Fierce Wanderings of a Music Educator: Un-boxed Article 2010
Differentiation
When I began to think about how I could explore differentiation in my lessons, I discovered many threads that I could study. I continually brainstorm and journal about projects, lessons and ideas about daily procedures in my classroom and how they could be interpreted by different types of learners. The ideas and concepts surrounding differentiation could be divided into two subcategories of large group design strategies and individual student consideration. The reading gave me valuable insight and strategies that I could immediately test out in my classroom and discuss with my colleagues. Although many of the strategies would need to be adapted to work for large instrumental music classes, the ideas and discussions led to a deeper discovery about the larger framework of classroom procedures and how differentiation could be designed into the classroom seamlessly.
Instrumental music teachers are faced with similar dilemmas as core class teachers facing district benchmarks and standardized tests. Performance, the school band or orchestra concert; it is true that performances are great examples of authentic assessment of students’ playing skills, but as with the core classes I feel that sometimes “key content” is missed, overlooked or rushed through for the sake of performance. I worry that students are not able to fully understand and grasp content related to style, technique, and musicianship. I also worry about student’s ability to face a “standardized” test, if there was one for instrumental music. To understand how to reach all types of students more effectively, we must first understand that there are many different ways that students learn to play instruments. Some students learn to play by ear, matching notes and rhythms that they hear. Students memorize phrases in relation to sounds from other instruments. Students memorize fingering patterns and repeated rhythms and other students come into the ensemble with a deep understanding of music vocabulary and the ability to play new music flawlessly the first time. The “achievement gap” is an issue that band and orchestra teachers must deal with in order to bring all students up to an ability level that allows all students to successfully play a piece of music together. However, performing together should not be the only overall goal of an instrumental music program. Individual student lessons used to be offered to each student by the school band teacher. Students would have an individual lesson at least twice a month to closely mentor students and assure progress. Students should at the very least be separated by ability and instrumentation in order to balance both the tone quality of the ensemble as well as the pace and difficulty of the learning that will be taking place. Finding ways to successfully differentiate for each type of learner is a key element in the overall success of a music program as a whole. Despite facing all of these challenges alone as the only teacher in the music department I was able to reflect upon my own practices, strengths and weaknesses. I discovered some key areas where I began to differentiate for large ensembles classes as well as individual students.
The first step I took was talking to my students about how we get “really good” at something. We had several thoughtful discussions about meaningful practice and rehearsal. I was inspired by Kathleen Cushman’s presentation of her work with motivation. I took many of her insights and strategies and began discussing them with students and colleagues who both were excited to hear and see how the project would be beneficial. I plan to take my students through the “Practice Project” after I read “Fires in the Mind” and understand how to make meaningful connections for my students.
The second step I took within my classroom was working with student choice and home practice. I require my students to fill out weekly practice records and have their parents verify the minutes they have practiced. I thought about Outliers: The Story of Success written by Malcolm Gladwell and did some research on his concept of 10,000 hours. I want to try and start a practice campaign based on this idea and have students reach the goal of 1,000 minutes of practice over the course of 30 days. Students who reach the goal would receive an Outstanding Outliers 1,000 t-shirt or something. In the classroom, I continued to discuss with students what meaningful practice looked like and how and what students could do to achieve perfect practice at home.
The third step I took with my students was based off of the “found poem” exercise we covered in class. I asked students to compose and practice their own piece of music using short motifs found in the music we are currently studying. The process gave me insight into my student’s understanding of the organization of notes, measures and relationships between different pitches. The audible results of this project did not prove to be very listenable or desirable for the students. They were excited at first to create their own compositions, but were easily frustrated when they did not sound like they intended. A brief summary of the activity will be included.
Found Music (Practice Project Summary)
Many times repetition is used to memorize music, however it is not the most exciting way to practice individually. Students also internalize music by transcribing their parts into their composition books. Students have had mixed reactions to these practices in the past. They have produced beautiful replicas of the music as well as quickly scribbled chicken-scratch.
The importance and value of individual student practice is something that I have struggled to communicate with my students and their parents for the past few years. I have come to expect all the normal excuses for not practicing. “I’m too busy.” “I had soccer practice, and then homework.” “My parents were having guests over and I couldn’t play.” With each excuse, many times I offer the same reply and encouragement. “To be ready to perform well for the concert, you have to dedicate some time to the instrument and music. You are doing very well playing in class, but imagine how much better you could be if you spent just a little more time working with the music on your own time. The instrument cannot play by itself, you have to give it life.” I’ve also experienced varying responses of support from parents. Parents have diligently signed progress reports, practice records and communicated with me about problems their students were having with the music but have also communicated that they didn’t know what their students should be practicing at home or how to help them because they’ve never played an instrument. To aid in this education of both students and parents on the importance of practice. I began to add a practice tip/parental assignment into the monthly newsletter. I saw an immediate and positive response from many parents after the first tip/assignment went home via email. I feel that student’s parents are excited, eager and more willing to support their students when they see that students are motivated, excited and dedicated to a specific discipline sport or craft. Communicating with parents and getting them involved with students individual practice will deepen both the students and parents value for instrumental music.
