As the school year comes to a close, I often begin to start reflecting as I put away some of the work of the year. It's just second nature for me to start thinking about how I would redo an activity or make a new connection.
This link contains a taxonomy of reflection from Peter Pappas. He also has entries for the reflective student and the reflective administrator.
I also value input from participants. Whether it is from an online survey or a Post-it note exit ticket, I can reflect on their perceptions and find ways to revise that will bring more engagement and meaning. Grant Wiggins recently surveyed students about their coursework. He has done a series of blog posts about the student responses.
This link takes you to the open-ended answers to the question, "I learn best when the teacher..."
Because some similarities in the comments immediately appear, I wanted to put their remarks in a Tagxedo to see what words were repeated. Here is the result:
Some of the student input matches our student surveys. Students want hands-on activities. They want things to be interesting, interactive, meaningful, and relevant to their lives. They want to participate in the learning process in a more active way.
Because we'll be presenting at ISTE in June, we've made a site for our resources about learning in a participatory culture. You can access it here.
This summer my goal is to find more ways to respect those voices by providing more participatory experiences in the courses I help design. It can mean more work up-front, but I'm eager to see how it pays off with the students once they are in the course.
By far, my post about Burke's Pentad receives the most views. I even receive mail about it on occasion. Because of that, I'm linking these videos. I created them for an online course that will apply the Pentad regularly:
Intro to the Pentad: Based on the comic strips at this site.
Using the Pentad with Fiction: Based on a short story at this site.
Using the Pentad with Poetry: Based on a Silverstein poem at this site.
Using the Pentad with Informative Video: Based on this video:
It's Friday, and because the post is about music, here is my song for the beginning of the weekend:
Music has always played a large part in my life. My mother works as a Director of Music and has played the organ in many amazing places. I remember as a child being up where she practiced, sometimes turning the pages. Growing up, I learned to play the piano, the oboe, and the guitar. I'm very glad that my children enjoy playing music and listening to it as well.
Over the last few years, my mother has taught Music Appreciation at the college in her town. She also teaches a great class on occasion for teachers: using music in the regular education classroom (I know I'm getting that title wrong, so I'm not capitalizing it). During one visit, she asked me to speak to the soon-to-be teachers about how I weave music into the classroom, so I'm sharing some of that today:
Playlists - For years I've kept playlists for different units of teaching. In it, I kept things such as:
- thematic connections - popular music for older texts to breach the distance of time and help students connect. For example, when talking about Chaucer and courtly love, students often thought the rules about jealousy and instant love were ridiculous. For them, extreme jealousy = stalking and physical symptoms of love seem silly. But when I play something like this:
Or this:
They begin to rethink how we talk about love culturally. Asking them to go find their own examples and compare them to depictions of love in Chaucer or in the rules of courtly love help as well.
- cultural connections - In Beowulf, for example, there is mention of the woman who "sang sorrowful" during his funeral. Letting them hear a version of a keening song, for example, helps them understand the context of the singing in a deeper way:
- changes in point of view - one popular form of expression in participatory culture is to write songs and stories from a different point of view than that chosen by the author. For example, in the Harry Potter world, here is a song from the Ministry of Magic from the point of view of Voldemort and Lily:
On a more academic note, collecting songs with different points of view about war, such as "The Green Fields of France":
to contrast with a song such as "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition":
with some modern songs today about the effects and beliefs about war can add a new, emotional layer to facts that might seem dated and too far away to be relevant.
