Name: Sock Puppets (listening and responding)
Name: Pluto Learns Piano (instructing)
Name: Loopseque (creating)
In William Bauer’s book, he states that the primary purposes of assessment are that they provide feedback that “should give students a clear picture of their progress on learning goals and how they might improve” (p.132), as well as “encourage students to improve” (p. 132). Classroom assessments should also be “formative in nature” (p.132) and “frequent” (p.132). Bauer emphasizes that assessments should be both valid, meaning that they “align with learning outcomes” (p. 133), and reliable, meaning that they are “as consistent as possible” (p. 133). Two different kinds of assessments that are mentioned are formative and summative. Formative assessments include “formal and informal procedures that provide information for the teacher and feedback to the student during the learning process” and help teachers adapt their instruction to better help students (p. 133), while summative assessments “summarizes learning at a particular point in time” (p.133) and allow teachers to see if their students have adequately accomplished the learning goals established.
Some technology tools and approaches to assessment that Bauer suggest music educators can use to assess student learning are word processing software that easily develop, create and organize an assessment, programs like Google Docs that include track changes so that “several teachers [can] work together to create a test” (p.135), electronic survey tools like Google Forms or Flubaroo that immediately grade the assessment, clickers that allow group testing and quickly allows the teacher to know if students understand the material (p.136), blogs, wikis, websites, rating scales and rubrics, audio recordings, screen capture software, and portfolios which can demonstrate a student’s best work they have accomplished. An additional tool I might envision would be to use Facebook Live to livestream the activity or event taking place and have students comment questions and responses to the event at hand. This can allow for real time processing and questioning of activities and it allows for immediate explanations and responses that the students may not get elsewhere. Another tool could be using a personal QR code that links to a survey so that students do not have to wait in line for a computer to provide responses about what they have just experienced. To measure the overall success of the experience, I would create a Likert scale survey that lists specific questions and statements regarding the experience and how the students felt about the experience and to see if it met certain learning goals that we had planned prior. Using Google Forms or Survey Monkey, I would have numbers ranging from one to five with one representing never and five representing absolutely. An example of a statement would be “I learned how to use body movement to create music” or “I enjoyed this activity”. They could also have fill in responses to questions such as, “I learned ______ today”. To measure the personal experiences of the participants, I would create a Facebook Livestream for the experience where students can comment their thoughts and questions in real time. I could also use Twitter and have the participants tweet what they learned or found interesting from the activity using a given hashtag. They could also post videos of themselves interacting with the technology using the hashtag to share it with their friends. To measure some facet of the participants’ music learning/making that may be impacted by engaging with my designed experience, I would see if they had saved and created some sort of melody that they could present to others. A good way to present their work would to either save the melody and play it for others or have one group of participants demonstrate to the next group what they have been doing and share or teach them how they can do it themselves. 1. How should public education function within a democracy? According to Dr. Alice Hammel, within in a democracy, all students in a public education system should have the equal opportunity to learn; however, this is currently not the case (p. 4). They should have “equable opportunity to receive and take from others…[and] there must be a large variety of shared undertakings” (p. 4). Without these things, there are large gaps in the education system concerning outcomes and learning environments. In my own opinion, a public education should provide the same opportunity for people to grow, learn, and be inspired to become something greater regardless of their ethnicity, socioeconomic backgrounds, gender, etc. 2. Discuss the inequities within our current public school education system. Some inequities within our current public school education system include not providing similar opportunities for students to learn and grow because of their learning differences or demographics. This includes students with disabilities who have “marked discrepancies in the[ir] educational outcomes and learning disabilities” (p. 5). Another inequity is the lack of resources faced by students living in poverty, whether that be in rural or urban areas. Students with a lack of resources are not given the same support by teachers and cannot attend beneficial events and activities because the strain of money or time is a burden to their parents. Another inequity is that of culture; cultural communication can be muddied at times and teachers want their students to adhere to the education standards within the American culture. However, students who learn English as a second language may have a different way of learning and struggle with being taught only in one particular way that does not connect with them. 3. What is special education? Special education is “specially designed instruction, which meets the unique needs of an exceptional child” (p. 5). In this current century, special education has evolved into an integration model where the general education classroom includes students with disabilities. 4. What are the continued challenges with inclusion in the 21st century? Some challenges with inclusion in the 21st century are “large class sizes, a perceived lack of support, and very busy schedules” (p. 6). Teachers also feel “pressures from continuing standardized test-driven school culture” (p. 6), which makes inclusion even more difficult. Another challenge is that special education programs are expensive and underfunded. Special education teachers have to balance the life of teaching special education and including their students in a general education classroom. This can be even more difficult if there is a lack of communication between teachers of special skills, like music. With so much to do and so little support, it is hard for special education teachers to find the time to be actively including their special needs children into the general education program if they cannot handle even handle their outbursts. 