This project is a culmination of work over the semester where I was researching the reports of assessment and its views and effects on students. Assessment Is what shapes learners future for continued learning and is an important piece of the learning process. If assesent doesn't have meaning than it might not be guided to helping the student learn more in the future. I am studying to learn how assessment Is viewed and what types of assessment exist. Inquiry DocumentPosterDigital Handout
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Citations: November 20-23, 2019. “What Is Orff Schulwerk?” American Orff-Schulwerk Association, aosa.org/about/what-is-orff-schulwerk/. November 20-23, 2019. “Carl Orff & Gunild Keetman.” American Orff-Schulwerk Association, aosa.org/about/orff-keetman/. Videos in Slide showThe Kodály Concept. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.oake.org/about-us/the-kodaly-concept/. I am reflecting on a reading about Kodály that I had just read for my elementary methods class. This is a technique to help students connect to music and enjoy it through folk songs and solfege. This method was designed to enrich the lives of those who participate in it. It helps students also work towards producing their product of music on their own so they can feel fully accomplished and developed by the end of the lessons. Zoltan Kodály is a Hungarian composer/polosphere who had a connection with folk music who invented the Kodály method. Some practical uses for this method would be games based on repeating solfege based games. This would also include some games that have students take folk music and perform it in small groups with each other incorporating different musical aspects. Some challenges is that since this is folk music that is based on other countries sometimes you might be lacking context for the lesson. This might also result in the topic being highly inappropriate for the class. This also mostly is based around western notation so learning music of non-western traditional culture might be difficult. The issues with finding a folk song that might be offensive results in possibly altering some aspects of the tune. This being if possible, I would mostly recommend you just find a new song. If we were to adapt a folk song, I would start with the lyrics. Changing just the troubled lyrics can be difficult because it still is almost exactly recognizable. Other than overhauling the lyrics I would recommend adding other harmonies or even altering some of the chords a bit. This runs into another issue of can the class do harmony read the new chords. Those are some of the first points I would recommend approaching when meeting this issue. Chapter 1, Hammel, A. M., & Hourigan, R. A. (2016). Winding it back: A framework for inclusive music education. In A. M. Hammel, R. A. Hickox, & R. M. Hourigan (Eds.), Winding It back: Teaching to individual differences in music classroom and ensemble settings (pp. 1-14). New York: Oxford University. The Winding sequence is the process of designing a learning experience for every student individually within the classroom. Winding starts with winding it back, this processes is taking something and decreasing the steps or simplifying the process so the student can learn at a level that best challenges them. For example a student is having trouble clapping half notes. Having them subdivide by clapping them on quarter notes or even eighth notes in order to understand its full value. This processes also includes winding it forward. This is the process of taking the next step in a lesson in order to challenge a student who is already meeting the general goal of the lesson before it even starts. An example of this is having a student clap hemiola rhythms that land on off beats while other students clap the straight pulse. A question I have about the winding sequence is how do you wind without making a student feel ashamed of their placement to their classmates or even superior? What do I do if a student does not accept the winding processes I created and they just want to keep attempting to do the original lesson that's very obviously too hard for them. When reading about Lena and her struggles in class within chapter one. I would think that a student being asked to not play one of the notes and rests for it would be demeaning to them. Everybody wants to be at least average so winding back can sometimes make a student feel like they aren't performing well even though they might be performing amazingly according to their self development. Chapter 2, Hammel, A. M., & Hourigan, R. A. (2016). Winding it back: Setting the Tone for Inclusive Music Learning. In A. M. Hammel, R. A. Hickox, & R. M. Hourigan (Eds.), Winding It back: Teaching to individual differences in music classroom and ensemble settings (pp. 14-45). New York: Oxford University.
