Guiding Curriculum Document: British Columbia Fine Arts 6 Curriculum. Nova Scotia Music 6 curriculum also referenced.
Curriculum Model(s) Referenced: John Dewey and Malcolm Skillbeck, (Inquiry and activity based learning - DOING) and Elliot Eisner (the arts teach children to approach problems in multiple ways and that there is often more than one solution or answer)
Given that exploratory music is a course taught in a short period of time (9 weeks) and that it is mandatory for all grade 6 students, the primary methodology will be activity-based learning with a strong emphasis on learner input into the curriculum. The students taking this course will be given the opportunity to either join the instrumental music program in grade 7 or continue on with other arts electives. Since all students will have played ukulele, recorder, Orff instruments, or guitar in their elementary years, this course will not necessarily focus on learning a specific instrument. Rather, it will focus on building basic musical skills (aural and written) while expanding the learner’s view of music in their lives, the school, and the community. Prior to selecting elements from this curriculum, students should have a chance to share their previous experiences with music and be part of deciding what musical activities they will engage with during this course. The end goal is to establish a positive musical self-identity in all the learners and to inspire an openness to future music learning opportunities while expanding their artistic, emotional, and cultural understandings of music.
Skilbeck model: The situational analysis of your class can help you to choose learning activities that are appropriate to the needs and desires of the current group of learners. It can draw on their strengths and help to address their areas of weakness. The feedback and assessment stage can allow students to analyze their performance and experience. Teachers can assess the process and result and make adjustments where appropriate.
Dewey model: Students will learn about rhythm, notation, melodies, and different styles and cultures of music through music activities and games as much as possible. They will learn by doing and by engaging their bodies when appropriate. Students will also get to experience making sounds on a variety of instruments themselves.
Elliot Eisner: The arts teach students valuable lessons about making judgments, solving problems, and expressing things that cannot be said with words. Through this exploratory music course, students will celebrate different perspectives and use music to interpret the world in new ways. Students will learn to articulate and communicate to others what they hear and feel in music. This will lead to a better understanding of each other and the world around them. When students become connoisseurs and critics of music, they develop a heightened understanding and appreciation for music as a means to communicate what words cannot, and through this process, develop an improved sense of self and a stronger musical self-identity.
Exploratory Music 6 is a course designed to introduce all students to music at the middle school level. This course will begin building early aural and written music skills through activities and games while introducing students to the different instruments in a wind ensemble. All students will learn how to read and write using musical notation and understand the different pitches and rhythms heard in music. Students will also be given input into the musical activities and learning opportunities offered in order to keep the learning relevant and engaging to all students. Options include, but are not limited to: Music games, ukuleles, bucket drumming, basic keyboard skills, choral singing, body percussion, music technology and recording, and cultural and historical listening and exploration. Students will also learn about the positive ways learning a musical instrument can impact their lives, including the social, emotional, and educational benefits of studying music.
Students learn best and retain information through constant repetition of concepts and skills. As skills are practiced and concepts are revisited, students will be expected to approach tasks and performances with increased independence and at gradually increasing levels of difficulty and complexity. Throughout this process, students will be expected to reach mastery at all stages and eventually become more and more independent and intrinsically motivated. The skills/concepts addressed in the course will be revisited routinely throughout the learning process to solidify understanding and build confidence.
Activities/learning experiences will be designed around the achievement goal (building a positive musical self-identity and helping students believe they are musical and capable of learning music). Lessons will allow for 1. The understanding of skills/concepts and how to achieve them 2. The application of the skills/concepts to either rhythmic, singing, or instrumental in-class performances.
Learners will be guided through the music exploration process with a clear understanding of musical goals and aim to lead to learners valuing the experience for themselves. This course will inspire students to take on more responsibility in the process and automatize musical and non-musical skills so they can be transferred to other life experiences and future musical learning.
Students will also receive instruction to develop good habits for music learning. This will include use of metacognitive reflections on activities and class participation, development of goals, and instruction on growth-mindset philosophies. The ‘Due but not Done’ (Lonis and Haley) approach, which encourages students to celebrate accomplishments and identify and work to improve areas of weakness after feedback, will be the guiding philosophy on assessment.
Students will be given opportunities to experience music through listening examples, instrument exploration, improvisation, and/or performance of simple melodies/chords. Through this varied process, students will be able to experience the different roles of music in their own lives and the lives of others. This includes understanding different cultural expressions of music.
A similar curriculum model can be used for a variety of grade levels at any middle school, including the elementary school level.
This same framework could be expanded to a 12-week course as well, allowing students to go deeper into musical concepts and potentially add a performance component.