5. Describe how public school programs are funded. Public school programs are “primarily funded by a real estate tax-based system” (p. 10). Other than taxes, public schools can be funded by the federal or state system if that school fulfills certain educational standards and requirements. Once this money is obtained, it has to be allotted to different programs with more money going to activities that are deemed more important. 6. How does public school funding affect students in urban and rural settings? The public schools in wealthy areas “tend to have better services and therefore better opportunity to learn from higher-paid special educators and better equipped classrooms” (p. 10) because they have more funding. School systems in urban settings are usually underfunded and understaffed, causing a struggle for special educators to meet the federally mandated initiatives’ requirements (p. 10). Therefore, students are not given the best opportunity to grow and strengthen their abilities because they do not have the proper care and resources. Public schools in rural settings face similar problems, but a lot has to deal with decreased access to appropriate services. Families have to travel “long distances to get the health care and school support they need” (p. 10), which can be a huge expense to families that they do not want to take. Students again cannot be given resources that allow them to reach their full potential. 7. How can raising a child with a disability affect a family? Families that raise a child with a disability feel “enormous financial burdens in an effort to provide care to their children with disabilities” (p. 10). All the money poured into caring for their children can place a large load of stress on the parents and families may break apart because of it, leaving their disabled child in a single-parent home. Little things like paying to attend an event can cause increased stress on the family, especially when their main hope is that their child is simply being included and achieving their learning goals. 8. Describe the five categories of disabilities and describe the label-free approach. The first category of disabilities is cognitive which describes “the ability of a student to receive, process, and commit information to memory” (p. 13). Students with cognitive disabilities may lack the ability to involve “the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and use of knowledge obtained by the sensory and perception systems” (p. 13). Therefore, music teachers should observe their students to see how students hear or receive music and how they express themselves in a musical manner. The second category is communication; this includes “receptive language, expressive language, cognitive function/processing, and cultural use of language” (p. 15). For example, some students may not use English as their first language or may have troubles that affect brain processing. Teachers have to observe how students communicate themselves using music and understand how cultural affects the student’s experience with music. The third category is behavioral and emotional challenges which include: “an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors; an inability to develop and maintain interpersonal relationships; inappropriate types of behavior or fears in normal circumstances; a general…mood of unhappiness; or a tendency to develop physical symptoms related to fears” (p. 17). If teachers are facing these challenges in their students, they should see if these behaviors are also occurring in other classrooms and reach out to the child’s parents. The fourth category is sensory which may be “students who have an impairment that involves their vision or hearing” (p. 18). These students may have extreme reactions to different sounds, sights, touches, smells, or tastes. Teachers should be made aware of these things and recognize what triggers these reactions. The fifth category is physical and medical, which causes students to “sometimes have difficulty achieving the skills necessary to be independent” (p. 19). Educators should provide a learning environment that allows the student to achieve goals and independence. A label-free approach to teaching is one that provides equal opportunities for students with special needs regardless of their disability. Teachers create environments where students are included; educators learn and observe their students’ behavior in an in-depth manner so that they can better provide for that student and make them feel included within the general classroom setting. 9. Pose at least two questions related to the reading to ask Dr. Hammel. State your questions AND tweet them to Dr. Hammel (@alicehammel). Paste the 2 URLs to your questions in this post. Why do you think there is such a stigma about special needs kids? How can it seem less like a disability and more like a gift? https://twitter.com/miawde1/status/790749044440178688 How is it possible to include special needs kids while teaching other kids that those students are not "weird" or "strange"? https://twitter.com/miawde1/status/790749690270720001 After looking at the Twitter discussions, there are several ideas out there including: how to increase participation in music classes instead of 80% not being enrolled in schools; how to appeal to students who like traditional and others who enjoy alternative music; what our definitions of “traditional” and “alternative” music is; various methods of teaching to make classrooms more creative and entertaining in a musical context; and reasons behind why students fail to demonstrate their creative abilities although they have them. A lot of these conversations posed the question of “How do I define things like creativity or traditional music?” and the result were continued dialogues that addressed the implementation of “outside of the box” methods to teach. Sometimes you would have to think rather simply and say that improvisation did not require even learning a blues scale. Instead it may simply be just having students play along to a back track and create different emotions. Other discussions were more technical like trying to apply for grants to provide more resources to connect to a wider array of students.