Reflection
In response to my experiences with differentiation thus far, I feel refreshed knowing that there are countless strategies to make learning successful for all children. The challenges we face as teachers are many but with thoughtful design, careful planning and diligent attention to each student’s learning, we can make learning a deeply fulfilling meaningful and valuable part of student’s lives. Class size and how well teachers “know” and plan for their students also plays a valuable role in each student’s success. In a district and school where every year more funding is being cut and class sizes and standards are increased, the ideal learning environment for each student is deteriorating. Many teachers care deeply for each student but realistically how many students can one person successfully care for? How do you measure love? How do you measure care, compassion and understanding? Increasing class size alone stretches teachers and schools for physical resources such as books, desk and computers, but what about the emotional energy it takes to understand each student and their optimal learning style? Understanding differentiation is a start. I think it is a start that many teachers at my school could learn from. I used to think of differentiation in that students did more work or longer problems if they were brighter and smarter students. Students that struggle academically were given less work or shorter assignments and projects, which in a way systematically divides or tracks our student populations socially into different levels of learners, even if the school classes are “de-tracked”. Meaningful learning for students will occur when teachers address the achievement gap by creatively bringing the two levels together, meeting in the middle at the initial start point of a lesson and then allow for extending the lessons into deeper conversations and activities based on the abilities of each individual. Students need time to work with content. They need time to learn in their world. Students will not be successful if they feel like school is force-feeding them meaningless content, but if we look deeper into understanding what inspires each student and how we can allow and support students to work and practice with the content on “their terms” we will take one more step forward toward teaching for “the student” and not merely “teaching for the test”.
BACK TO HOME
When I began to think about how I could explore differentiation in my lessons, I discovered many threads that I could study. I continually brainstorm and journal about projects, lessons and ideas about daily procedures in my classroom and how they could be interpreted by different types of learners. The ideas and concepts surrounding differentiation could be divided into two subcategories of large group design strategies and individual student consideration. The reading gave me valuable insight and strategies that I could immediately test out in my classroom and discuss with my colleagues. Although many of the strategies would need to be adapted to work for large instrumental music classes, the ideas and discussions led to a deeper discovery about the larger framework of classroom procedures and how differentiation could be designed into the classroom seamlessly.
Instrumental music teachers are faced with similar dilemmas as core class teachers facing district benchmarks and standardized tests. Performance, the school band or orchestra concert; it is true that performances are great examples of authentic assessment of students’ playing skills, but as with the core classes I feel that sometimes “key content” is missed, overlooked or rushed through for the sake of performance. I worry that students are not able to fully understand and grasp content related to style, technique, and musicianship. I also worry about student’s ability to face a “standardized” test, if there was one for instrumental music. To understand how to reach all types of students more effectively, we must first understand that there are many different ways that students learn to play instruments. Some students learn to play by ear, matching notes and rhythms that they hear. Students memorize phrases in relation to sounds from other instruments. Students memorize fingering patterns and repeated rhythms and other students come into the ensemble with a deep understanding of music vocabulary and the ability to play new music flawlessly the first time. The “achievement gap” is an issue that band and orchestra teachers must deal with in order to bring all students up to an ability level that allows all students to successfully play a piece of music together. However, performing together should not be the only overall goal of an instrumental music program. Individual student lessons used to be offered to each student by the school band teacher. Students would have an individual lesson at least twice a month to closely mentor students and assure progress. Students should at the very least be separated by ability and instrumentation in order to balance both the tone quality of the ensemble as well as the pace and difficulty of the learning that will be taking place. Finding ways to successfully differentiate for each type of learner is a key element in the overall success of a music program as a whole. Despite facing all of these challenges alone as the only teacher in the music department I was able to reflect upon my own practices, strengths and weaknesses. I discovered some key areas where I began to differentiate for large ensembles classes as well as individual students.
The first step I took was talking to my students about how we get “really good” at something. We had several thoughtful discussions about meaningful practice and rehearsal. I was inspired by Kathleen Cushman’s presentation of her work with motivation. I took many of her insights and strategies and began discussing them with students and colleagues who both were excited to hear and see how the project would be beneficial. I plan to take my students through the “Practice Project” after I read “Fires in the Mind” and understand how to make meaningful connections for my students.