This model allows the teacher to choose musical experiences most suitable for each group of learners. Learning choices should reflect inclusivity of ability, interests and culture of the class. Curriculum should extend previous skills/knowledge and introduce new concepts, but also not reach too far beyond the students’ current abilities. This is why inquiry into students past learning and abilities is crucial at the start of the course.
Curriculum can be delivered regardless of group size, though instrument choices are limited to what is available at each school.
School climate/district climate: there is a wide range of musical opportunities offered at the elementary level prior to middle school learning. Some schools have music specialists, while others do not. Therefore, this course is designed to start right at musical basics and build on that foundation.
Limited instruments are often available for exploratory music courses. With the short instructional time, this will not be a performance-based course. The only current option for further musical study at Glenrosa Middle School is concert band. The lack of guitar or ukulele options after grade 6 also reduces incentive to work towards these ensembles.
Classes can take place in any classroom. Ideally, this course will take place in a music room with percussion instruments and guitars/ukuleles to enhance the options for exploring different instruments.
Many learners come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds with different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, listening choices should be varied in style and genre, reflecting student interest and values when possible.
Home practice is not required for this course.
Make the most of community connections available including local orchestras/symphonic bands, city bands, active community musicians to come in a share about their relationship and experience with music. Guest live performances are encouraged.
No prior knowledge or experience required.
Fine Arts 6 Big Ideas:
Engaging in creative expression and experiences expands people’s sense of identity and community.
Artistic expressions differ across time and place.
Dance, drama, music, and visual arts are each unique languages for creating and communicating.
Experiencing art is a means to develop empathy for others’ perspectives and experiences.
Curricular Competencies:
Exploring and creating
Intentionally select, apply, combine, and arrange artistic elements, processes, technologies, tools, techniques, and environments in art making
Create artistic works collaboratively and as an individual using ideas inspired by imagination, inquiry, experimentation, and purposeful play
Explore relationships between identity, place, culture, society, and belonging through the arts
Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of personal, social, cultural, historical, and environmental contexts in relation to the arts
Reasoning and reflecting
Research, describe, interpret and evaluate how musicians use processes, materials, movements, technologies, tools, techniques, and environments in the arts
Develop and refine ideas, processes, and technical skills in a variety of art forms to improve the quality of artistic creations
Reflect on works of art and creative processes to understand artists’ intentions
Interpret creative works using knowledge and skills from various areas of learning
Examine relationships between the arts and the wider world
Communicating and documenting
Adapt learned skills, understandings, and processes for use in new contexts and for different purposes and audiences
Interpret and communicate ideas using symbols and elements to express meaning through the arts
Take creative risks to express feelings, ideas, and experiences
Express, feelings, ideas, and experiences through the arts
Describe, interpret and respond to works of art and explore artists’ intent
Experience, document and present creative works in a variety of ways
Demonstrate increasingly sophisticated application and/or engagement of curricular content
Organized using the Nova Scotia Music 6 Curriculum and corresponding course content as it provides a more detailed framework for music.
Learners will analyze how rhythm, meter, and tempo communicate feelings and ideas
Rhythm: Introduction of whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes, along with whole, half and quarter rests.
Tempo: Apply tempi to communicate feelings and ideas*. Teach different speeds of music and their corresponding terms (adagio, allegro, moderato, etc)
Perform rhythmic activities to convey feelings and ideas.*
Question how rhythmic values relate to standard notation.*
Learners will analyze the role of melody and harmony in the communication of feelings and ideas
Ear Training (stepwise melodic melodies on Do-Re-Me, rhythmic dictations using above rhythms.
Investigate strategies used for singing in-tune.* Solfege singing on Do-Re-Me-Sol
Analyze how pitches combine in the creation of melody and harmony*
Question the use of melody and harmony to convey feelings and ideas.*
Investigate how scale patterns are used to convey feelings and ideas.*
Learners will evaluate the role of texture and form in communicating feelings and ideas
Analyze how musical sounds are layered to evoke feelings and ideas.*
Compare texture in a variety of musical compositions*
Investigate how phrases are organized in musical compositions to create form.*
Analyze how phrases are used to communicate feelings and ideas.*
Learners will evaluate how composers and performers combine the elements of music to communicate feelings and ideas.
Notation: Identify how composers use different pitch names in treble and bass clef on the staff to communicate melodic ideas.
Investigate how timbre and volume are used in musical expression.*
Investigate the use of the elements of music to express feelings and ideas.*
Analyze the effect of different combinations of the elements of music to convey feelings and ideas.*
Learners will analyze how the cultures of local and global communities are expressed through music
Listen to many different styles of music and reflect on the artists’ intentions and the feelings communicated.
*taken directly from the Nova Scotia Music 6 curriculum at-a-glance document.
Select activities from this list based on student interest, background, class composition, and available supplies.