- content review - For me, there is nothing better than historyteachers when I wanted content review. I could show them this about the plague to just give them the little bit of information I needed before reading "The Pardoner's Tale" and ask them to be ready to share what they think the most important thing to remember about the plague might be to spark discussion:
Or this after Beowulf to ask the students to evaluate the song and determine if the song highlighted what, to them, were the important messages of the text:
- content enrichment - When moving into Romanticism, students struggle a lot with long, abstract texts like Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Even though Coleridge provides his own version of Cliff's Notes to sustain the reader, students struggle with the overall concept. What I wanted them to understand with this poem, and with Walton's experience in Frankenstein, was the relationship between the sailor and the sea. I wanted them to understand the mystery, the danger, the pull the sailors feel. For that, I used a variety of sailor songs including "The Sailor's Prayer" (this isn't my favorite version but I like it without instruments - try the one by Pandora Celtica - it wouldn't load):
or "The Mingulay Boat Song"- this is by a local group that unfortunately no longer performs:
or the song "White Squall":
- creating a soundtrack for in-class reading - For sharing important moments, I tried to find appropriate soundtrack music, which helped the students remember but also emotionally connect. A lot of people today are creating battle mixes while playing video games, so this is a great connection for them. So, for example, with Beowulf's fight with Grendel, I would play battle music from a mix such as:
After going through my playlist with them for the unit (I'd never hit all the songs in the playlist), I'd show them the list and ask them to make their own. I received great examples that I added to mine over time. The Ministry of Magic addition, for example, was from a student.
Figurative Language - Music can reinforce ideas about figurative language in a variety of ways. Here are some of the ways I've included music:
- tone - It's important to note that music alone can change the tone of a piece. Music can help students develop a vocabulary of tone words, because some can describe how music feels more easily than words. In looking at how tone can change dramatically, I like to choose two very different versions of the same song, such as Europe's "Final Countdown":
With Laibach's version of "Final Countdown":
I choose Laibach intentionally because they have done covers of this as well as songs by Queen such as "One Vision" for a deliberate reason that has a lot to do with music and tone. Their story is fascinating and can be found here, where an article calls them the "unlikely godfathers of Occupy and Anonymous" and here.
Another fun way to explore tone is with the very popular YouTube tendency to remake trailers into a whole new genre. For example, here is a realistic, original trailer for Cinderella:
and here is a remix with scenes from the same movie but altered music and selection of images:
Students can generate tone words and describe how the music changes the tone. Later, students can create their own sets of trailers or other pieces for tone exploration. This ability to play and remix cultural pieces is another component of participatory culture that students identify with and enjoy doing.
- allusion - Allusions are our conversational shortcuts. We use allusion to bring in cultural knowledge without having to explain certain elements that would distract from the main point. While expanding their allusion vocabulary so that students can better participate in those conversations, I often used music to support the notion that these kinds of terms are everywhere. By far, students enjoyed this one the most and often danced in their seats:
But there is also Enter the Haggis's "Icarus" which goes well with Breugel's painting and Auden's poem - really showing how an allusion can appear in many forms and how texts can carry on a dialogue over time. There is a long instrumental beginning, so it's a good time to show other art depicting the Icarus story:
After a few examples from me, the students are off and running. They begin to see and hear the allusions everywhere, which is what I want. We collect examples in a forum, musical or otherwise, and I ask them to bring in music that depicts an allusion, like thirty pieces of silver, to see if other classmates can determine the meaning underneath.
Research abounds discussing the benefits of music in classroom learning. Vh1 collected much of it for their "Save the Music" campaign, and that can be found here. While it focuses on formal music education, some of the quotes also discuss music and learning in general. Here is an article that discusses wider uses of music in forms such as the long-popular Schoolhouse Rock pieces (my daughter was humming the one for the Constitution as she took her test just last week) to modern rapping with math. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics offers a grant for using music to teach math in early grades. The American Historical Association provides this resource for using music in a social studies setting and illustrates how to incorporate music in a variety of ways, including like the example of different points of view I listed above. Finally, this Edsource article shows how the California State Standards called for implementation of music.
Even with online learning, our team talked about music implementation just a week ago, and we all shared a variety of strategies. Sharing music with the students helps forge a relationship and can show them new sides of our personality. While teaching content, to start a collaborative session, or as a creative opportunity, finding ways to weave music into a course brings a new layer to the content itself.