This chapter covers a lot of basics for setting your students up for success when it comes to an ensemble setting. In one section it talks about patterns and the process of using these patterns that naturally come through solfege/ rhythm syllables. These can help build students into later classes where they would be able to apply these tools and learn from them but also transfer them to other things music related outside of performing such as composing. This chapter covers a lot of points on young children having an endless outlet with their free imagination. With just one little discussion young minds can reinvent the wheel with cool fun new ideas and games. In one section of this chapter it says the students “Strive to construct their understanding of the world around them. Thus, the natural approach for children is to use their bodies and sense to playfully interact with their environment” (Hammel 2016). We are cheating young minds of a fruitful and encouraging musical experience when we don't challenge them in the ways they specifically need it. They have the energy and creativity so why don't we use it? (Allsup & Baxter, 2004)
In Allsup they're three types of questions that it is narrowed down to when choosing to ask students to answer. These three can be narrowed down to open, guided, and closed. Open is a question where the topic can go almost anywhere, for example “What's your favorite type of music?” or “How much music do you listen too?”. The next one is guided where you are targeting a more specific area, for example “What happened at the end of the piece?” or “How many people want to take a solo?”. The last one closed is very forward for example “What is the name of that note in measure 3?” or “What are the types of accent that clarinets have in measure 20?”. The next section that is covered is shared between analytical, judicial, and creative question frameworks. Each of these challenges the student to think in a different realm of creativity. The first one Analytical would be “What is the bass line?” For the next one Judicial It challenges students to reflect on specific aspects within the activity. For example “How did you decide you wanted to shape your solo?”. For the last one Creative this one is very broad and can result into something specific or even more broad than you would think. An example of this would be “What parts did you like about the music?” For the last part I would like to talk about why it is important to ask questions in your experience. Questions and the variations of questions not only challenge the students to individually find a path to the answer they are looking for, but it also allows the students to have a more long term effect on the lesson plan. Maybe you ask a question that really stuck to a student, something that they couldn't figure out. That student might go home and find out on their own time with their own energy the answer to that question. That is just the beginning to a lifelong musical experience. That student then can find more questions or even more points on the topic of what was covered that interests them. They may even bring you back a question the next day to share with the class, at this point the learning process is feeding into itself and my purpose as a teacher is complete. If I were to just tell them how something is they aren't taking the time to understand the why and the how of what it is to be the way it is. This does not only not fully inform the student it encourages them to lead a life of following and doing what they are told without any context. Students need to have relevant knowledge and factual understanding to fully understand a topic within anything. Now our job as a teacher is to make sure the questions we are meaningful to their experience. I need to make sure that the question I am asking is not only valuable to the topic but valuable to life and many other topics. I need to have a plan that if that student answers that question that I don't just give them a pat on the back and a sticker, I bring them a bigger fish. This being because students are hungry for knowledge and sometimes they don't even know it until they are poking around on their phones sitting on the couch at home. Below is a chart I had created after looking over different charts representing the development of kinesthetic movement through education in elementary school. I had pulled ideas from other charts I saw but I decided to make a few of my own also. Frego, D. R. J. (n.d.). The Approach of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. Retrieved from https://www.allianceamm.org/resources/dalcroze/#philosophy
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze is a music educator who in Switzerland developed the Dalcroze Eurhythmics approach to music. This method was originally designed for musicians in the conservatory but then realized it was applicable for an array of artists from all areas. As described by his reason was to create this its described as “Jaques-Dalcroze wanted to create an approach to music education in which sensory and intellectual experiences are fused into one neuromuscular experience—reinforcing the body’s response to music (Caldwell, 1995). He felt that this would lead to performance at high levels beyond expectations (Carder, 1990).”. The approach often includes 3 sections. The first one has rhythmic solfege or ear training. The solfege is taught through fixed Do. The student should be able to hear what they write and vise versa. Section two is improvisation based. This starts with an instructor playing piano while students improvise over the chords spontaneously reacting to the chords. Another section of this would be a student improvising rhythms on the drum while one improvises. The third section is described as “component is the eurhythmics itself. Often considered the core of the approach, eurhythmics was actually the last part to be developed.” These three parts of the learning process all complement each other nicely and have a good gradual build to a well rounded foundation of music education. Some uses for the Dalcroze rythmique involve the build a burrito activity we performed in class on the first day, as well as the scarf activity we performed in class. These are activities that are encouraging a kinesthetic learning environment where the students are improvising on pitch and rhythm and activity with one another. Some challenges that might approach me in a classroom with this is making adaptations for students in wheelchairs or with other movement disabilities. I am sure I can find ways to make adaptations for them in the classroom but I am worried about them not getting as much out of the experience because of their different situation. I think the advancements of that is most of school is sitting and watching and listening based lesson so when you ask the students to get up and move and interact your encouraging them to learn through more outlets as well as challenge each other in different ways than before, such as finding similar or different sounds and rhythms in the room. Brandon Rhinehart
Questions: How can the culture of an elementary classroom develop slower, faster or even different than another grade level classroom? When students enter elementary school music classrooms, how can the expectation of the lesson and atmosphere differ? Is there a standard I need to meet other than a SOL stand point? What kind of music field trips can I do with my class at such a young age. Am I even aloud to take students outside of the classroom. If so what is the process of doing a music field trip? What is the best way to go about surveying young minds on lessons and what they want to learn in the future of the class. Does the survey need to be more percises? Should I stay away from written or computer based surveys? When educating younger students, can I convince them something is easy even though its hard and keep them from psyching themselves as well as have them achieve something as long as they don't expect it to be hard? Research Questions:
Rationale:
I chose this one because meeting the standards of learning are important. This does not make a classroom however, how can I build an atmosphere to have set standards that the students do when they enter our class. How can I make sure they respect each other, don't talk over one another, or hinder each others learning experience. I need to build in my own standards if I want to have a successful classroom. Something along the lines of having the students come into the classroom and then instantly start singing along. How can I set it up so expect that to happen? How can I set it up so they also engage naturally also? How do I change standards if I need to make adjustments for a specific class or even a single student?
