Productivity and Professional Development

I think we can all agree that there a lot of skills that go into being a good band director or music teacher that is outside of just the teaching experience in the classroom.  One of those skills is Productivity.  There are many things that go into making a productive teacher.  One of the most important things a teacher can do is to be organized.  Ii have always strived to be as organized as I can possibly be.  Often leaving me teased my others, but often asked by the same people how I can help them to stay more organized.  I feel that being organized sets us up to be better at everything that revolves around teaching.   Communication is also very important.  They are so many activities involved with band that I cannot imagine how they would be pulled off with communicating to parents.  In my classroom, I use remind 101 that send out texts, I create email groups, keep an updated website, and send out phone messages.   There a lot of materials for letters that I keep to send home every year and just update.  This also helps with traveling.  Again, I still think that organization helps with all of these skills.

As far as professional development, I have always felt that in my district we get the short end of the stick.  There are rarely any professional development opportunities that involve music teaching.  In my six years here they have never brought in music professionals to assist us, teach us, or mentor us in any way.  Therefore, I often travel out of county and pay out of pocket for my own professional development.  I am sure this is the reality for a lot of teachers.   However, professional development is so crucial to our continual learning that we must find the avenues even if we have to search it ourselves.  One of the biggest reasons I am back in school and seek professional development is to in turn give my students the best music education that I can give them. 

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and

responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, August 19). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development.

Lecture.

OneNote for Teachers

I enjoyed playing around in OneNote.  It reminded me a little bit of Google Docs. That is what we use in the county that I teach in.  Everything is in google and google classroom.  One Note is somewhat the same idea.  The ability to place things that you need for each class and share it with other teachers and with students.   This is a quick and beneficial way to make use of time and materials.  I think that OneNote is easier to maneuver around versus Google.  Sometimes, over the years of our county using Google, I feel that I can't find all my materials.  Even though I set up separate folders for classes.  I like that OneNote has everything including a calendar in one place.

Responding to Music as Listeners/Week 6

The reading this week and the lecture discussed how humans listen to music, respond to music, and how technology plays a part in music listening today.   Music listening is a skill that can be developed over time and with the use of tools.

It is pretty safe to say that the young people who are our students listen to music differently than we do.  That includes what technology they use and what they hear when they listen.  In my classes, I do music listening exercises frequently.  I have even done these in my general music classes.  I have found that students who have been in band are more critical of the music they hear, and can observe at times with their ears the different timbres.  Students in my classes listen to their music via youtube, itunes, radio, and other digital means.  The youth are not using hard copies of music for listening like older generations.  I also post have my students use google classroom for many classroom aids, but one of those are links that I post to the music we are playing.   I do think that I will also use SoundCloud this year in my classes for music listening.  I had not heard of it before reading this chapter, but after going to the site I think that it could be very useful. 

With music listening in my general music classes and beginning band classes I start very basic.  We begin by listening and with open discussion talk about what we heard or how it made us feel.  Then I move into having students write a written response reflection or reaction to the music.  The next step is to identify what they liked or disliked about the music and be able to tell me why.  As the process continues, I incorporate teaching the students about dynamics, instruments timbres, and tempo.  With listening maps they can follow classical music easier then without the maps.  It doesn’t take long before they can identify in a piece what instruments they hear, what dynamic changes, and tempos.  I find that the students are often surprised that their favorite music doesn’t offer a lot of changes and variety.  They are even more stunned with themselves that they hadn’t noticed it before.  I also have students draw dynamic charts with pieces that we listen to and this is a good way to see visually what changes occurred.

References:

Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music learning today: digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bazan, D. (2016, August 8). Responding to Music. Lecture.