Some voices that I encountered were Ethan Hein, an adjunct professor of Music Technology at NYU and Montclair State University, and Michael Hayden, the Director of Orchestras at Wauwatosa East High School and state chair for the Wisconsin Music Educators Association who has written several articles about technology and music. The discussions broadened my current thinking of how simple it is to incorporate technology and how I can simplify an idea to the bare minimum or its raw contents to reach my students. Music does not have to be notation based or limited by resources. There is always a way to teach and work with what you have; if you need more resources, the music world is big enough that you can obtain help from others. This class, these discussions, and connecting to these great educators through Twitter makes me want to ask more questions, challenge myself to think outside of the box, observe more ideas, and discuss more with my peers and elders. My hope is to be the best educator I can and to do this I have to equip myself with all the proper tools and be willing to ask if I don’t know something or if I do need help. The biggest lesson I learned from this discussion is to ask questions and research to seek out the answers because in the end the stuff you learn is so beneficial. In the words of William Bauer on page 150 of his book, Music Learning Today, “Project Based Learning” is an approach to instructional design that operationalizes contemporary learning theories such as those discussed earlier”. In my translation of his words, project based learning is a type of teaching technique that utilizes learning theories, like the ability to construct your own knowledge and ideas through experiences, imitation, and reflection of your own work. For future teaching, project based learning is an excellent way to assess if students have learned the material and can apply it creatively in their own way. It provides a more hands-on type of learning and challenges students to work in groups sometimes and think outside of the box because the parameters for projects are more loosely set than for a test. It gives the student a chance to take the knowledge as their own and do something with it, and it would allow me as a teacher to simply facilitate the activity and learn more from and about my students than if I were simply teaching the material.
