because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 54). The idea of fluency when reading music is to encourage the students to simply continue singing even if they hit a wrong note, sing a wrong word, or must use substitute words such as "la-la-la" to keep moving forward. Hansen, Bernstof, and Stuber state that, "Rather than stopping - an interruption to fluency - the participants will finish the task and then do it again to get it right. One of the best ways to facilitate reading and fluency is when students in a music setting sight-read without stopping" (54). As with other concepts mentioned in this chapter, I had not considered how this might help a child in their reading skills. I have always considered fluency to be an important technique and have sought to teach this to different students. However, I did not consider that teaching fluency to students, especially vocal students or choirs, would be so advantageous to their reading skills. This caused me to feel the importance of teaching fluency even deeper, and I know that this will be a technique I emphasize consistently, especially in my younger music classes.
This chapter was more difficult for me for a few reasons, the first being because I am not an English major. There were many terms I had to learn and had a more difficult time comprehending. Also, this chapter dealt with singing, and I am an instrumentalist. I have always thought more along the lines of when I teach a band, orchestra, or private instrument lessons. This chapter forced me to consider techniques that I would teach not through instruments, but through singing, which is something I have not often considered. However, this chapter was extremely helpful for me. I feel as if I have a whole new set of techniques, ideas, and priorities in place for if I find myself teaching elementary music classes.
Perhaps the greatest thing I learned through reading this chapter was that I have the ability to essentially collaborate with other teachers. I never considered what I teach to parallel with other subjects. However, I learned that through music, I can help teach essential and fundamental language skills that eventually help students learn how to read. I now view teaching young music students in a whole new light, and I look forward to not only teaching them fundamental music skills, but to teaching them fundamental language skills as well.
Blog 4: Play in the Music Classroom
Chapter two of The Music and Literacy Connection discusses the topic of play in the classroom, specifically the music classroom. Hansen, Bernstorf, and Stuber discussed the importance of emotion in learning, different theories of classroom play, and different benefits of play in the classroom. They drive home the importance of play in the classroom by stating, "We believe play can, and should, provide the environment and curricular structure for teaching and learning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 31). They are essentially saying that play needs to be an integral part of our curriculum, if not the very thing that our curriculum is centered around.
They discussed emotion early on in the chapter, and this grabbed my attention. They say, "Emotion is a critical component to learning and, whether positive or negative, helps us remember - and, in some cases, can interfere with memory and therefore learning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 21). This is such a good point. When I think back to the things I actually remember learning in school, they were often connected to emotional experiences or activities. For example, this past year was full of auditions and performances, which I was not necessarily used to. I did not do a lot of solo violin performance in high school, and I struggled with a lot of anxiety and worry dealing with these performances. These intense emotions pushed me to practice and to perform the best that I could. The emotions caused me to take my music so much more seriously, and I came out of this school year so much better of a performer and player than I was going into the school year. It was within these incredibly emotional experiences that I was pushed not only to practice more, but I also developed so much mental and emotional strength.
This made me realize how crucial it is to be aware of the different emotional levels in children, as emotions differ because of age, gender, race, and so many more factors. They state that it is important to be aware of the emotional aspects of learning, as this awareness will help to enhance the learning of important content by providing experiences that are intertwined in positive emotional contexts (21). The first idea that came to my head when considering how to provide an emotional context for learning was the idea of having children perform in front of one another. Or, in other words, having "concerts" in the classroom. Though my music classes never did these, I have heard of different teachers within the past few years do these. For these concerts, children would be able to choose any song they want, practice it for a few weeks, and showcase their skills by performing it for the class. This would be a great opportunity for students to put to action the different things they are learning, as well as learn how to perform for other people. If I sought to create an environment where positive feedback was the only kind of feedback students could give one another, I anticipate this would be a very emotional experience that would help them become more independent musicians. Consider a student who had an intense case of stage fright. To get up in front of his or her classmates, perform a song, and hear applause and positive feedback. This would be an incredibly emotional experience with fantastic outcomes in relation to their musicianship.
Though there were so many benefits of classroom play that were given, I will only expand on a few. One of the outcomes of play is that students will grow in vocabulary knowledge through talking, reading, and singing together (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 33). Fortunately, music teachers have an already available outlet for "play". This is performance. There are so many vocabulary terms and technical skills students will learn about in their music classes, but there is no better way for a student to really learn about these vocab words and technical skills than to put them into action. I have often found with myself that I do not fully and completely understand a theory concept until I sit down and pound it out at the piano, and I anticipate this will be the case within my music classrooms as well. By prioritizing time to perform in the classroom, students will have a much deeper understanding of the different terms and concepts they learn about. Actually taking time to learn to play through the different musical skills will lead them to understand music in an entirely different way.
Another benefit to play in the classroom is that students must generally interact with others for musical play settings, thus teaching them social skills (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 33). I mentioned in my last blog that my younger siblings and I have been homeschooled for the past seven years. It is commonly known that homeschoolers are often attacked for having no social skills, and as the years went by, me and my younger siblings became well acquainted with this criticism. However, as we became better musicians and began playing different venues for different crowds, we found ourselves interacting with people from a variety of different backgrounds. Though I never sat at a high school lunch table or went to a high school football game, I found myself talking to people from public high schools, along with fellow homeschoolers, other musicians, adults, teenagers, and the list goes on. I can say I definitely still had my fair share of socialization, though it was not done inside the walls of a high school. Music brings people together, and I plan not only to prioritize time for my students to showcase their skills in the form of solo performance, but I also plan on making time for students to work and perform in small groups. I have found that there is so much one learns about someone else when they begin playing music with them, and I plan to take time throughout the school year, no matter what type of class I am teaching, to pair different students together and arrange different groups so that my students have the chance to play with a variety of different classmates, thus growing them in their social skills.
