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.
Commented on:
Allison Broude
Tara Smallman
Hi Whitney!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE your idea about bringing chants/music into the classroom. My second year in Kindergarten, I constantly had music incorporated into both educational and non-educational times throughout the day. What I found to be most interesting, was how music really captured the imagination and attention (!) of students. Especially in the earlier years, they respond so well to melody, rhythm, etc. What I was wondering, is, could you research music in the classroom and see what type of educational benefit there is to incorporating music, and then do an experiment between two groups of students? Meaning, one group is learning in a non-melodic manner, while the other group is learning the same material incorporating the chant/music that you select or create? This may not be entirely what the capstone is about, but I think it would be super neat to see what kind of results you could find? What do you think....
Hi Whit!
ReplyDeleteI'm so excited that you decided to explore this area throughout the program. I strongly believe in music in the classroom and that it is a strong tool that can be used as a way of helping students learn. I think you will find a plethora of information available to you to help find answers to your questions. I was also excited to see that the content area you are choosing to explore is English-Language Arts. I feel that most teachers use songs and chants in mathematics and science, but don't think to use them in ELA. I look forward to seeing what you discover. I also wanted to share a resource with you that I recently found online via the SMC library database. It's an article that discusses background music in a special day class. It was a very interesting article to read and definitely inspired me to not only use music in my classroom, but to also think twice about the kind of music I play for my students. I don't know how helpful the article will be to what your are choosing to explore, but I thought it was definitely worth sharing! Let me know how you like it!
Here's the citation...it should help you find it in the SMC database!
Savan , A. (1999). The effect of background music on learning. Psychology of Music, 1999(27), 138-146. doi: 10.1177/0305735699272005
ALSO, I really like Allison's idea of a hands on experiment. Non-melodic vs. melodic classrooms would be interesting to see!!
Hi Whitney!
ReplyDeleteI love your idea of bringing chants and movement in the classroom to help enable learning. Being a first grade teacher, I know how effective this can be. The students need to get up and move, and they LOVE singing and chanting. I have learned through experience that the repetition of the chants and/or songs helps them to fully memorize what they are learning. In my class we sing a patriotic song each month and no matter how fast or slow or long or short the song is, the students memorize it. I also have some fun chants that help them memorize colors and the water cycle. Let me know if you need some ideas. I can't wait to see what you find, so I can implement some of your findings into my classroom as well. Good luck!
Hi Whitney,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I totally can relate to your struggle with multiplication in 3rd grade because that was me too! I wish there was some way I could've learned them through songs and chants like you-what a great idea! Next, being a collegiate athlete I totally understand the hard work that goes into trainings, games, AND schoolwork. It is so important to stay on top of your studies while playing a sport while in school, not matter what the age the student is. Finally, I LOVE your idea of bringing songs, chants, and movement into the classroom to help students fully grasp what they are learning. It will be interesting to find different ways to teach students language arts using chants and songs. I feel like we got a few different jingles in Sue Clemo's class last semester that could jump start your work. (Let me know if you can't find them. I just checked and I have mine if you want them.) I'm curious as to what grade you are looking to do your project with? I feel like this would help you with choosing songs, chants, etc. Also, love the idea Allison had about having two separate groups you could work with where one working with the chants and one that is not. I'm not sure how the school is scheduled where you are planning to do your project at, but I know there are some schools that have early/late "slip" schedule so you could, for example, teach the early students using the chants and the late students could be taught the same thing but in a different way. Does that make sense? Again, this would all depend on how your school's schedule works. I'm curious to hear what you end up doing.
Hi Friend!!
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea about bringing chants and music into the classroom. I think that would be interesting to research and find ways to incorporate more music into the classroom. I feel like all people love music and teaching through that medium would be cool, interesting, and fun. On the other hand I think your second idea is really good as well. With the new common core standards just beginning, it would be a great help to your students parents to research this as well.
1. That sounds like an interesting senior capstone project actually. Mine was about how funding affects test scores in public schools
ReplyDelete**Also you are the first person that I've seen that could come up with an outside-school experience related to math. Cheers to that.
2. I integrated some songs in my math classes- specifically with memorizing the Quadratic Formula. And although the songs were fun to make and to sing, I don't know that they necessarily made a difference in the eventual test score. If I were to do it over again, I would make sure EVERY SINGLE STUDENT was participating. It's the ones that aren't singing that are the ones that get it wrong eventually.
My teacher at SMC used singing and chants in her middle school class. Her name is Judy DeMartini and her e-mail is jdemar2011@comcast.net I'd definitely interview her about it if I were you!
Did you try to integrate singing with any of your student teaching placements?
Great post! It was very informative. Music is a large part of my classroom and I am a third grade teacher. I have a few songs that I played for my students when they were memorizing their multiplication tables. They can be so tough, it is an area that multiple intelligence's really plays a big part it. I would love to read your research on music in the classroom and more interesting ways to implement it and make it part of the students every day.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed hearing about you being an athlete, I agree that it can really help you put studies first. It sounds like a really great capstone project.
Common core is such a big topic right now, my principle assigned each teacher different subject areas to study on and report back on at the end of the summer. It should be really interesting. I was speaking with a former parent the other day and she had no idea about common core. This is defiantly something parents need to know about!
Whitney,
ReplyDeleteLoved your first quote - so much, that I also chose it for my first Ravitch quote. I thought this quote was powerful because I know there are people in my life whom I have come into contact with that are so set in their ways that they will never entertain a thought that could go against their beliefs. Especially as an educator, I think it is imperative to be open and accepting of new, potentially different, ideas in order to understand and see multiple perspectives. I think this quote also ties into the idea of a well-educated person. People who can accept others and listen respectfully to opposing opinions have a broader sense of themselves and community.
I really enjoyed your blog and look forward to reading more!