Week 5: Forms of Assessment & Instructional Design

Forms of Assessment:

Chapter six discusses the different forms of assessment that can be used in the classroom.  A good assessment tool will have validity and reliability.  It is imperative that the assessments used in our classes are a direct reflection of what has been taught in the classroom, and the reliability has to remain consistent throughout. I find that my students are more comfortable with assessment as long as it makes sense to them what they are being graded on, and that it is consistent every time.  There is a wide variety of assessment tools that can be used, but for my band class, I mostly used performance-based.   Every few week students have a playing test on an area that I have chosen.  It could be a part of a piece we are learning, a line in their method book, or study that is important.  Every time that I assess them they have the same rubric.  At the beginning of the year, I go over the rubric with the students, and they have a copy stapled to the back of their method book.  This way, they always know what is expected.  I have found that this gives a lot of students a great comfort.  The only time the rubric for performance-based assessment’s changes in my classroom is when we have a scale test.  I use a separate rubric for scale testing.  This rubric is given to them at the beginning of their second year in band.   Rubrics are one of the biggest tools in my classroom for assessing the students.   Because the use of rubrics is utilized throughout the entire school, the students are very familiar with them.  I also agree with the text that feedback is a necessity.  I never understood why my teachers in school gave me a grade, but never told us what we needed to improve on.  It is a waste of time to assess students and then not supply them with the feedback and encouragement.  They need to make improvements.  At the end of the year, I use a rating scale and a summative assessment as feedback from the students.  They get the opportunity to grade me and the class as a whole.  This provides me with feedback I need.

Instructional Design:

Chapter seven discusses how people learn differently, how teachers need reflection, and music copyright laws.  It is obvious within a classroom that students learn in different ways and at different rates of speed.  It is also extremely important that teachers reflect upon their lessons and how their students are learning.  Constantly thinking about what needs to change and what can be made better for the students.  Often times for me, it is easier to think about what I want the end result to be from any given lesson plan and then work backwards.   Back before my band program had grown, I only had two band classes and the other four classes I taught during the day were general music classes.  During that time, I spent two full classes talking to students about music copyright laws and public domain.  I find that young people today have access to downloading music illegally, and they should understand not only that it is wrong, but also what the consequences are. 

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and

responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, August 2). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development.

Lecture.

Chromatik/SmartMusic Review

It didn't take me long to see that Chromatik would be a useful website for my students to explore and to have fun with.  So much of band class revolves around repertoire that is chosen by the teacher.   Even though I allow my students to choose and vote on one or two pieces per concert; it’s not the same as them being able to listen and play the current music that they enjoy.  Every musician should have music that the play just for enjoyment.  The love of music begins within and I feel after exploring this site that Chromatik could help with this.  Students might also enjoy coming into class and performing their favorite songs for their fellow classmates.  The link for Chromatik is: https://www.chromatik.com/

SmartMusic is a website that I have been on and explored before. I have also attended workshops about SmartMusic, because this is something that I hope to incorporate into my program. I would love for my students to have the ability to use this at home as well.  SmartMusic is a program that offers help while practicing at home.  It will also do playing tests and grading.  It has a built in tuner and also gives feedback immediately.  The program is also designed to use state standards for where you teach. SmartMusic has a huge repertoire database and it offers technical studies.  There are scale studies, rhythm studies, intonation studies, and rhythm studies. The link for SmartMusic is: http://www.smartmusic.com/

Week 4: Other Media/Performing Music

Part of chapter two discusses other types of media that can be used within the music classroom to enhance teaching, learning, and the playing abilities of students.  The fact is that we now teach in a time in which students adapt and learn better with technology.  It is the world that they have grown up in and are digital natives of.   It is foreign to today’s students to learn only by pencil and paper.  Some of the other media types that I use in my classroom are: Pictures, Quality Videos, Online Music Theory Games, Online Tutorials, and Recorded Music.  I have found all of these to productive and helpful in my classroom.  It is important that students listen to good quality musicians on their instruments and good recordings of the music that they are playing.  How else do students know what they are supposed to sound like?  Or, know the difference between good and bad music?  When choosing online aids to use in class, I also have to take into consideration a few things that book talks about such as: age, class, operating systems, and what materials the students will need.

Chapter four presents us with great software and technological ideas that help with students performing music.   From the story at the beginning the chapter about Michael, I learned about electronic mutes and how this can help with a students living in an environment where practice may be prohibited.  I also have students who live in apartments, or have a new baby in the house and this would definitely benefit them.   Modeling is important for young musicians. As I stated earlier, they need to hear and listen to great players and ensembles. Programs like Band-in-a-box and SmartMusic are beneficial as well to the classroom and the student.  I am currently raising money for new instruments and SmartMusic.  I would love to have this in my classroom, but supported funding is limited I my district.

