How can I teach my composition unit differently?
Currently, my 3rd Grade composition unit lasts four weeks, which is only four 50-minute sessions, organized as follows:
Week 1: Explore songs that already exist in a genre chosen by the teacher. Vote on topics for a song to write as a class (within the predetermined genre) and create lyrics collaboratively, but mostly guided by the teacher.
Week 2: Review basic rhythms and introduce time signatures. In small groups, write rhythm symbols above lyrics for a small part of a song.
Currently, my 3rd Grade composition unit lasts four weeks, which is only four 50-minute sessions, organized as follows:
Week 1: Explore songs that already exist in a genre chosen by the teacher. Vote on topics for a song to write as a class (within the predetermined genre) and create lyrics collaboratively, but mostly guided by the teacher.
- After Week 1, I break the lyrics up into small sections and determine small groups of students to assign to each section of lyrics. I prepare a sheet for each group with the lyrics split into syllables.
Week 2: Review basic rhythms and introduce time signatures. In small groups, write rhythm symbols above lyrics for a small part of a song.
- After Week 2, I put each group’s rhythm and lyrics into a file in my personal Noteflight account.
Week 3: Learn about stepwise motion, learn how to move notes on a staff on Noteflight, and spend remaining time moving pre-set notes in Noteflight.
- After Week 3, I copy and paste each group’s composition into one file and record myself singing the song into UJam.
Week 4: Learn the entire song. Vote on genres and accompaniments for the song from UJam.
I feel that the amount of effort it takes for me to prepare each of about 30 groups’ work each week for four weeks is not analogous to the students’ pride in the final product.
My new composition unit would be laid out as follows:
- Beginning of the school year: A small group of “music mentors” is chosen to meet with me once a week, learning the basics of the composition assignment for their own original songs.
- Throughout the fall: Music mentors work at home using Noteflight student accounts and work with their classmates during free time in their classroom.
- Composition Unit Week 1: Students choose a topic meaningful to them, write a poem about that topic, and begin to re-write the lyrics syl-la-ble by syl-la-ble.
- Week 2: Students write rhythm symbols above the syllables in their poem, insert the rhythms into their Noteflight account, and add the lyrics underneath.
- Week 3: Students move the notes in their Noteflight file to create a melody for their song. When finished, they listen to classmates’ melodies and give feedback while the teacher helps students record their songs into UJam.
- Week 4: Continuation of Week 3.
A follow-up to the unit would include a recording session in which interested students could record their songs onto a class album.
What can I use at my school?
- Classroom computer
- Classroom projector
- Computer lab
- School Internet
- My own Noteflight account (paid, unlimited storage)
- My own UJam account (free, limited storage)
What do I need that I don’t already have?
- Chromebooks: A set of ten Chromebooks would allow me to give each of my “music mentors” a laptop to check out so they could get familiar with the concepts I am teaching them from home. These Chromebooks could be assigned to other students who could benefit from them later in the school year.
- Headphones: Ten sets of headphones would ensure that students could focus on their work on their Chromebooks without distractions.
- Noteflight Subscription: A “classroom subscription” would allow 250 students to create their own accounts within a private classroom community.
- Volunteers: During Weeks 3 and 4 of the composition unit, I would need extra supervision so students can be working on their computers and learning and recording their songs simultaneously.
Why Chromebooks?
Troy Hicks, an associate professor of English at Central Michigan University who focuses his work on the teaching of writing, literacy and technology, and teacher education and professional development, recommended Chromebooks as an asset to this project in a conversation we had in June 2014. My school has an iPad cart, laptop carts, and a desktop lab, but those are all restricted to the school and difficult to get access to as a specials teacher. A classroom set of Chromebooks would allow “music mentors” to work at home and would be less expensive than iPads or full laptops.
Affordances and constraints of Chromebooks in the music classroom are listed in a presentation by Russell (2013). Several affordances are compatibility with Noteflight and UJam, low cost, and administrative rights for the teacher. The constraints do not seem to be relevant to this particular project.
Russell also mentions that in a traditional classroom, Chromebooks generally focus on substitution and augmentation in the SAMR (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition) model and rarely make it to modification and redefinition, which are the higher, more challenging levels. He argues that in a music classroom, though, there are not many ways to substitute or augment content using Chromebooks, so as music teachers using this technology, we are forced into modification and redefinition. Since we are encouraged to strive for modification and redefinition, I see Russell’s argument as a challenge that will make the technology use in my lesson more meaningful.
How does this project help my students?
I have two main goals as an elementary music teacher. One can be summed up in this quote from Shin'ichi Suzuki:
I want to make good citizens, noble human beings. If a child hears fine music from the day of his birth, and learns to play it himself, he develops sensitivity, discipline and endurance. He gets beautiful heart.
My second main goal is to send my students off to middle school with a deep understanding of musical concepts, allowing ideas from those concepts to be transferred to band, orchestra, choir, language arts, and even science, social studies, and mathematics. Willingham (2009) says the following about deep knowledge:
The student [with deep knowledge] understands not just the parts, but also the whole. This understanding allows the student to apply the knowledge in many different contexts, to talk about it in different ways, to imagine how the system as a whole would change if one part of it changed, and so forth. (p. 95)
Willingham suggests that assignments must demand deep understanding rather than just surface knowledge (pp. 103-104). A composition assignment in which students create their own song using musical concepts requires deep understanding. For example, if students do not know that a quarter note is one sound that lasts one beat, they will not be able to match rhythms to their lyrics and therefore will not be able to create a melody from the rhythm. Deep understanding is vital in this particular assignment.
When I asked our district's band director what musical concepts students have difficulty with upon entering middle school, he said, "Students have a difficult time understanding how to count in different time signatures varying from 4/4 to 6/8. Students also have difficulty identifying notes on a staff regardless of clef." With a deep understanding of the concepts covered in this composition unit, there are many ways that students could transfer their knowledge across the curriculum. A few examples are:
- Music: Students will understand that those “black dots on the page” tell a singer how long to hold a note and whether to move the pitch up or down.
- Mathematics: Students will understand that there are four quarter notes in a measure, or four quarters in a whole.
- Language Arts: Students will understand that vocal music is poetry.
- Technology: Students will understand that, when used correctly, technology is a tool.
- Music Technology: Students will understand that music can be created with voices and instruments or electronically.
How will the new approach help even more?
Despite my efforts to give each student specific tasks in our group composition project, there have inevitably been students who have “fallen through the cracks.” Not every student needed to understand the concepts of rhythm and melody so long as someone in their group did. By making this an individual project, each student will need to have his/her own understanding of the content.
Some of the biggest challenges in the composition unit have been identifying syllables in the lyrics that receive more emphasis than others (i.e. Old MacDonald had a farm, E-i-e-i-o), being sure that the combinations of rhythm symbols in each measure match the meter, and keeping the melodies singable. Hopefully, by introducing the technology to students ahead of time via my “music mentors,” we will have more time to focus on those conceptual challenges. I also hope that by students choosing their own topics for their songs, the project will be more meaningful to them, thereby increasing motivation to create with quality.
What theories and models support this approach?
TPACK, the marriage of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge, and SAMR, mentioned above, both support this project-based approach to learning.
The web-based music composition software Noteflight touches all levels of SAMR. First of all, students will substitute placing notes on a staff on the computer for writing the notes on manuscript paper by hand. The task of writing music is augmented because the music is saved in the cloud and can be accessed anywhere at any time. Composition is modified because students can hear the music as they are composing by using playback controls. Redefinition occurs when students share their songs in our classroom community and they can listen to songs of students in other 3rd grade sections.