Suggestions for Musical Skill Building
Lap boards/dry erase boards with musical staff on one side: These are highly recommended for formative assessments. Students can practice skills without the permanence of pen-to-paper. Mistakes are quickly erased and the boards are large enough for teachers to assess when students hold up the board for feedback. It’s also a great way to keep track of effort and engagement since the whole class can hold up their work for a quick scan. Uses: Writing notes, clefs, rhythms, dictations, reflections, exit slips, etc.
Daily note reading drills. 5 minutes at the start of each class, students can do note drills in treble and bass clef
Daily rhythm reading with a metronome. Singing rhythms encouraged in addition to clapping to better reinforce duration as well as placement.
Music games: relays, musical chairs, and other active games are great for reviewing and reinforcing content.
Band Instrument Exploration
Allow students to try making sounds on different instrument mouthpieces. If inventory exists, allow students the chance to try playing the full instrument at least once after the basics of making a sound have been mastered. Perform instruments for the learners and play videos of professional players as well.
Run a ‘mini-band’ course. Do mouthpiece tryouts and instrument demos, and then allow students to select and sign out an instrument for use during the 9 weeks. In this option, embed learning outcomes into an ensemble setting.
Class Piano
Allow students to work through keyboard lessons at differentiated levels based on previous experience and ability. Embed learning outcomes into piano performance lessons.
Bucket Drumming
Teach stick technique, rhythm reading, dynamics, and music performance through bucket drumming. Have students play independently and also with recordings and videos to experience group music making.
Music History and Culture Lessons
Explore a new musical culture or music style while analyzing the musical and cultural influences that helped create it.
Have students select their own favourite genre of music and do research to present to the class, a peer, and/or the teacher.
‘Soundtrack of My Life’ Assignment
Explore the significance of music in our own unique lives by asking students to tell the story of their life up until now through musical examples! Students can select 3-5 events in their lives of significance, and choose music that represents the emotions, memories, and/of feelings attached to those events.
Ukulele
Instruct students to play up to 4 chords, pluck simple melodies, and read notation and chords symbols while creating music as a group. Make use of powerpoints, play-along recordings, and student choice in repertoire.
Technology
Introduce students to free recording and audio editing software. Guide them through selecting sounds or recording live instruments to layer together to create artistic works of music that convey feelings and ideas. Identify with the students the gear and devices needed to make quality recordings.
Chair Percussion
Using drum sticks and chairs, students will learn about playing together in an ensemble using basic rhythms. This unit will have a final performance piece that can be played as a whole class or in small groups, complete with choreography. Dynamics, emotional intent, interpretation, tempo, phrasing, stick technique and rhythmic understanding will all be taught.
Physical Space with proper soundproofing/dampening for loud music making, instrument storage space, room for percussion/bucket/ukulele/computer/piano storage
Optional small group breakout space available, ie. practice room(s)
Instruments: Access to some band instruments for demoing and exploratory purposes. Other potential instruments could include drums, keyboards, ukuleles, buckets, mallet instruments, guitars (not all of these are required, but some form of instrument should be part of the course.)
Instrument accessories: reeds, drums sticks, mouthpiece sanitizer, sound dampening pads for buckets
Equipment: music, stands chairs, metronomes
Teaching Aids: white board/smart board and markers, projector
Text resources: Suggestions include: note drills, rhythm booklet or method, Ukulele method, bucket drumming method, etc.
Sound System/Audio Equipment: for playing recordings, recording ourselves, etc.
Budget: to cover costs for equipment mentioned above as well as bringing in guest musicians from the community and instrument cleaning and maintenance at the end of the year.
Supplemental resources:
Available Technology for Music Programs
Soundtrap
Ableton
GarageBand
Rhythm Randomizer
Breezin’ Thru Theory and Composition
Composition Plus
Musescore
Flat.io
Noteflight
Music Workshop
Chrome Music Lab
Method books
James Hill: ‘Ukulele in the Classroom’
Teaching Rhythm Logically - Darcy Williams
Kaboom Percussion methods
Subscriptions:
Musicplay online
Bucketdrumming.net
20% Cognitivism/Constructivism
Instructions should be organized, sequenced and presented in a manner that is understandable and meaningful to the learner. Every student begins with preexisting knowledge and experiences and further knowledge is built on to that. Learning from others is important to building knowledge (group discussions, activities, research, problem solving, sharing experiences). Teachers act as facilitators in constructivism. Classes allow students’ prior knowledge to lead them to understanding by learning from others and researching to discover answers to their questions.
20% Humanism
Learning is self-directed by students. Students are motivated to learn, and gradually build the skills to know how to learn. Self-evaluation is the most meaningful form of evaluation. Emotions and knowledge are equally important in the learning process. A safe and caring environment needs to be established and maintained.
30% Pragmatism
Four Principals:
Utility - everything should be useful for learners to keep things practical and efficient.
