MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
Chapter Number and Title: Chapter 6 “Pitch and the Child”
I. Growth in Understanding of Linear Pitch Structures
A. First, children perceive and understand the pitch-related aspects of melody: discrimination, shape/contour, and recognition.
B. Second, children focus on more discrete aspects of melody: pitch register, pitch direction, pitch motion, and interval size.
C. Thirdly, children become aware of tonality, melodic phrases, and scales.
D. The teacher or parent can help children move from percept to concept.
II. Discrimination and Contour Awareness
A. Children need to be able to describe the differences between two pitches or two melodic contours.
B. Children use simultaneously the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities as they respond to individual pitches, pitch motion, interval relations, and melodic contours.
III. Pitch Relations and Melodic Motion
A. Teachers and parents wishing to help children apply terminology correctly should use words such as upward or downward and moving higher or lower to describe pitch motion.
B. Singing, moving, and playing instruments provide the most concrete means of experiencing pitch relations.
C. Listening and reading involve greater intellectual abstractions, and creating allows children to synthesize the new understandings they have developed.
IV. Advanced Pitch Concepts
A. Children begin to develop a clear sense of tonality and develop a sense of melodic phrase.
B. Concepts regarding pitch organization include scales, major and minor modes, and melodic sequences.
V. Growth in Understanding of Vertical Pitch Structure
A. Musically perceptive listeners are aware of what is occurring melodically in music and aware that sounds occur simultaneously and that those vertical arrangements of sound result in harmony.
B. Awareness of vertical sound builds gradually and is influenced by the cultural and stylistic norms for what constitutes agreeable and disagreeable combinations of sounds and sequences of those combinations.
VI. Helping Children to Think Musically
A. Teachers need to expand on natural responses to pitch into conscious concepts that can be applied through a lifetime of musical experiences.
B. Teachers need to choose activities that will stimulate musical growth.
Class Activities/Discussion Points supporting this chapter:
We did three activities dealing to help students learn about pitch. The first activity involved just playing one note on the melody bells to establish the same or repeated pitch. By doing this, the students can prove that they know that there is a repeated note without singing it because it might still be difficult to match pitch at this level. He or she can concentrate on the pitch rather than their singing. The second activity involved finding the direction of pitches in a song. After establishing the direction on a song map, every student received a different rhythm instrument. One instrument played on the passages moving higher while one instrument played on parts moving lower and another on parts that stayed the same. The final activity introduced students to a staff without telling them directly where to put the pitches. The teacher sang a short passage, and the students had to display what they heard by placing felt note heads on a given staff. He or she was allowed to pick what lines or spaces they wanted to use within specified guidelines.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 1 – Aspects of the Subject; INTASC 2 - Development
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood: from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
Chapter Number and Title: Chapter 7 “The Singing Child”
I. The Developing Child Voice
A. Children discover their voices by playing with their voices,
such as musical babbling.
B. Then, they develop the periodic accents of regular rhythmic
patterns in their songs.
C. Next, children begin to discover the difference between their
speaking and singing voice.
D. Music develops more and more from here through training.
II. Physical Training of the Child Voice
A. Daily or twice-weekly group sings will create more musical
singers at an earlier age.
B. Children must be able to maintain a perfect singing posture.
C. Endurance of Breathing for singing needs to be developed to
initiate and sustaining the vocal sound; therefore breathing exercises should
precede singing activities.
III. Towards Accurate Singing
A. To be able to sing a melody, focus and attentive listening is a
must.
B. Individual and small-group instruction via games and activities
that combine singing with socializing experiences can camouflage the disciplined
exercise that needs to occur to develop children’s voices.
C. Hand signs can direct a child’s attention to individual
pitches.
D. Children learn words, rhythm, and melody of a song through
repeated listening and imitation.
IV. The Vocal Model
A. Children tend to imitate a song in the same manner and style in
which it was presented to them.
B. The teacher needs to be a good model, because the students will
copy his/her actions.
C. The teacher can use instruments to enhance vocal sounds,
because is will help them to hear and help them with singing problems.
V. Selecting and Teaching Songs
A. The teacher can teach by rote or by note (actually reading
music).
B. In the immersion process, the child hears a song to the extent
they individually require before joining; once learned, other activities can be
added.