From the lecture, I would like to incorporate and encourage students to use online metronomes and tuners.  I would also like to try using Audacity to record my band classes. I usually just use a digital recorder.  It is beneficial for students to listen and critique themselves.  I love it when they catch the mistakes themselves.  Chromatik has some free music with an online membership.  Among these songs are pop songs that students like to listen to and I feel that it is important for students to play things that they enjoy.  Music is supposed to be about enjoyment.

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and

responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, July 26). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development.

Lecture.

Week 3 Blog/Reflection

The chapter two reading material for this week presents us with informational material regarding digital audio, digital audio software, and digital audio hardware.  Bauer discusses the meaning of frequency and amplitude.  Frequency is the rate at which a wave moves that creates a specific pitch and these are measured with Hertz.  Each hertz equals one cycle of sound.  Amplitude is measured by decibels and refers to volume of the sound.  Next there are two types of recording, they are analog and digital.  Digital recording is the process of converting sound whereas analog recordings are a straight depiction of sounds. I found it interesting that with the use of codecs music can be compressed making it easier to send, save, and convert.  I had never heard of lossless or lossy compression.  It is fascinating that with lossy information that is not needed is discarded.  This is a permanent action with lossy compression.  With lossless, all information and sounds are able to be recovered after compression. As far as software programs such as GarageBand and Soundation, I do think that students would enjoy using the programs.  However, I would not use these programs without students practicing and creating true compositions.  These other programs already have music samples created and the individual puts these together.  In my opinion, true composition comes from creating all of the music yourself (Bauer, 2014).

            Chapter three gives us several ideals and beliefs in how music composition is important and how we can implement these into our classrooms.  I like the idea of “the compliment sandwich”.  One of my former professors always told us that for every negative critique we give a student they need at least three or four positive ones to keep their self-esteem levels high.   This is a good rule to live by in the classroom.  The reality is that music is a creative art in which we are always be judged and critiqued.  Our students, as young musicians, are constantly putting ourselves out there every time they play.  It is our job to give them constructive criticism, but also to build them up (Bauer, 2014).

            Finally, this week’s lecture that included a video about the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus was amazing to watch.  I did not know that this even existed.  This is a very cool idea.  I went after the video and explored the website and I have attached that link below.  On the website you can see the layout of the tour bus and where everything goes.   The website also has a live stream, a schedule of their stops, and music recordings as well.  

http://www.lennonbus.org/explore

 Art for publication may be downloaded at www.uco.edu/photo/LennonBus.

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and

responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, July 17). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development.

Lecture.

Week 2

MIDI: Good? Bad? Both?

As a result of my reflections and opinions, I may get stoned for some of my thoughts about MIDI digital sounds.  After the reading in our textbook, Music Learning Today, I can see the pros and cons to have access to such advanced technologies.   MIDI technology is an amazing tool to have in our possession to use and very accessible for most people.  I find that one of the best utilizations of this technology is when I am using a software program to compose or rearrange parts and want to hear the playback of the music for critique purposes.  The MIDI sounds are simulated to sound like true instruments the best that it can be and this very helpful when composing within a music software program.   Well, now let me rant and reflect upon the part that just frustrates me.  While there are features that are neat to think about and ponder on how someone could event something so cool, I feel like these features take away from music and from musicians who practice their art.   Playing the music at a slow tempo because it is difficult and then speeding it back up where the tempo should be? What?  When I think about all the music pieces, I have learned over the years, and the countless hours of practice to get difficult pieces worked up to performance, I get so mad thinking about how this can even be a thing.  There are many true artists out there missing out on gigs because now technology can make music easy for anyone.  Are we turning music performance into an amateur art?  Countless artists who are on the radio do not sound good live anymore.  Is this because we can alter their pitches, the key they sing in, and fix mistakes in a studio?  Putting that aside, I still can’t help but get a little aggravated when I hear music on the radio or recorded that has simulated instruments instead of real instruments.  The sound isn’t the same, and in my opinion, not nearly as good as a professional playing that instrument or the correct timbre.  I hope I am not the only one that harbors these opinions.   I am not trying to knock down music technologies, because I do feel strongly that technology helps us.  However, it appears that in some instances, it can hurt as well.