Recently, Seth Godin wrote a great post called "Deconstructing Generosity," and in that post he discusses the qualities that make up a generous act (as well as qualities that do not). It's a very thought - provoking post.
To me, when participants in a course share a product that reflects an inner truth or perspective about themselves, I consider it a generous act. Why? Often, students do not have to dig that deeply and be that personal in their work. Compliant students do not see a need to share something so authentic and personal because most tasks do not require that degree of personal sharing and openness, even if the design of the assignment calls for a personal connection. Here is a perspective on this from the Schlechty Center:
In looking at his characteristics for gratitude for students, here are some ideas that may make some more generous with the tools they have: their time, their individuality, and their vulnerabilities.
Sacrifice - I think the element of sacrifice lies behind the "Is this for a grade" question that many students ask about every task. They have finite time, interest, and patience for a task that they see has no payoff. This does not mean everything should be graded - far from it. To me, a couple of things are at play:
- be able to answer to yourself as well as to students, parents and others why you are asking students to do what they do. Here some of the work of Rick Wormeli helps. Here is one of his videos (but many are good) on mastery where he encourages looking specifically at verb usage:
In addition, here is a presentation that Wormeli shared via his Twitter account discussing homework and 21st century skills. To me, the payoff does not need to be a grade. It should point to a larger understanding that we have shown the students they need to know.
- be sure to spend the time early to get to know what matters most to the students - This way, you can connect their passions and goals to the skills and content in your course, making it more personal, meaningful and relevant. Here is Jeff Wilhelm on relevance:
Kindness - Kindness comes from being flexible when a situation calls for it, using your own discretion to accommodate for students who need it, and responding to their work in ways that help improve the work and their confidence in their work. One of the biggest acts of kindness can be allowing students to redo something. This shows the students we care about their learning and mastery of the work at hand, not about marching through a rigid course whether they remain with us or not. Again, here is Wormeli:
and Part Two:
Kindness also comes in the form of designing participatory experiences that engage our students. This means adding that touch of what Godin calls "magic" to the experience - that extra "beauty and style" to an experience that takes the experience to a deeper and more personal level. This shows the students we care about the experience - it is not a perfunctory lesson we all must sludge through before the end of the year. How can we add the magic? Through elements such as: creative responses, collaborative challenges, engaging opportunities to share and discuss the learning without fear of a grade. Here is an example of a student showing an understanding of First World Problems in music via video:
Recently my son was chosen by his Spanish teacher to go to an elementary school and share a Spanish poem and talk to the students in Spanish. Kindness and generosity permeated the experience. The high school students sacrificed their extra time to learn the needed poetry and other pieces as well as the time they will have to make up work because they were gone. The elementary kids sacrificed time from their busy schedules. Both groups made a real connection from the experience, and it was nothing that needed to be quantified. Here is a picture the AP sent me:
My son is a part-time gymnastic coach. He loves working with children. Being selected meant the world to him, and he will go the extra mile for his Spanish teacher because of this opportunity.
Vulnerability - Godin sees part of vulnerability as "showing up and caring and connecting, even if this time, it might not resonate." This is so perfect for learning. Being fully present is hard for all of us. If we can model that kind of attitude, the students will respond. This also means being acknowledging when a student participates in an area that normally causes him to be reluctant and making sure that student understands that we notice and appreciate that choice. If students can do this, they can grow in the learning, and the learning will be more meaningful. This means frequent and timely communication as well as making attempts to build relationships with all students. Otherwise, the learning cannot resonate, because they would not give it a chance. Maybe it is because the person is an introvert:
Or maybe it is because the student is afraid of losing status or respect because this area is a struggle. For more about working with those kinds of fears, see my post about SCARF. On Wilhelm's site, there are some presentations and other resources that show his research on motivation (primarily with boys) and its connection to learning.
By doing some of these things, we are beginning generous with our students, and many of our students will repay the favor.
