Keeping Assessments

Holy Spumoni!

What a whirlwind of a first month it's been. I can't believe we're already a month into the school year. Where does the time go? Let me just say, that the second year of teaching is SO much better than the first year. Not that the first year was bad at all, just that the second year is going to be so much better. I know more of what to expect and I know what not to expect. Also, because I teach the kids in all the grades, I already know a lot of the names of the 700 kids I teach (yikes!).

This year is going to be different for many reasons, one of which is going to be assessment. As a district, we are trying to be better about taking assessments and sending home report cards with grades. The idea is that we will have a better idea of each child's progress and sending grades home to parents may help to solidify our music program as a significant part of their child's education.

I've started most recently in the lower grades, Kindergarten and 1st grade. I altered/stole an assessment sheet from a colleague, I'll embed it below. Down the left hand side I type in all the kids' names from each class (I employed the school secretary's help to get an excel spreadsheet of all the names) and print out a page for each class. Then as I write the lessons, I incorporate times when students can sing on their own or somehow demonstrate something we are learning in class alone or in a small group. As they perform or demonstrate, I mark down a grade, generally a number form 1-4 based on how well they fulfilled the task. At the bottom is where I make notes of what the objective is that they are showing.

Just an example, you get the idea. PS The "G" column is checked off when they've had a turn at a game.

I printed out a page for each class and then put them on clipboards, 1 clipboard for my Monday/Wednesday classes, 1 for my Tuesday/Thursday classes, and another for the Friday Kindergartens. This way I am able to flip through the classes easily and quickly replace pages as they get full.

I realize that this method is NOT revolutionary in any way, but for me it has made all the difference. In the last week I have assessed all my Kindergarteners' ability to find and use their head voice and the ability to keep a steady beat. All my 1st graders have sung a verse of a song for me and I've assessed how well they are singing in tune. While this is not groundbreaking or incredible, for me it is a huge step towards better assessment keeping.

Listening Maps

An example of Rob Dunn's listening maps - for more info, click here.

This week in 6th grade we did some listening maps that I got from Dr. Rob Dunn at UMEA a few years ago. The first was for Beethoven's Ode to Joy theme from Symphony No. 9 (from about 3:00-6:00). The map was simple enough and the students had to figure out how to follow the map on their own. Then we had a few people take turns leading the rest of the class through the map. One student that led them was a boy who ... has had some issues following directions. He got the pointer and started leading everyone in the map and his face just lit up. I have never seen him look so happy! He was just grinning as he was finally being successful in this class. Amazing!

The next map we did was the Theme and Variations of Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. This would have been much more challenging for them, but they already knew the piece pretty well so following the more difficult map was not as hard as it could have been. I saw some great faces as the kids tried to figure out how to follow this one and most of the class volunteered to lead the class through the map. Now that's some engaged 6th graders!

Last we made our own maps to Copland's Variations on a Shaker Hymn. We listened to it and made a map for each melody (the first part of the verse and the second). This was a bit trickier and I got quite the varied responses. Some made very patterned, simple maps and others were very complicated and seemed kind of "squiggly-ish", but I could tell that they had made them by listening to the music.

All in all, I thought it was a good lesson and I'm excited to continue with more listening maps. Next up might be Hedwig's Theme by John Williams. It's a great map that Rob Dunn gave us and the kids will absolutely love listening to Harry Potter.

The Kodaly Method

Zoltan Kodaly

This is a brief overview of the curriculum I teach. It is written by the brilliant Dr. Jerry L. Jaccard of BYU. His curriculum is based in the teaching pedagogy of Zoltan Kodaly (pronounced "ko-dai"). Kodaly was a Hungarian music educator. If you want to read a lot about him and his philosophy on teaching, go ahead. If not, I'll tell my takeaway from it all is to base music learning in music the students already know.

In other words, students learn a song, then teachers can use that song as an example of a certain music principle they want to teach. Maybe someday I'll write that process out a bit more with a specific song. (Note to self...)

Dr. Jaccard has painstakingly put these concepts together in a chronological way, and paired them with over 450 songs. Each of the songs has a purpose in being sung whether it is to prepare the students for a concept, or to reinforce that concept. The songs in the curriculum are primarily folk songs from around the world.

If you are interested in learning more about the curriculum, check out Intermuse. It is a 3 summer program, 2 weeks at a time, to learn the curriculum and improve your own musicality 1000%. I went last summer and absolutely loved it.

Professional blogging

No, I am not going to quit my job to write blogs full time, although that might be another meaning for the phrase "Professional blogging". I mean it in the way that I am going to blog about my teaching. I need to have a place to get all my thoughts out on teaching. A friend of mine showed their blog and it was so cool to read through and it gave me some great teaching ideas, so I thought that it might also help me to make a blog of my own. If I only benefit myself, then great. But if I could give another teacher some ideas, I'd love that!

So to start and to introduce myself, I teach music to 670 students, grades K-6 at Wasatch Elementary in Provo, UT. (It's the best school in the land) This is my first year teaching, and I absolutely love my job. I think it's the best one around. Our district follows a curriculum that was developed by Dr. Jerry L. Jaccard of BYU in the methodology of Zoltan Kodaly (pronounced "ko-dai"). It is a great program and have been loving (almost) every minute of it. There will be more of most of that coming later so until then, carry on!

"What do you make?" "I make musicians."

I recently re-watched a video of Taylor Mali performing his poem, "What Teachers Make". If you haven't seen it, and are not opposed to 2 well-placed objectionable words, you should totally watch it! I would recommend it to most teachers.

After watching it, I've been pondering the question, "What do I make?" and I've come up with my answer. 

I make musicians.

I make kids listen and listen again to classical music and describe what they heard, and then they bring the music inside them and let it out again in a dance.

I make kids bi-lingual, tri-lingual and more as they learn solfege, rhythm language, the language of the music staff, and even a bit of sign language to effectively sightread, dictate, and communicate about music.

I make them listen instead of hear the sounds that are constantly around them and sort out what is worth listening to and what is not.

I make children into good singers and when they sing it out of tune we sing it again. When they sing it without their hearts, we sing it again. When they talk it instead of sing it, we sing it again. When they forget the words and sing the wrong rhythm, we sing it again.

I turn kids into lovers of music.

I make a difference. How about you?