We talked about this during my Sophomore year music education class and it is a point I wanted to come back too. I was unable to figure out what book it came from but I would like to discuss on the point of it. We make things hard for our students when we tell them it's hard. Playing guitar is hard, well is it? Maybe for the teacher but as soon as you tell your students that they are going to approach it with caution. Students will build their own limitations as soon as you start telling them what is hard. Yes guitar is hard for you. But is it hard for a young 5th grader just picking one up? Chances are it is not because they can't do it but because you told them its hard and now they have doubts about being able to do it. The young mind absorbs information so fast, if we treat it like its any other activity, students may seem to accelerate much quicker than you expect it. Yes guitar will come hard to some of them but let them figure that out on their part. What ways can I really push my students if they are not told about an experience being hard. Could they do more than me even? Could that be the birth of a child prodigy? Is this an issue because teachers are worried about messing up in front of their students so they use it as a prefisit? Abril, C. R., & Gault, B. M. (2016). Untangling general music education: Concepts, aims, and practice. In C. R. Abril & B. M. Gault (Eds.), Teaching General Music: Approaches, Issues, and Viewpoints (pp. 5-22). New York: Oxford University Press.
While reading through Abril and Gault’s “Teaching General Music” I have some points I would like to reflect on. In this book they discuss points that are described as amorphous and problematic. One of the first points brought up this book talks about having lessons within the classroom that are lacking the principles of undergird practice. There is a quote by Kohn that states that “it is a good idea to challenge ourselves . . . about anything we've come to take for granted; the more habitual,the more valuable this line ofinquiry” (1993,p.14). Something else that caught my eye later in the reading was rooted in the curriculum section of the reading. They talk about the shift of the general music curriculum over time. When reading this section they talk about how the development of a curriculum slowly developed to change and add new ideas and interests that the students have wanted and needed. Covering things like playing new instruments and singing... etc. I found this interesting because looking at today's general music classroom I find things centered around older traditions some seeming very outdated and not applicable to what students need today. When I have my own classroom I will ensure to bring qualities from every time period of music that best helps the student grow. Not because of tradition but because of influences and interests amongst the students. As I think about the learning process within the schools is that at some point in the learning process the students need to understand what they are doing and how it affects their specific growth. This being because they will need these skills so that they can activate these abilities outside of the classroom. On the flip side, we as educators need to be thinking about the steps that we take in educating through a lesson have real meaning and tangible purpose within the context of what they need to achieve their goals. For two questions I would like to ask my peers in my classes. How can we as teachers ensure that students are always getting what they need out of the classroom when it comes to general music? As well as how can I take information and feedback and better increase the experience every year with so many moving targets of interest within the classroom? This all started out with just an idea, as I thought about it there was many things on my mind about the subject. Students taking the time to learn multiple instruments, I thought this topic couldn't be stopped. So I decided to make this my research topic for this project. I started out with a little assignment to come up with two pages to worth to talk about and a few cited sources to cover. After finally sinking my teeth into this project I found a list of sources that I will have listed below to talk about my topic also. The biggest challenge in this step is that my topic does not have a lot of professional articles written about it, when it most certainly should be a think in the world of music education. I pulled a lot of my sources from the people which doesn't mean they are bad, it just means they are bias or could have a lack of knowledge on the subject they are talking about. However it's important to hear what the people still say, most of these are current students talking about their influences with music in their early childhood with multiple instruments. A lot of these other sources are actual teachers and musicians talking about their influences from learning how to play multiple instruments. Finally it was time to get started on writing the paper, this was actually the easy part. Most of my hard work was put into finding the sources after I did the reading it was just trying to find a way to make it all flow together and organize it into one paper. I decided to touch on all of my sources somewhere in my paper, it wasn't that hard because a lot of these points overlapped so discussing one topic would also reflect in discuss that in 3 other articles. I didn't have a specific order for what I talked about in the paper, I knew I want to talk about my future research last because it about what i'm going to be thinking about in the future. Over the semester this project was always a little nerve wracking to think about, it became very difficult once I actually got to work but now that I finally see the full product I am glad I did it. I think it was hard because I felt like I pulled sources out of thin air sometimes. Also I had to talk about them in my paper so it worried me I didn't do very good research when in fact I did do good research I just didn't find scholarly articles. It's important to find those outlets but you have to listen to the people sometime too. I ended up then getting out of a rut and really started putting it all together and it looked great.
I think I didn't have a lot of limitations to myself on my paper when I was writing it, I was pretty sure I covered all the right bases and made sure that my points got the support they needed from the sources. After I got my sources the paper wrote itself. However, the poster was a different story. As I had to pick and choose what to put on it their was only so much, but it was easy to put together and it took less time to make. Overall I think I had an easier time designing a poster. |
Brandon RhinehartHere I will be posting reflective essays and philosophical documents and other assignments Archives
December 2019
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