C. By extending the capabilities for singing expressively, the
students must use their full knowledge and skills in performing the song, and
thus they can be taught to sing musically.
VI. How to Teach Singing in Parts
A. By 3rd grade, children can successfully sing in two-part
arrangements; by 4th grade, they can perform canons, descants, partner songs,
and countermelodies.
B. The first attempts at singing in parts includes the use of
repeated melodic patterns and accompanying melodies (if the students are ready
for it).
C. The trick to singing cannons includes being able to sing the
piece in the large group and then in smaller groups.
VII. Children’s Choirs
A. A choir can extend the musical goals of a student as well as
add vocal development.
B. Public performances can be a choir’s targeted goal, so that the
children can know the joy of performing for others.
C. An audition is suggested to emphasize the commitment of the
children to singing in the choir.
VIII. Assessment of Singing
A. Children’s singing skills grow through use and the concentrated
effort it takes to develop musical accuracy, physical capacity to support vocal
quality, and expressive nuance that flows form understanding the intent of the
composer, the poet, and the cultural tradition.
B. Listening is vital to the growth of singing skills.
IX. Reasons to Sing
A. The voice is the one instrument that the majority of the world
has access to.
B. Singing links language/grammer/vocabulary, speech, chant, and
song.
Class Activities/Discussion Points supporting this chapter:
In class, we learned that the first interval understood is the descending minor 3rd. From that, we can help children to match pitches and begin the process of learning about music. Activities using sol, mi, and later la are excellent for helping students. With these pitches, conversations can be made fun and be educational at the same time. We did an activity with learning names and other trivial facts about each other. The first step is help the students understand the differences between speaking and singing voices. The teacher can have an activity using the lines: “This is my speaking voice…This is my growling voice…This is my singing voice.” A way to get students to hear themselves is to plug one of their ears. This helps the student to actually hear what is coming out of their mouths. By doing solfeg work, the students can work with intervals that can translate into all keys. The important thing is to get the students to sing and use their voices.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter:
INTASC 1 – Aspects of the Subject; INTASC 2 - Development; INTASC 4 –
Instructional Strategies
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
I. The Development of Perceptive Listening
A. Infants at birth can differentiate between pitches and quickly learn to identify the sound of their mother’s voice.
B. Babies go through a babbling stage in their first six months of development.
C. Older children are able to recognize and apply a wide range of concepts to musical listening experiences.
II. The Development of Attitudes toward Music
A. A child’s gender, ethnic background, age personality, socioeconomic status and ensuing beliefs, feelings, and values that emerge all contribute to the formation of attitudes toward music.
B. Once children express an attitude about a piece of music, whether positive or negative, they need to be encouraged to go to the next step and describe what about the music makes them feel that way.
III. Building Skills of Aural Perception
A. Have children close their eyes and listen to different sounds.
B. Listening activities help children focus on aural stimuli by eliminating visual cues.
C. Active listening also involves having the students perform, read, or move as they listen.
IV. Student Construction of Listening Experiences
A. Children work individually or in small groups and represent the music in some way such as speaking about it, drawing aspects of it, solving puzzles in which they put themes in order, moving to the music using their own ideas, or creating their own works based on it.
B. By engaging children in creative listening, cognitive acts including perception, focus of attention, recall and comparison are demanded.
V. Building an Aural Repertoire
A. By playing a work across a series of lessons, the work is put into long-term memory.
B. Also, a whole-part-whole method is useful to build repertoire.
C. Listening lesson can be developed by teachers using any available recorded music.
VI. Listening Sequence
A. Prepare: Children need to be prepared to listen and be given guidelines.
B. Listen: Play recordings and check students’ perceptions or feelings through class discussion.
C. Activate and participate: Actively involve students in performing or moving in some way to the music.
D. Question and discuss: This can address the music, portions of the music, the activities the children are doing, or their emotional response to the experiences or the music.
E. Listen again
F. Extend the listening: Compose music in similar forms or with similar characteristics, listen to other music by the same composer or culture that has similar or contrasting characteristics, or listen to other music by other composers or cultures that has similar or contrasting characteristics.
