1. One major outside-school experience that expanded my knowledge in the area of chants related to school was when I was in 3rd grade. I was having a really hard time memorizing my multiplication tables. My parents and I tried everything! Finally, my dad found this casette tape that had songs to help you remember different numbers and their products. This really helped me because I love to sing, and I was able to sing (in my head) while I was taking my timed tests.
Another outside-school experience that helped me with learning in general was playing sports. I played sports from elementary school through college, and I can say that I have learned things on the field that I would have never learned in the classroom. In college, my senior year for my Capstone project, I interviewed athletes and coaches that played college sports and asked them how playing a sport effected their life after college. I noticed that every person I interviewed talked about hard work, never giving up, and learning different social skills on the field/court helped them in their future careers. I do believe that being an athlete in college forces you to put academics first. If you dont succeed in the classroom, then you will not play on the field.
2. During our class discussion of Ball's article, my classmates had some really good insight. For example, Kathryn and Sarah W. talked about the second quote, and how it related to their content area of math. I particularly liked how they spoke about math in relation to TPR (total physical response). They mentioned that by expanding past curriculum, students can take and interact with math on a deeper level. They also talked about how math is a content area that can push students in their critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills are something that can be related cross curriculum, and can benefit students throughout their whole educational lives.
Also, even though she was in my own group, I really like what April had to say about facilitating student's learning through music and dance. The arts are something personal, everyone interprets music/song/artwork differently. By allowing students to learn that at a young age and experience art in the classroom, I feel that they will be more in touch with themselves and more in tune with their learning.
3. At this point in time, my overall question is, 'Do songs and chants enhance students learning in Language Arts?' I really want to tie this to the new Common Core ELA standards that are being put into action this year in California. I am not completely sure that this is what I want to do for my question. However, I do love music and the arts and I would love to incorporate that more into the school day. I am interested to see what is out there in terms of educational music, memorization, and chants. I have not done a lot of research about chants or their connection to education, but I am looking forward to finding evidence that they could be linked to enhance student learning. Possible experiential learning sources that I have for my questions may consist of my going to my roommate's summer school class (1st grade) and teaching them a chant or observe her using music in the classroom. Another idea is to interview different teachers and ask them if music has ever made a difference in their classrooms.
My other idea for my question is, 'How do I teach parents how to help their students with the new Common Core standards?' This is something that I feel every school will need to figure out throughout the next few years. Common Core will be pushing students differently than when their parents were in school. Higher expectations are set, and parents need to know how to handle those situations, especially when it comes to school work. I really have no idea where to start interms of research. Every school's demographics are different. Possible ideas that I have for experiential learning sources are interviews with parents, interviews with teachers who are also parents, and an interview with a principal talking about different parent situations when it comes to education, not social issues.
4. Throughout my whole life, I have always told people that I was going to be a famous singer. Even though that hasn't happened yet, I still want to keep music and song as a part of my life. I love to sing and I want to inspire my students to love it too.
I do not have any artwork or photographs right now that I can connect to my content area. Throughout this journey in 402, I will continue to look for inspiration and hopefully post lots of photographs.
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Allison Broude
Tara Smallman