Interest - include learners interests so they stay engaged in the learning
Experience - learning should involve hands on experience which allows learners to be fully
immersed in the learning
Integration - learning materials should span over subjects to take a cross curricular approach
20% Social Learning
Principles of Social Learning:
Attention - If we believe something to be new or different, it’s more likely that it becomes the focus of our attention.
Retention/Reproduction - People recall learned information when we need to respond to a situation similar to that which we first learned that information.
Motivation - Humans are motivated by someone else being rewarded or punished for something they have said or done. This generally motivates us to do, or avoid doing, the same thing.
10% Behaviourism
Through the behaviourist lens, all behaviours are learned through interaction with the environment. Positive reinforcement is a common example of this. While the GMS music program strives to lead all students towards intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation is a helpful motivator early in the educational process.
Merrell
Similar to problem-based learning but offers more scaffolding and guidance at the start, gradually working towards greater independence. All instruction connects to prior learning through interesting and authentic tasks. New skills are integrated and applied in other areas of life.
5 Steps:
1. Real world task/problem 4. Application
2. Activate prior knowledge 5. Integration
3. Demonstration
Bloom’s Taxonomy:
Focus is on the process and not the content. End goals of instruction are application and valuing of learning in other areas of life or situations. Creativity is most important.
The lower levels of learning focus on knowledge and concepts. Learners are guided to apply what they learn to new areas of learning with the ultimate goal being to build intrinsic value of what is being learner and the ability to transfer new knowledge and skills to other areas of life.
Gagne’s 9 events of instruction:
Gagne's beliefs were similar to Bloom’s hierarchy of learning. He believed that the lower knowledge levels were important because a person usually requires a greater amount of previous knowledge to move successfully onto higher levels of learning.
He developed the 9 events of instruction:
Gaining attention (reception)
Informing learners of the objective (expectancy)
Stimulating recall of prior learning (retrieval)
Presenting the stimulus (selective perception)
Providing learning guidance (semantic encoding)
Eliciting performance (practise)
Providing feedback (reinforcement)
Assessing performance (retrieval)
Enhancing retention and transfer (generalization)
Dick and Carey Model:
Instructional design values systems rather than stand-alone lessons, building on prior knowledge as well as preparing for future learning.
The design process should be directly connected to the content and desired learning goals. Assessment tools should be developed at the same time as the methods of instruction.
All aspects of the educational experience including teacher, learners, materials, instructional activities, delivery system, and learning should work together to achieve a collective goal.
Revision of design should occur when learners are unsuccessful during assessment and instruction. Formative assessment should be used to identify any gaps in learning or need for redesign.
Find folders, duotangs, or binders for each student in the class to hold and organize class materials. Use a bin to store materials between classes. Materials are not generally sent home.
Affix blank name labels to each for easy identification. You could also pre-print names on labels for handing out during class time. Part of the first class will involve this organization.
This is one version of what the Music 6 Exploratory course could look like. For all options that do not include a mini-band experience, the elements that change from group to group, based on student input, are the listening examples played and the performance/ensemble/composition opportunities chosen. In this example, the popular 'Chair Percussion' unit is used. Other options could include Bucket Drumming, Ukuleles, Mini Choir, or other ensembles suggested by students.
Concepts Covered: musical alphabet, melodic contour/shape, note heads, ear training, and pulse
Both formative and summative assessment strategies will play pivotal roles in a student’s engagement and feedback in this course. A wide variety of strategies should be used, ultimately striving to assist students to become reflective, motivated learners.
Formative assessments will occur throughout each class and after each new concept is introduced. This will include regular check-ins with students to identify challenges as soon as possible. Lapboards are an excellent way to make regular check-ins with learners due to their non-permanent nature. They also give the ability for the teacher to scan class work quickly from the front. Lap boards are also an effective way for students to check-in and communicate with the teacher in subtle ways by holding up a written question or quickly asking the teacher to check their work, without getting out of their seat.
Formative assessments could include:
Demonstration of skill/concept on lap boards or paper.
Discussion of meaning/intent of piece and connections to other music or ideas
Self and peer evaluations.
Thumbs up check for understanding (multiple times each lesson)
Exit/Enter tickets
Pair Play/Share
Google Forms/Kahoot
Listening reflections
Summative assessments will occur only once a concept has been mastered. Given the short duration of this course, most assessments will happen in the second-half or at the end of the course. All assessments can be redone once feedback has been received and practice/repetition has occurred, provided there is still course time left.
Summative assessments (end of unit or course) could include:
Individual performance assessments
Rhythmic and Melodic Dictations
Music history reflections/assessments
Written ideas on expression and connection, and their relations to other ideas/pieces of music.
Notation, clef, and staff assessments (mini-quizzes)