VII. Assessment of Listening
A. Have a child listen to a range of familiar pieces, name them, and share something they remember about the piece.
B. Ask them to describe the music in some way.
VIII. Keys to Listening
A. Teachers need to bring attitudes of openness, curiosity, and discovery to the act of listening.
B. Teachers who actively nurture their own musical growth through listening have great riches to offer their students.
The activity we did in class involved listening to a piece we already analyzed and taking a new listening perspective to it. By preparing the students to listen, then listening, activating the learner, questioning the learner, listening again, and evaluating the experience we can help the students to develop listening skills. Listening skills can be beneficial to people all throughout their lives. By listening, we can develop our repertoire of music. Finally, by developing listening skills, emotional satisfaction will be gained.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 1 – Aspects of Subject, INTASC 2 – Development, INTASC 4 – Instructional Strategies,
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood: from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
Chapter Number and Title: Chapter 9 “The Moving Child”
I. Introduction
A. The teacher’s task is to harness, shape, and direct the
spontaneous and natural movements of children toward an understanding of
rhythm, melody, phrasing, texture, dynamics, and form.
B. Movement gives opportunities for socialization and cooperation
through singing games and dances.
II. Movement and Child Development
A. At 6 months, infants move their whole body.
B. By 2 years old, children rock from side to side, bounce up and
down, and wave their arms in conducting patterns.
C. At 3-4, they begin to listen more carefully and begin to define
and perfect the movements they already know.
D. 4-6 year olds can move to the pulse of the music.
E. When children are in the primary grades, they can reproduce
rhythms by chanting, moderately by clapping, and least accurately by
stepping. Once large muscle develop, they can do more minute tasks, like
stepping the rhythm.
F. Action Songs and Singing Games: The melodies of action
songs and singing games draw from children the movements they have naturally
encountered in their free play.
G. Eurhythmics: By stepping the pulse, conducting the meter,
tapping the melody’s repeated rhythmic pattern, or drawing the melodic contour
or shaping the phrase length in the air, children can demonstrate without words
their understanding of musical concepts.
H. Creative Movement: Children my be guided to develop their
own repertoire of movements to express loud or soft, slow or fast, high or low,
or choppy or smooth.
I. Dance: The practice of doing dances will provide children
with the exercise for developing their sense of rhythm and time.
III. Percepts and Principles of Movement
A. The teacher will want to include musical concepts and genres of
movement that children potentially can develop.
B. Through movement, concepts of pulse, duration, accent, tempo
moldy, timbre, form, and texture can be expressed.
IV. Prelude to Movement-Basses Musical Experiences
A. Children need to be aware of the potential of their bodies to
move in place and across space, the relationship of their bodies to people and
objects in the room, and the related qualities of space, time, and energy found
in both music and movement.
B. Action Songs and Singing Games
1. They help develop coordination,
synchronized rhythmic movement, and the singing voice.
2. Action songs are those to which
rhythmic gestures are added.
V. Dalcroze Eurhythmics
A. Dalcroze believed moment as the foundation of a thorough
musicianship and developed a means of communication linking the ear, the brain,
and the body.
B. Elements of music can be taught through this method. All
that is needed is a large space, a drum, a piano, a stereo, and rules for
boundaries and acceptable behavior that all children understand.
VI. Creative Movement
A. Creative movement can be used to socialize children, provide
entertainment to and audience of parents, and communicate ideas and feelings
more directly or deeply than words.
B. It may spring from a musical source, but it is not as closely
united to specific musical concepts as required by eurhythmics.
C. It links children’s emotional and inventive selves with the
kinesthetic skills of their bodies to utilize space, time, and energy in a
unique dance.
D. It can be inspired by a word, a picture, a poem, a story, a
song’s melody, a rhythmic pattern, or a symphonic work.
VII. Dance
A. Dance is a purposeful, choreographed, and much-rehearsed
movement to music.
B. The movements of fold dance are natural and unaffected,
stylized but not stilted, offering a means of socialization, enrichment of
school programs, and exposure to the folk ways of world cultures.
VIII. Assessment of Moving
A. Movement can be an artistic end-product of instruction for
children who learn to connect their ears, minds, and bodies in expressive ways.
B. Movement should not be thought as a time-killer with no merit
or real contribution to musical understanding.
IX. Movement for Musical Development
A. Movement is an integral part of children’s musical education
B. Children develop musical sensitivity when their natural
movements are channeled toward the discovery or reinforcement of musical
features and components.