On page 152 of the same book by Bauer, he defines “Backward Design” as “an approach in which the teacher begins with the end in mind”. He defines the three stages of backward design as identifying learning outcomes, selecting a means of assessment, and then planning the instructional procedures. In my future teaching, this will become useful as it provides a basic, effective structure on how to plan my lessons, orient my teaching, and interact with students better. By setting the learning outcomes first, I have a goal that I hope to reach towards instead of being bogged down by the procedural steps first. When I find myself having difficulty rehearsing with my students, I can remind myself of the ultimate goal and not be discouraged. This backward design process brings the full picture into focus and then I can go to the smaller details of teaching. It also allows me to connect with my students better because I can have goals in place and be more flexible on how to achieve those goals depending on the original skills sets and ideas of the students, which is similar to how our MUS150 class was designed. Differentiation is “providing different paths for students to achieve learning outcomes” (p. 159). In a performance ensemble, you can use technology to differentiate by having students separate into small chamber ensembles and making them record themselves and then listen to themselves play the difficult passage and give feedback in their group. For more experienced players, they can see if they are conveying the proper story or if they are using enough dynamics. For the less experienced students, you can be around them more to help facilitate the conversation if it seems to lack direction. You could also have the students do the same thing, except mix skill levels together so that the students can better help one another. Another idea is to have students listen to the original piece or a video displaying the traditional instruments used and then letting them write their thoughts about it and how they can emulate those sounds better on their own instruments. In innovative music learning settings, you can provide the same software, but different guidelines to compose a melody. For students with less skill, you can tell them to simply arrange a piece they already know with four instruments. For students with more skill, you could have them create their own composition with the parameters that it should be 16 measures and include repetition and other musical elements. Or you could have students use different software depending on their skill level; students could just arrange a piece using premade loops or they could put their own composition in and add more elements like loops and additional MIDI instruments to broaden their horizons of technology and composition. When Bauer states that learning is contextual he means that “students make sense of new material in terms of the context within which it is presented, which is informed by their prior knowledge of the topic” (p. 147). As future educators, we have to remember that all students learn differently and come from different backgrounds so this should guide our teaching and how we plan our lessons. Also, we must provide different types of experiences for students to learn because they all learn differently; some may have difficulty working in a large ensemble, so you may give them Smart Music to have them practice individually at home. Active learning is when “people learn by doing” and “construct their own knowledge” (p. 148). Like stated above, experiential and project based learning is an excellent way for teachers to let the students take charge and it allows the teachers to assess their students in a more applicable manner. The students can make their own connections and collaborate with one another and build skills that will be useful outside of the music realm. Giving students the time to work on their own or in small groups to increase their ability and provide feedback is also a great way to learn by doing. Social learning is learning that “occurs through interactions with others” (p.148). Social learning is similar to active learning because most active learning involves help and feedback from those around you. Help from your peers and musicians you admire can sometimes be more beneficial than simply being told what is right and wrong by a teacher. Lastly, learning that is reflective “requires students to be meta-cognitive, demonstrating an awareness of their own thinking and learning processes” and can lead to self-regulation (p. 149). Planning goals for your musical abilities and desires of what you want to accomplish, whether that be on your instrument or learning how to do something new with technology is a great way to learn. By doing this, you can set goals for yourself and then plan how to achieve those goals. On a weekly basis, you can reflect how well you are doing and what you plan to do better to keep striving towards your goal. It is a great way to assess yourself and learn without the help of others. The overarching theme of pages 44-51 in Chapter 3: Creating Music of William Bauer’s (2014) book, Music Learning Today, was how to cultivate creativity as a music educator so that “the other 80%” (p. 46) who are not involved in their schools’ music programs can still have active musical lives apart from school. However, Bauer also emphasized using technology to expand the creativity of those who are in their school’s music ensembles.
The first major idea Bauer addresses is the misconception that creativity is a rare gift that only some people are endowed with. He states that because of this misconception, it is all the more important that music educators find ways to develop creativity, especially through the use of technology, to prove that creativity is achieved through persistent practice. His four main steps to developing creativity are: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. This process is not linear, it is full of trial and error; a person can go back and forth between steps in order to fully develop their creativity. Finally, Bauer explains that the most beneficial method for facilitating creativity in students consists of certain constraints or frameworks, resources, and opportunities where the student can take ownership of their work. The students will also have to be motivated to develop their own aural and analyzing skills, in addition to imitate and informally learning from more experienced musicians. In a general music classroom, I would be sure to use Bauer’s idea of constraints to cultivate creativity. In that type of class there are many levels of interests in music, but as an educator it would be my goal to stir or