A common thread throughout this course for me has been the concept of how I can reach the percentage of students who are not in my performance ensembles. The reading this week has given me creative solutions on how I can do this. I realize that I have driven students away from my music elective classes like History of Rock and Roll due to not embracing the music that they enjoy. I have realized through teaching History of Rock and Roll that musical preference plays a substantial role in the life of our students. I spend the first day of class having a conversation about what types of music these students enjoy. My experience with these conversations proves that students musical preferences “are a result of ‘cultural, historical, societal, familial, and peer-group background’” (Bauer, 2014, p. 105).
The difficulty I have with this conversation is how I can connect this conversation with the predetermined curriculum for this class. Often times the music that these students enjoy listening to are not styles of Rock and Roll covered in this class. However, this reading allowed me to develop ideas of how these students can share the music that they enjoy. Having students develop blogs create endless possibilities of what these students can learn. Kerstetter (2010) suggests that blogs can be developed to reflect on “personal listening experiences,” “classroom listening,” and “performances attended” (Bauer, 2014, p. 113). Kerstetter (2010) also suggests that a blog could be developed to “compare and contrast two different compositions or different versions of a performance of a composition” (Bauer, 2014, p. 113). I detail these blogging options due to my intention of including these blogging ideas into my History of Rock and Roll class this school year. Once students have developed their blog I will have them develop weekly blog posts reflecting on a personal musical experience, music that was listened to in class, or about a performance they have attended or are going to attend. I also plan on assigning a blog assignment where students will critically compare and contrast a song that was covered in class to a song from one of their favorite artists.
Another difficulty I have with reaching students in my History of Rock and Roll class is how I can teach them to become “lifelong music listeners” (Bauer, 2014, p. 109). I have been influenced through the reading this week to develop my students “analytical ear” (Bauer, 2014, p. 109). I liked the idea of using Powerpoint presentations as a listening map by syncing the presentation to change slides at certain points of the song. It is a wonderful tool in teaching students to analyze music. I plan on using this method when introducing the blues progression in my History of Rock and Roll class. I will start the song by having the first slide play through an entire chorus of the blues progression. Each subsequent slide will then be each individual chord of the form with the Roman numeral of the representative chord. I will then alternate between these two methods of introducing the form for the remainder of the song. The intention of this method will be to have students distinguish whether or not a song contains the blues progression.
As I become familiar with the concept of WebQuests, I find how useful it can be in my curriculum. Many of the units that I teach in my History of Rock and Roll class can be transferred to a Webquest (e.g. Blues progression, influential early rock and roll musicians, the British invasion). The Webquest project for this class I will develop a WebQuest teaching students about the blues progression and intend on including the powerpoint mentioned earlier. The process of this WebQuest will include students learning the social and cultural influences of the blues, and learning exactly what the blues progression is. The evaluation of student understanding will be in the form of student compositions using Mixcraft or GarageBand, and a written assessment where students will distinguish songs containing the blues progression from songs not containing the blues progression. I am excited to develop and implement this WebQuest for this coming school year.
References
Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
I love your idea of having the students write a blog about their personal experiences with music they listen to at home. The idea of comparing and contrasting their music with a song you introduce in class is a great way to get them engaged in your classroom!
ReplyDeleteUsing the WebQuest to have students identify the blues progression and be able to write one through Garageband and have their own composition is a great way to implement technology and composition into the classroom. I am very impressed with your ideas.
I held off on writing my blog post this week because I couldn't decide what to write about. Your topic was my second choice. I realized when reading the chapter that I really never give my students the opportunity to share their musical taste with me or with other members of the class. This is primarily because often elementary students really, truly, like music with questionable lyrical content and implied references of which they are genuinely unaware. They like it because their parents or older siblings listen to it at home. Since I am not their parent, I don't feel that I should inadvertently invite them to search for why a lyric is inappropriate by flagging it as such. If a student were to share a song with me, hoping to share it with friends and I had to say no, do to lyrical content, they will automatically listen with new and curious ears seeking to understand things hat are not for children. All of those concerns lead me to think that if I am going to invite my students to share their musical favorites with me, and eventually their classmates, I am going to have to put a considerable amount of thought into how to construct such a project. Brauer (2014) had some excellent strategies, but it was pretty clear that he was gearing this chapter toward older students. Currently, when my students ask me about listening to popular music, I simply express my joy in their appreciation of music and ability to make musical choices. I tell them that when we listen to music that is unfamiliar to them, (i.e. Bach, jazz, world music) they have the opportunity to add variety to the music they already like. Because they are ten and eleven, they are happy with that answer and we move on.
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