Class Activities/Discussion Points supporting this chapter:
Movement is a great way to help illustrate musical concepts to children. It is necessary for a teacher to plan lessons from simple to complex, which means the movements must be appropriate to the age level and the concept of music. The first activity that we did in class was an example of form. With the song “Shoo Fly”, the students could establish the different parts in ABA Form by doing distinctly different movements to each section. Rhythm can also be displayed by movements. In the song “Tideo”, we used different body percussion to the rhythm of the song. By getting our whole body involved, the songs were easier to learn and more fun to perform, and they taught concepts in a different way.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter:
INTASC 1 – Aspects of the Subject; INTASC 2 - Development; INTASC 4 –
Instructional Strategies
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
I. Developmental Sequence
A. Children’s abilities to play musical instruments are closely related to their physical development.
B. By the age 3, children have developed the muscle control that goes with playing and silencing the rattle at will.
C. Primary-grade children have coordination and perceptiveness to keep the musical pulse and to play basic rhythmic patterns.
D. Intermediate graders can become adept at playing a host of rhythms on instruments.
E. Suzuki’s method
1. Begin early with listening at birth and lessons from about 2 ½ years onward
2. Delay music reading until musical skills and performance techniques have developed
3. Involve parents in lessons and home practice
4. Use excellent music literature that is developmentally appropriate
5. Balance private lessons with group lessons
6. Repeat, review, and reinforce the performance of previously learned music
7. Accentuate self-development while deemphasizing competition
II. The Body as a Percussion Instrument
A. Clapping, slapping, tapping, snapping, stamping, and patting the shoulders, head, elbows, knees, and stomach produce various sounds that delight children.
B. Body-percussion exercises can prepare children for their performance on nonpitched rhythm and barred instruments.
III. Nonpitched Percussion Instruments
A. Gourds
1. Maracas are pairs of dried gourds with seeds inside and are shaken like rattles.
2. The shekere, hosho, or cabasa is covered with a beaded netting that is moved by the hand, providing a scraped, rattling sound.
B. Woods
1. Sticks are played in pairs, one stick is struck against the other.
2. Claves are played by holding one clave in the cup of one hand and striking it with the other.
3. Woodblock sounds by being struck over the slot on the wide surface.
4. Temple Blocks are struck like woodblocks.
5. Sandblocks are covered with sandpaper which produces a swishing sound.
6. Slit Log Drum is played by striking the wooden slits with mallets.
7. Guiro is played by scraping with a stick.
C. Skins (Drums)
1. Hand Drum is held at its rim by the hand and the other hand or mallet strikes its head.
2. Bongo Drums are a pair of drums that are held on the lap or between the knees. They are played wit the fingertips, the palm, and the thumbs.
3. Congo Drum is a long upright drum in the shape of a narrow barrel with a skin head stretched across one end and can be played with the heel of the hand, the flat and cup of the hand, the fingertips, the palm, or sticks.
4. Djembe Drum is wide at the head and narrow at the base, standing about three feet from the floor. It is played with fingers and palms.
5. Goblet Drum is wide at the head and narrow at the base, about eighteen inces. It is played with the fingertips and the palm of the hand at the center and edge of the head.
6. Timpani are played with padded mallets.
D. Metals
1. Cymbals can be struck or rubbed together.
2. Finger Cymbals are played by touching the rims together.
3. Triangle is stuck with a metal or wooden stick.
4. Tambourine is shaken to make metal disks rub against each other.
5. Jingle Bells
6. Gong is played with a padded mallet or wooden stick.
7. Cowbell
8. Double Iron Agogo Bells
IV. Pitched Instruments
A. Barred Instruments
1. The sounds are pleasing to the ears and are attractive to children who enjoy playing with sound, developing their playing skills, and expressing themselves through improvised and composed pieces they create.
2. Xylophones are made of wood and Metallophones/Glockenspiels are made of wood.
3. Children should pat the patterns on their laps that they will eventually play on the instruments.
4. From imitative devices to expressive tasks, children can develop creative musical thinking a improvisatory skills through playing these instruments.
B. The Recorder
1. Good playing technique is needed and a similar pure, clear tone quality, such as with the song flutes, flutophones, and tonettes.
2. When children show the physical development that enables them to move their fingers with ease, they are ready for the coordinated tasks of reading, breathing, and finger dexterity needed for the recorder.