Creativity in the Classroom! YES!

I love what Bauer is trying to say about creativity in the classroom and how music software can help achieve levels of musical composition.  I do feel that all music students should have the opportunity to create their own music.  There does need to be a push for creativity in the music classroom with composition and improvisation.  In my classroom, we begin in sixth-grade band with composing small four measure melodies.  I give them guidelines to help them in the process, and as they progress through the middle school band the guidelines diminish little by little.  I find that this process helps the student who is apprehensive and afraid to make a mistake.  In turn, by the eighth-grade year, it also allows for the type of students who wants to write freely and feels claustrophobic with too many guidelines.  I have not yet used a software program to do this.  Incorporating Noteflight next will be a lot of fun, and I will enjoy it as well as the students.  They love technology! 

Music Software

Very thankful that we have software programs to compose and arrange music with.   I use Finale quite a bit at work to rewrite parts when needed.   I cannot imagine having to sit down, and pencil/paper write every note.  This program and other such as Sibelius, Noteflight, and Musescore save me a lot of time and errors in the writing process.

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and

responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, July 1). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development.

Lecture.

A Bicycle Built for Two

My copy of A Bicycle for Two:  





Reaction to Noteflight:

I have used Noteflight in the past to write out scales for my students and to re-write parts when needed.  I mostly use Finale at school, and because of my comfort level with it I find it to be easier to maneuver with.  I like Noteflight though when I want to something quick.  I also prefer the older version over the one just released.  Being that each student has a chromebook that they use during the day at my school I think there could be numerous ways to use Noteflight. Students could write and print their own scales, music they compose, create their own rhythms for the class to study, and use it to share with other students.  I usually compose the daily rhythm for my classes, but I think at the start of this next school year it would be neat to let them do it and share it with the class.

Professional Learning Networks/Week 1 Blog

After the reading material this week in Music Learning Today, by William I. Bauer, I have new and better of understanding about how content knowledge, technology knowledge, and pedagogy knowledge overlap to make a more meaningful experience for our students.   Having a knowledge base of one area, but not the others leaves the educator at a disadvantage of a meaningful teaching experience (Bauer, 2014).  Furthermore, this leaves the students with a learning disadvantage as well.  Below is a chart from the book that shows the overlapping of all areas needed to produce great learning experiences:

Also, the text material discusses the digital natives versus digital immigrants.  Digital natives are individuals who have grown up in this technological world with all of its advances.  These are my students and my children.  They naturally catch on to new technology with minimal help or assistance needed.   Digital immigrants are individuals like myself who did not begin our lives with the technology that exists today, but have grown into or with it as it has developed in our lives.  Learning still occurs fairly well, but not as naturally as the natives (Bauer,2014). At times, I ask my own students to help me with technology.  I find that they are fast and can explain it to me quickly. They are always eager to teach the teacher.   The lecture for this week takes it one step further and adds analog holdouts as being individuals who avoid technology (Bazan, 2016).

                The work environment that Facebook provides their employees is amazing.  It is obvious in the video that they created and environment for the creators.  Maximizing the use of their space and making sure all the employees have their needs met.  They also discussed that their goal is to hire as many people necessary that know about coding and technology.  The other video opens the eyes of the viewer to the fact that we can all learn not just to code, but learn technology (Bazan, 2016).  I have to say that it was intriguing and amazing to me how much the young students in this video were able to do using technology. 

                The article about professional development really hits home for me.  Professional development for the music educator has been a passion of mine and something that I have wanted to see change in the district that I teach.  We have very little to no development geared just for us and often have many hours wasted in sessions that have nothing to do with what we teach.  It is very frustrating and difficult at times.  This article had lots of good information about networking with other teachers and I look forward to using these soon.  Blogs, news feeds, podcasts, and Wikis can all be used to create our own learning networks (Bauer, 2010).

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2010). Your Personal Learning Network: Professional Development on Demand. Music Educators Journal, 97(2), 37-42. doi:10.1177/0027432110386383

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music.

Bazan, D. (2016, July 1). Technology Assisted Music Teaching & Professional Development. Lecture.