increase excitement in the students toward music. Giving students a general format to adhere to would allow for rules, but would leave space for exploration of new sounds and ideas that they can take ownership of and become more interested in. In a collaborative maker space with music makers setting, I would allow the students to gain experience through an informal manner: modeling after their peers. Bauer explains that sometimes this can be the best way for a student to learn at times because they are experiencing the activity hands-on and making instant connections. In a creative space like this, I would not want my students to feel as if there are many rules in place; instead I want them to explore and find their own ideas. When using notation as a medium for composing, Bauer states that it is helpful for teaching students learn the ways of how musical notation works. Notation software can also show the pitch range of an instrument which helps with the technical portion of composing. Teachers can easily create composition templates for their students to follow, and teachers can listen to their work midway through the project so that they can provide ongoing feedback. The students can instantly hear their own work with similar sounding instruments and revise their own music continuously too. Some constraints would be that notation software does not allow the student to be actively thinking in sound or musically since the software puts out whatever is notated. Also, though sound can instantly be played back, the instruments may not have the right timbre and give students a misconception of what their piece will sound like live. Lastly, students will be more unwilling to change their musical ideas if it has already been notated, as opposed to if they had just jotted it down on scratch paper. My experience with notation software afforded me an easy way to notate my music and immediately hear back what I wanted it to sound like so that I could revise it right then and there. I could also easily change the notes that I wanted without spending extra time erasing and scratching out measures. I liked how easy the software was to manage and how I could easily find different items like dynamics and accidentals without too much trouble. First, it was constraining trying to make the beats smaller because it would take a lot of time or it would change the beat to rests when I wanted them to remain as notes. Sometimes the placement of dynamic markings was also strange and did not format well in the music. Lastly, the timbre of certain instruments was lacking and would not sound like what I imagined or wanted them to sound like. Overall, I think my experience with the notation software, Noteflight, was successful and I could easily compose without too many issues. My questions that I thought of when reading this chapter were, “How do you determine the extent of the constraints or how much critique is proper and still encouraging for the student?” and “What is the point of reaching the other 80% of students who are not involved in schools’ ensembles through notation software---is it to expose them to new things? If that is the case, what about the students who are not interested in notating music; what do you then do to connect them with music?” After reading the chapter entitled Technology Fundamentals from William Bauer's (2014) book, Music Learning Today, I have noticed the various types of technology that past music educators have implemented into my musical experiences. For example, my private flute teacher encouraged the use of Smart Music, a program that includes piano accompaniments and technique books that can monitor and record pitches and rhythms one has just played. The program then grades the recording based on its accuracy, which can then be used to help the student improve for the next time. Smart Music fits into the category of practice that Bauer mentions because this instructional software allows for drilling and practicing of etudes and repertoire with immediate feedback. In my opinion, Smart Music is an excellent tool for practicing solo works without the need to pay for a pianist. I also found it to be great at providing a quick, clear assessment of an etude that I had just played. However, there are some inaccuracies with pitch and rhythm recognition depending on the quality of microphone and computer used, which can be frustrating.
Another example of technology that I have been exposed to is blogs. In my AP Music Theory class, the teacher offered handouts and practice worksheets that came from another more experienced music theory teacher's blog. This blog was extremely helpful in providing a different teaching method than my high school's music teacher in case his method of learning chords and proper voice leading did not make sense to me. The extra practice worksheets were also beneficial in providing more practice with certain topics because we did not have enough time in class to continuously practice the more difficult concepts. Overall, I believe technologies are extremely beneficial in providing extra practice for students, whether it be through extra worksheets, video tutorials, or instant feedback on playing. However, all technology has its flaws, so it is important to be careful that the technology used is credible and easily accessible to all students. During this semester, I would love to learn more about music technologies that involve the use of only human body movement, such as Scratch and the Theremini. An example of the Theremini being used is found in this Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cqcTbDxsHM. I think it is amazing how only body movement can create musical sounds through the use of technology. It's almost unimaginable that my hand moving in the air could be the tool that can change pitch. With the technology, my kinesthetic learning can easily be combined with audio learning, which in turn will hopefully lead to better memory and enjoyment of musical skills and sounds. In order to learn more about this technology, I would love to use and practice the Theremini or other kinds of music technology that employ physical movement to produce sounds. The two questions I had related to the reading were: "How can music teachers use music technology in a way that is interesting to students without wasting too much time with technical difficulties?" and "How should sessions and workshops be formatted and given so that music educators have more knowledge on music technology?". |
Davina MiawOn this page, I will present examples of my scholarship in the form of reflective essays and philosophical assignments. Archives
November 2019
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