C. Harmony Instruments
1. The Autoharp is useful to teachers who want a portable instrument to provide harmony to songs sung by children in the classroom or outdoors and is easily learned by teachers and children.
2. The Omnichrod has no strings but retains the push-button chord system that plays rhythmic ostinati, waltz, and rock-style rhythms and can be set at various tempi, volumes, and timbres that include piano, guitar, brass, banjo, and chimes.
D. The Guitar
1. The guitar can work as an accompanying instrument.
2. The right-hand strums can be one chord per measure or per pulse, to syncopated rhythms and patterns that combine plucking with strumming.
E. Keyboards
1. When in tune and played well, the piano can bring unity to the group singing of patriotic and traditional songs and add to the artistic quality of choral performance.
2. Whether the music is initiated by the teacher to stimulate musical responses in children or whether the music is read and performed or invented by children themselves, keyboards provide an effective avenue of music instruction.
F. Assessment of Playing Instruments
1. Is the tone quality of your instrument pleasing to your ears?
2. Is the performance of your instrument musically accurate? Are you reading the rhythms and pitches correctly? Are you listening carefully to the musical models?
3. Are you playing with ease?
4. Does the music sound like you or as you would like it to sound? Are you able to express yourself as you like to?
5. Can you play a piece alone accurately and expressively? Can you play your instrument in tandem with others, listening to them and blending with them in their playing?
G. The Benefits of Instrumental Study
1. Musical instruments are extensions of the musical self.
2. They enhance the development of musical understanding.
In class, we did an activity to the song “Linsten Marcket.” First we learned the words and melody to the song through rote to note. After analyzing the song, we added instruments, which involved the students more in the musical experience. Recorders, xylophones, and rhythm instruments were used to add a Calypso feeling to the song, which adds multiculturalism to the song. I believe that the whole class could agree with me that the activity was very fun and that children would also enjoy adding instruments to any song.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 1 – Aspects of Subject, INTASC 2 – Development, INTASC 4 – Instructional Strategies, INTASC 5 – Group Motivation and Behavior, INTASC 8 – Assessment Strategies
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
I. Developmental Sequence
A. The development of musical creativity appears to be the result of the interaction of factors of environment, musical thought or cognition, and individual intellectual and personality traits.
B. Children at the ages of five and six compose pieces that reflect structural thinking in music.
II. Creative Thinking
A. Children should be allowed to use divergent thinking.
B. A child’s musical understanding and sensitivity, ability to imagine pitches and rhythms, aesthetic sensitivity, and ability to craft a piece to effect the final product of the creative effort interact with generating original songs.
III. Exploration and Discovery
A. Children need to have the freedom to explore the range of sounds and instrument or voice might make in terms of color, techniques, dynamics, pitch, duration, and texture.
B. Children should be encouraged to explore the sound possibilities of a wide range of sources and to use those sounds creatively.
C. Once children have discovered what their instruments or voices can do, they can move into improvisation, arranging, or composition.
IV. Improvisation
A. Improvisation at a beginning level allows children to play with sounds and with musical syntax.
B. An improvised piece or section of a piece is invented spontaneously and neither formalized, refined, nor repeated.
C. Once children have built an internal collection of rhythm and pitch patterns, they might be asked to improvise a longer melody, a melody with additional pitches, or the “answer” to a “question.”
D. They could perform melodically using the piano or voice, or rhythmically on a hand drum or through movement.
E. Although not always included as a part of the improvisational process, children can be asked to reflect and comment on the musical effectiveness of the improvisation.
V. Composition
A. Composition involves the opportunity for crafting a piece, for reflection and revision.
B. Ideally, a teacher will plan three or four composition units per year lasting two to three weeks.
C. The first step is to construct aural plans, which means that they will work to refine a piece, trying many different ideas, selecting and rejecting, and reaching consensus on the end-product.
D. The second step is creating a notational system. Children move from pictorial or iconic means of representing their music to more discrete or symbolic means of notating rhythm and pitch.
E. Wise teachers continue to encourage the singing or spontaneous, self-made songs by providing both a context and encouragement for children to share their ideas.
F. Teachers can structure the classroom with learning stations where children develop skills by working on their own with keyboards, guitars, synthesizers, and recorders, as well as areas dedicated to listening and composition.
