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. Comments are closed.
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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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