The second step I took within my classroom was working with student choice and home practice. I require my students to fill out weekly practice records and have their parents verify the minutes they have practiced. I thought about Outliers: The Story of Success written by Malcolm Gladwell and did some research on his concept of 10,000 hours. I want to try and start a practice campaign based on this idea and have students reach the goal of 1,000 minutes of practice over the course of 30 days. Students who reach the goal would receive an Outstanding Outliers 1,000 t-shirt or something. In the classroom, I continued to discuss with students what meaningful practice looked like and how and what students could do to achieve perfect practice at home.
The third step I took with my students was based off of the “found poem” exercise we covered in class. I asked students to compose and practice their own piece of music using short motifs found in the music we are currently studying. The process gave me insight into my student’s understanding of the organization of notes, measures and relationships between different pitches. The audible results of this project did not prove to be very listenable or desirable for the students. They were excited at first to create their own compositions, but were easily frustrated when they did not sound like they intended. A brief summary of the activity will be included.
Found Music (Practice Project Summary)
Many times repetition is used to memorize music, however it is not the most exciting way to practice individually. Students also internalize music by transcribing their parts into their composition books. Students have had mixed reactions to these practices in the past. They have produced beautiful replicas of the music as well as quickly scribbled chicken-scratch.
- Students choose segments of music from our performance repertoire.
- There will be a list of “problem areas” in our music that we need to address on the board. These segments are parts that students should be tending to in their own home practice.
- Students will take single melodic or harmonic lines 1 measure each from the piece and rearrange them into their own 4 measure compositions.
- The students will rehearse and perform their compositions for their instrument section and the rest of the class.
The importance and value of individual student practice is something that I have struggled to communicate with my students and their parents for the past few years. I have come to expect all the normal excuses for not practicing. “I’m too busy.” “I had soccer practice, and then homework.” “My parents were having guests over and I couldn’t play.” With each excuse, many times I offer the same reply and encouragement. “To be ready to perform well for the concert, you have to dedicate some time to the instrument and music. You are doing very well playing in class, but imagine how much better you could be if you spent just a little more time working with the music on your own time. The instrument cannot play by itself, you have to give it life.” I’ve also experienced varying responses of support from parents. Parents have diligently signed progress reports, practice records and communicated with me about problems their students were having with the music but have also communicated that they didn’t know what their students should be practicing at home or how to help them because they’ve never played an instrument. To aid in this education of both students and parents on the importance of practice. I began to add a practice tip/parental assignment into the monthly newsletter. I saw an immediate and positive response from many parents after the first tip/assignment went home via email. I feel that student’s parents are excited, eager and more willing to support their students when they see that students are motivated, excited and dedicated to a specific discipline sport or craft. Communicating with parents and getting them involved with students individual practice will deepen both the students and parents value for instrumental music.
Reflection
In response to my experiences with differentiation thus far, I feel refreshed knowing that there are countless strategies to make learning successful for all children. The challenges we face as teachers are many but with thoughtful design, careful planning and diligent attention to each student’s learning, we can make learning a deeply fulfilling meaningful and valuable part of student’s lives. Class size and how well teachers “know” and plan for their students also plays a valuable role in each student’s success. In a district and school where every year more funding is being cut and class sizes and standards are increased, the ideal learning environment for each student is deteriorating. Many teachers care deeply for each student but realistically how many students can one person successfully care for? How do you measure love? How do you measure care, compassion and understanding? Increasing class size alone stretches teachers and schools for physical resources such as books, desk and computers, but what about the emotional energy it takes to understand each student and their optimal learning style? Understanding differentiation is a start. I think it is a start that many teachers at my school could learn from. I used to think of differentiation in that students did more work or longer problems if they were brighter and smarter students. Students that struggle academically were given less work or shorter assignments and projects, which in a way systematically divides or tracks our student populations socially into different levels of learners, even if the school classes are “de-tracked”. Meaningful learning for students will occur when teachers address the achievement gap by creatively bringing the two levels together, meeting in the middle at the initial start point of a lesson and then allow for extending the lessons into deeper conversations and activities based on the abilities of each individual. Students need time to work with content. They need time to learn in their world. Students will not be successful if they feel like school is force-feeding them meaningless content, but if we look deeper into understanding what inspires each student and how we can allow and support students to work and practice with the content on “their terms” we will take one more step forward toward teaching for “the student” and not merely “teaching for the test”.
BACK TO HOME