VI. Assessment
A. Any creative individual learns to critique his or her own work using objective as well as intuitive standards.
B. Building assessment skills can be developed verbally with the teacher guiding the entire class, individually, or within peer or small group settings.
VII. The Rewards of Nurturing Creativity in Music
A. A challenge in teaching music is to implement a curriculum that balances performing, listening, and creating.
B. Children will develop a sense of control over the materials of music as they engage in aesthetic decision making.
Having the students compose and improvise their own music is very important to learning music. Through this process, the children can express themselves as well as their musical knowledge. It will help them to remember the activity better and will give them a sense of ownership. A good warm-up exercise involves “question” and “answer” on the recorder. The teacher can first have the class repeat whatever he/she plays on his/her recorder. He/she should use the pentatonic scale to make it easier for both the students and the teacher. The second time, the students should come back with their own individual answer, but they must end on the tonic. The third time, they should do their own solo answers. The final time, one student could come with a question that does not end on tonic and a second person could answer ending on tonic. Students can also be given an opportunity to create by adding instruments, ostanti, and special effects to poems.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 1 – Aspects of Subject, INTASC 2 – Development, INTASC 4 – Instructional Strategies, INTASC 5 – Group Motivation and Behavior, INTASC 8 – Assessment Strategies
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
Chapter Number and Title: Chapter 12 “Curriculum Design”
I. The Nature of Curriculum
A. Curriculum is the activities that occur in the classroom and those activities promote significant musical learning.
B. The operational curriculum is dynamic rather than static and is subject to such variables as teacher attitudes and training, parental and administrative expectations, and current trends in education.
II. Types and Sources of Curriculum
A. A formal curriculum helps to provide all the teachers in a school or district a frame for their plans and helps establish clear goals or outcomes and becomes a structure for directing teacher and student activity and for musical learning to be measured.
B. A quality formal curriculum establishes large goals, competencies, and outcomes, leaving teachers free to develop an instructional curriculum for their own classroom and personal method for attaining the goals.
III. Planning a Curriculum
A. Teachers need to think through what they want to accomplish each year in their instructional curriculums.
B. A curriculum should be balanced, appropriately sequenced, and comprehensive and should reflect what musicians do with music, help children discover the nature of music, and show how music is put together.
C. Once a new concept is attained, it needs to be applied to new situations or used in new ways.
D. All music should be placed in a cultural and stylistic context when taught, and children should be helped to perform in the appropriate style as they learn new pieces.
E. Repertoire develops from engaging children in quality music through singing, playing, and listening.
F. How much can realistically be accomplished will depend on the contact time the teacher has with the children.
IV. Implementing a Curriculum
A. Lesson Planning
1. Key considerations to effective implementation are each group of children and their unique learning needs, the yearly curriculum, and method.
2. Effective lessons can be though of as in objectives, strategies, and evaluation.
B. The Quadrant Approach to Lesson Planning
1. Lessons that address all four cognitive styles: divergers, assimilators, convergers, and accommodators.
2. The lesson is divided into four quadrants: Why? What? How? What if?
C. Unit Planning
1. The teacher divides the year into units around specific ideas rather than using a kind of spiral approach in which concepts of elements are used as a basis ofor organization and skills are woven in.
2. Units have the advantage of allowing students to become deeply immersed in a topic over a period of time.
3. Units may be accomplished in collaboration with classroom teachers or other school personnel.
D. Other Sources of Curriculum
1. Contemporary music series textbooks can be of tremendous help to both the music specialist and classroom teacher in planning and implementing a core curriculum in music.
2. MENC has also created a collection of lessons based on the National Standards.
V. Distilling the Essence of Curriculum
A. Music educators must be clear about the importance and value of music.
B. This can be done through a clearly stated curriculum with a sense of direction in which students are growing through active involvement in listening to music, creating music, and performing music.
Class Activities/Discussion Points supporting this chapter:
In class, we have started to analyze our own views on curriculum when creating our lesson plans. In order for the class to run smoothly, the lesson must be planned with detail and clarity. Every aspect must be dissected because children cannot jump right into a concept. They need to be taught the most basic aspects in order to understand music. From that, more difficult ideas can be developed. As beginning teachers, we have a hard time remembering that children do not already know what we know. However, planning is emphasized and missed points can be avoided through careful planning.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 1 – Aspects of Subject, INTASC 4 – Instructional Strategies
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
Chapter Number and Title: Chapter 13 “Assessment and Evaluation”
I. Evaluation
A. Assessment, measurement, and testing may be used to describe specific tools in the evaluation process.
B. Evaluation involves making a value judgment about something or someone.
C. Teachers constantly evaluate their students, sometimes formally, sometimes informally.
D. Effective evaluation involves collecting a combination of objective and subjective data as well as affective or feeling responses, using many different perspectives or sources of information.
