Hello!
I am a first year teacher and I'm looking for fun assignment ideas. I want my students to be doing more than just singing in my room, creating, collaborating, etc., but as a first year teacher I haven't quite figured out what works well and what doesn't. Just curious what some of you assign your students. I would love group project ideas as well as individual project ideas. Last year the teacher had them create a parody and they absolutely hated it and begged that I wouldn't make them do that this year - but I want them to work on something! Any ideas would be appreciated! Thank you! :)
Emily Ayres
I am a first year teacher and I'm looking for fun assignment ideas. I want my students to be doing more than just singing in my room, creating, collaborating, etc., but as a first year teacher I haven't quite figured out what works well and what doesn't. Just curious what some of you assign your students. I would love group project ideas as well as individual project ideas. Last year the teacher had them create a parody and they absolutely hated it and begged that I wouldn't make them do that this year - but I want them to work on something! Any ideas would be appreciated! Thank you! :)
Emily Ayres
6-12 Vocal Music Director
Beresford, SD
I think this is a problem that a lot of music teachers encounter. How do you evaluate students without singling them out in class or finding enough material for a written test?
A couple teachers said that they have their students write "mini-musicals." One said that she splits them into small groups of 4 or 5 and assigns them 3 of the pieces that they've sung throughout the year. She has them write their own musicals with a script, in which they have to perform at least a portion of the three pieces. She said that her students love it.
Another teacher had several really fun ideas that I thought would work really well with groups of any level. He said that he puts his students in teams and assigns them areas of town to put up promotional posters for their concerts. They have to talk to the manager of the stores they put them up in and they have to keep note of which businesses they go into. Then they have to take a "selfie" with the poster in the window of the store, and post it to the choir's Facebook page. I thought this was a really cool way to get students excited about being a member of a choir, and also show them what it takes to promote a musical group. This same teacher also said that he splits his choir up into Hogwarts Houses (Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, etc.) and they remain in the same house from year to year. He said that they have lots of competitions over the year and it really helps boost the motivation of the choir.
What do you guys think? What sorts of suggestions would you give to this teacher? Is it important that students enjoy the assignments you give them?
This is a great question, as I think most of us will be thinking the same thing one day soon. There are many ways to present a part of the prescribed curriculum in different ways. It is important as a teacher to be unique, but in a fun and loving way. If it was me,I would go to many other music teachers and ask what they do (in a sense, what this lady is doing now via ChoralNet!), I would also look through other provincial curriculum guides, not just my own province's. There are lots of ways of borrowing ideas but making them your own. I think looking at other resources would be helpful too, either articles published, or books that might aid in methods of teaching.
ReplyDeleteI think finding means of evaluation is so difficult in a musical situation. Many teachers of mine tried it over the years and it was a boring process for everyone involved. It meant taking at least two, maybe three, classes and taking kids out of the room individually to test them while the other students watched movies - it wasn't creative or motivational at all.
ReplyDeleteIn 6th grade, my teacher gave us an assignment based on a song from the radio that she picked (Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi), and she gave us a list of options as to what we could do with it. Options were a filmed music video, song poster, CD cover, in class performance, write new lyrics, etc. I worked in a group with two friends and we made a music video - it's probably the only group project I ever enjoyed doing in school. But I still have memories about this assignment because she used current music that interested us from the start, and gave us freedom in our choice of project. I think giving constructive options is a great way to get kids interested. You can also repeat this more than once in a year, but have kids pick a new option each time.
I think finding means of evaluation is so difficult in a musical situation. Many teachers of mine tried it over the years and it was a boring process for everyone involved. It meant taking at least two, maybe three, classes and taking kids out of the room individually to test them while the other students watched movies - it wasn't creative or motivational at all.
ReplyDeleteIn 6th grade, my teacher gave us an assignment based on a song from the radio that she picked (Avril Lavigne's Sk8er Boi), and she gave us a list of options as to what we could do with it. Options were a filmed music video, song poster, CD cover, in class performance, write new lyrics, etc. I worked in a group with two friends and we made a music video - it's probably the only group project I ever enjoyed doing in school. But I still have memories about this assignment because she used current music that interested us from the start, and gave us freedom in our choice of project. I think giving constructive options is a great way to get kids interested. You can also repeat this more than once in a year, but have kids pick a new option each time.
With the limitation of time in the music classroom I think making friends with the homeroom teacher is a great idea. For example if you wanted to create masks for a musical play. You could assign groups and suggests that this might be a great visual arts activity for the classroom. They could write poetry for song writing as an english assignment. Then they could bring the work into the music classroom and combine it with music learning.
ReplyDeleteWith the limitation of time in the music classroom I think making friends with the homeroom teacher is a great idea. For example if you wanted to create masks for a musical play. You could assign groups and suggests that this might be a great visual arts activity for the classroom. They could write poetry for song writing as an english assignment. Then they could bring the work into the music classroom and combine it with music learning.
ReplyDeleteSince this teacher is looking for more "fun" assignments, I would suggest evaluating them on the not-so-fun stuff outside of class. For example, if students were being evaluated individually on accuracy of singing their part in a particular song, they could record themselves singing it and upload it to a YouTube page that is accessible to the teacher. Also, a lot of music classrooms now have one or more iPads. The student could sign out the iPad, take it home and record their "test", and bring it back for the teacher to evaluate.
ReplyDelete