I have mentioned in previous blogs that I truly feel music teachers have an advantage over other teachers through the wide variety of resources and creative outlets readily available to them. Especially after reading this chapter, I am so motivated to create a classroom where there is constant creativity and play being cultivated. There are so many obvious outlets for this within a music classroom, so I should feel ashamed if I am not seeking to incorporate these outlets consistently in my classroom. I could take a day to have an "American Idol" show with my students. I could sing the "clean up" song with them as they put away their instruments. I could hold personal recitals where they showcase their skills through solos. I could take them to a nearby nursing home to play for and interact with the residents. The ideas and opportunities are endless. There are truly so many opportunities to play, both figuratively and literally, in the music classroom, and I want to seize every opportunity I can.
They discussed emotion early on in the chapter, and this grabbed my attention. They say, "Emotion is a critical component to learning and, whether positive or negative, helps us remember - and, in some cases, can interfere with memory and therefore learning" (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 21). This is such a good point. When I think back to the things I actually remember learning in school, they were often connected to emotional experiences or activities. For example, this past year was full of auditions and performances, which I was not necessarily used to. I did not do a lot of solo violin performance in high school, and I struggled with a lot of anxiety and worry dealing with these performances. These intense emotions pushed me to practice and to perform the best that I could. The emotions caused me to take my music so much more seriously, and I came out of this school year so much better of a performer and player than I was going into the school year. It was within these incredibly emotional experiences that I was pushed not only to practice more, but I also developed so much mental and emotional strength.
This made me realize how crucial it is to be aware of the different emotional levels in children, as emotions differ because of age, gender, race, and so many more factors. They state that it is important to be aware of the emotional aspects of learning, as this awareness will help to enhance the learning of important content by providing experiences that are intertwined in positive emotional contexts (21). The first idea that came to my head when considering how to provide an emotional context for learning was the idea of having children perform in front of one another. Or, in other words, having "concerts" in the classroom. Though my music classes never did these, I have heard of different teachers within the past few years do these. For these concerts, children would be able to choose any song they want, practice it for a few weeks, and showcase their skills by performing it for the class. This would be a great opportunity for students to put to action the different things they are learning, as well as learn how to perform for other people. If I sought to create an environment where positive feedback was the only kind of feedback students could give one another, I anticipate this would be a very emotional experience that would help them become more independent musicians. Consider a student who had an intense case of stage fright. To get up in front of his or her classmates, perform a song, and hear applause and positive feedback. This would be an incredibly emotional experience with fantastic outcomes in relation to their musicianship.
Though there were so many benefits of classroom play that were given, I will only expand on a few. One of the outcomes of play is that students will grow in vocabulary knowledge through talking, reading, and singing together (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 33). Fortunately, music teachers have an already available outlet for "play". This is performance. There are so many vocabulary terms and technical skills students will learn about in their music classes, but there is no better way for a student to really learn about these vocab words and technical skills than to put them into action. I have often found with myself that I do not fully and completely understand a theory concept until I sit down and pound it out at the piano, and I anticipate this will be the case within my music classrooms as well. By prioritizing time to perform in the classroom, students will have a much deeper understanding of the different terms and concepts they learn about. Actually taking time to learn to play through the different musical skills will lead them to understand music in an entirely different way.
Another benefit to play in the classroom is that students must generally interact with others for musical play settings, thus teaching them social skills (Hansen, Bernstorf, & Stuber 33). I mentioned in my last blog that my younger siblings and I have been homeschooled for the past seven years. It is commonly known that homeschoolers are often attacked for having no social skills, and as the years went by, me and my younger siblings became well acquainted with this criticism. However, as we became better musicians and began playing different venues for different crowds, we found ourselves interacting with people from a variety of different backgrounds. Though I never sat at a high school lunch table or went to a high school football game, I found myself talking to people from public high schools, along with fellow homeschoolers, other musicians, adults, teenagers, and the list goes on. I can say I definitely still had my fair share of socialization, though it was not done inside the walls of a high school. Music brings people together, and I plan not only to prioritize time for my students to showcase their skills in the form of solo performance, but I also plan on making time for students to work and perform in small groups. I have found that there is so much one learns about someone else when they begin playing music with them, and I plan to take time throughout the school year, no matter what type of class I am teaching, to pair different students together and arrange different groups so that my students have the chance to play with a variety of different classmates, thus growing them in their social skills.
I have mentioned in previous blogs that I truly feel music teachers have an advantage over other teachers through the wide variety of resources and creative outlets readily available to them. Especially after reading this chapter, I am so motivated to create a classroom where there is constant creativity and play being cultivated. There are so many obvious outlets for this within a music classroom, so I should feel ashamed if I am not seeking to incorporate these outlets consistently in my classroom. I could take a day to have an "American Idol" show with my students. I could sing the "clean up" song with them as they put away their instruments. I could hold personal recitals where they showcase their skills through solos. I could take them to a nearby nursing home to play for and interact with the residents. The ideas and opportunities are endless. There are truly so many opportunities to play, both figuratively and literally, in the music classroom, and I want to seize every opportunity I can.
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