II. Testing and Measurement
A. Testing involves the systematic observation of a person’s behavior, and then quantifying that behavior in a numerical scale or by placement in a category.
B. To be valid, the test needs to be specific to the behavior it is measuring, and it must be constructed to be consistent across different sets of students.
C. Nationally standardized tests are available in music to measure aural perceptive or aural-visual perceptive abilities such as pitch discrimination, interval discrimination, meter discrimination, and cadence recognition.
III. Assessment
A. The cry throughout the education community is for authentic assessments or assessments that reflect tasks that people perform in the real world.
B. Teachers measure performance by having children perform, not by having them take paper-and-pencil tests.
C. Teacher Assessment of Children
1. Teachers are constantly monitoring many dimensions of the learning process as well as the learners.
2. Questioning is a powerful way to assess student thinking as well as to challenge them to think in new ways.
D. Rubrics
1. Rubrics provide a set of scoring criteria that can help to determine the value of a student’s performance on a task such as singing, playing, reading, improvising, or composing.
2. The rubric can be specific to a limited task or it can be stated in terms of benchmarks that measure student progress toward a standard.
3. They can be used to evaluate children’s thinking such as their ability to analyze or critique their work using musical criteria.
E. Student Self-Assessment
1. Students can make decisions about their own performance through questioning.
2. Students can help to develop rubrics to use in assessing performance or the culmination of a project.
F. Peer Assessment
1. Students can critique the work of their peers.
2. Students can conduct peer interviews about involvement in music activities and likes and dislikes in music and reflect on what they have learned from that experience.
G. Teacher Self-Assessment
1. Teachers could maintain a journal of reflections about their work, highlighting areas they need to grow or ways they have made progress.
2. Teachers can challenge themselves to grow in their use of different levels of reflective practice.
IV. Tracking Student Growth
A. It is valuable and important to develop a system for tracking student growth.
B. Portfolios
1. Models that focus less on outcomes and more on the ongoing process of assessment include what students are able to learn from assessing themselves and their own and others’ products.
2. Each child is given a portfolio to record evidence of their work.
3. Students’ reflection on their own artistic growth and the growth of the groups in which they participate is important to keep in the portfolios.
V. Reporting to Parents
A. Open houses: Teachers describe the program to parents.
B. Informal programs: Parents, other classes, and administrators can be invited.
C. Descriptions: Brochures or newsletters can be sent out about the programs.
D. Music In Our Schools Week: Children, teachers, and community can celebrate this with various activities.
Assessment is a necessity for the student’s work and the teacher’s work. No one likes to be assessed; however, they help us to be better students/teachers. There are several ways to go about assessing situations. The teacher needs to decide which type is best for his/her class. I hope to do a lot of informal assessment. If the students do not seem to be understanding the concepts due to either poor instruction or lack of studying, then formal assessment is important. Of course, formal assessment is always needed because parents and schools want to see how the students are doing.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 4 – Instructional Strategies, INTASC 8 – Assessment Strategies
MusEd 351 Spring 2002
READING NOTES/DISCUSSION OF ACTIVITIES
Campbell, P.S. & Scott-Kassner, C. (2002). Music in childhood:
from preschool through the elementary grades. New York: Schirmer Books.
Chapter Number and Title: Chapter 16 “Music for Exceptional Children”
I. Educating Exceptional Children
A. The Public Law 94-142/Education of the Handicapped Act was instrumental in changing the ways schools had historically dealt with children who have special needs.
B. Schools are required to offer free public education to all students regardless of the severity of their need.
C. Of the children in special education, 48 % are diagnosed as having learning disabilities, 23 % with speech and language impairments, 14 % with mental retardation, and 9 % with emotional disturbance.
II. Mainstreaming and the Music Classroom
A. Music taps into nonverbal ways of knowing and allow children to express ideas regardless of verbal abilities.
B. Music is multimodal in nature, stimulating the eyes, ears, and muscles along with the mind.
C. Music can be performed at very sophisticated levels by rote.
D. Music making is generally a collaborative endeavor.
E. Music allows for the expression of a wide range of emotions, and it can communicate on very deep levels without the use of words.
F. A single activity in a music classroom can be adapted to a wide range of ability levels.
G. Music challenges the mind to recognize patterns across time, a skill that often needs to be developed in children with patterning and memory deficits.
III. Inclusion in Music
A. The more awareness the teacher has of each child’s unique needs and abilities, the more effectively that teacher can tailor learning strategies to meet that child’s needs.
B. Successful integration means providing an environment where each child participates to the highest level possible, has experiences that all children are having, learns to interact with other children, and receives respect for his or her unique needs.
IV. The Music Classroom and Exceptional Children
A. The key to success if the willingness of the teachers to adapt instruction to meet the needs of exceptional children.
B. For some students, teachers need to adapt the pace and clarity of instructions, slowing down what they do, repeating directions, and modeling tasks.
C. For some children, teachers will need to adapt the complexity either of the task, of the music, or of the level of though required, sometimes simplifying it and other times making it more challenging.
D. For some students, teachers will need to adapt the materials and instruments, making print larger, using sequencing cards, or adding Velcro fasteners to gloves so children can hold bell mallets.
V. Mentally Retarded
A. These children are significantly below average in general intellectual functioning, which either results in or is associated with deficits in adaptive behavior.
B. If a child has a low IQ and does not meet age level standards of personal independence and social responsibility, then he or she will be labeled mentally retarded.
VI. Learning Disabled
A. Children identified as learning disabled are of normal intelligence but have “significant difficulties in the acquisition and use of language, listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities.
B. Because learning disabled is an umbrella term covering a wide range of behaviors, it is difficult to state principles that will apply in every case.
VII. Behavior Disordered
A. The behaviors may have either a biological or psychological cause.
B. Children identified as behavior disordered are usually either very aggressive and act out or shy and withdrawn.
C. It is essential that the music specialist communicate with the resource teachers and school psychologists to know how best to adapt their teaching for successful mainstreaming of these children.
D. Behavior disordered children need consistency in expectations, clarity in the communication of those expectations, options or choices, and extrinsic guidelines and support for behavior modification.
VIII. Sensory Handicaps
A. Hearing-Impaired
1. A person who is hard of hearing can perceive enough sounds to be able to understand speech and communicate similarly to the normal hearing child.
2. Most hearing-impaired children do not require special services.
B. Visually Impaired
1. The key for the music teacher is to understand the type of visual impairment a child has and to learn how to maximize use of any residual sight that might exist.
2. Even if reading notation is involved, children can learn through a variety of concrete manipulables or through Braille notation.
IX. Physical Handicaps
A. Children who are physically handicapped may have an orthopedic impairment or a neurologic impairment.
B. Children with mild handicaps are usually able to improve motor and perceptual functioning with intervention, and they are able to keep up with peers in academic work.
X. Gifted and Talented
A. Gifted children usually are quick to relate ideas to each other; can acquire and manipulate symbol systems easily; and make good judgments and can see broader implications of ideas than most of the general population.
B. Creatively gifted children often suggest unusual solutions to questions, use their intuitive sense, and have a sense of humor.
XI. The Joys of Reaching All Children
A. The keys to success are a willingness to learn, curiosity about how to be effective, clarity of communication with people who understand the needs and abilities of the children involved, and flexibility to change when something is not working.
B. Through collaboration and cooperation, both teachers and children will be enriched and challenged to grow.
Class Activities/Discussion Points supporting this chapter:
It will be difficult to have a classroom without exceptional students; therefore, a teacher must constantly find ways to adapt his/her lessons to the needs of his/her students. I have also discussed this topic in my educational psychology classes and multicultural education classes. For the students who have learning difficulties, the lessons cannot be planned at a too fast of a pace, while the gifted learners will need more activities to keep them occupied. Students might not be diagnosed for the exceptionalities. The teacher must keep his/her eyes open at all times for possibilities of these students. By doing this, the class will be more effective and more will be learned.
INTASC Principle to the content in this chapter: INTASC 2 – Development; INTASC 3 – Diverse Learners