First Week: Outlining an approach towards upcoming assignments

I have begun exploring my approach to this course, and have decided that I will focus on my work teaching IB music. For a long time, I have pondered the idea of how to incorporate Web 2.0 learning tools into units.

My experience is with teaching elementary and middle school levels. As their approach to IB units slightly differs, I will focus primarily on elementary music as that is where more of my experience lies.

I believe the tools we will be exploring in this class can be used to improve IB units by encouraging further learning and participation within the classroom setting (during synchronous learning) as well as be implemented outside the classroom without teacher guidance (during asynchronous learning).

I would like to primarily explore how these tools can be used asynchronously outside the actual classroom setting, as covid has taught us that cracking the asynchronous learning code is crucial to the future of education. We must be able to adapt as we have entered a new era.

I have heard a great deal of frustration from music teachers especially on how to transition to online learning during covid. At the end of the day, nothing will be able to replace in-person music learning, but perhaps by figuring out how to do it better asynchronously, it will in turn give us more tools to incorporate and enhance classroom learning.

My thoughts regarding my assignments include the following: For my community norms assignment, I will participate in social media-based communities for teachers of music and teachers of music related to the IB. How specific I will get will determine those networks that I find that are available to interact with. For my Knowledge Sharing/Tracking Assignment, I will draw on some of past teaching resources that I have created to share, and create an additional sample asynchronous IB lesson for a specific elementary year using Articulate. For the Personal Learning Network, I will create my own learning network as it relates to IB music. For my produsage project, my thought is to create a web-based resource that utilizes these various 2.0 tools to support music learning. More to come regarding the specifics of these projects...

Comments

  1. crs6414blog21May 14, 2021 at 12:55 PM

    Thank you for your post. I really enjoy the header on your blog. I originally started to go a similar direction of three words but went with a basic class header. While I was search through ideas of three key words I went through an interesting online journey. Through looking at different terms, I discovered all these items I want to go back and revisit including a magazine called Reinvented, several songs I had never heard of, books that I want to read, inspirational blogs and websites, several companies that have purposeful design values, unique technology solutions...I had to cut myself off.

    This made me think about writing exercises where you give students a blank sheet of paper and the instructions are to keep writing whatever comes to mind. Whatever you do you just have to keep going. I wondered if you ever do something similar in music, and if it would be possible to do something similar to what I did in a Web 2.0 assignment. Perhaps the class looks for connections between their pieces.

    I also appreciate that you have already thought about your projects. My head isn't there yet but I really appreciate your ideas to help me get thinking. Thanks for your post!

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  2. Creative EducatorMay 14, 2021 at 12:55 PM

    Hello! It is interesting that you teach music. I could see how challenging teaching music remotely could be. I could see it working if you were teaching how to read music or even the history of music. It seems challenging if any actual music such as singing or playing instruments was involved. How did the transition go for everyone?

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    Replies
    1. Teach, music, travel.May 15, 2021 at 9:24 AM

      It is definitely a challenge. Everyone I know who was teaching music this year had issues with figuring out how to keep students engaged without the ability to meet in person and practice for concerts. Each school also had their own way of approaching the learning environment. Some functioned with half classes with the other half of students staying home, some had all students at home and some went back earlier to in-person learning. I believe it is possible to set up music learning better within these three possible learning scenarios. The first is to create completely asynchronous learning units regarding more textbook knowledge such as you mentioned including interactive videos to teach (although this does not replace in person instruction as there are some things that cannot be reinforced correctly without an in-person instructor). The second is to create a hybrid style of asynchronous and synchronous learning, with lessons that can be completed on the own and then reinforced in the classroom setting. The last would be for one hundred percent in-person learning to be integrated with technology into lessons. As many schools are moving forward with in-person learning now, I believe it crucial to incorporate technology into the classroom so that we may be able to quickly adapt for any other corona like situations in the future.

      Delete
  3. VanessaMay 14, 2021 at 4:27 PM

    Wow! You have really thought this through already. I'll enjoy watching you on this path, for sure.

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    Replies
    1. Teach, music, travel.May 15, 2021 at 9:12 AM

      Thank you! I am also excited to see where this journey goes!

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  4. Lauren HorneMay 16, 2021 at 1:48 PM

    Thank you very much for your post. I am excited to see where this course takes all of us, and I’m looking forward to learning along the way. I’ve not done any teaching myself of music, only playing music myself or as part of a larger group several years ago, and I cannot imagine all the challenges music teachers have faced this past year in trying to keep up with their students when they are unable to all be in the same location. I agree that new ways of thinking will be at the forefront of many fields of study and practice, especially music which can depend oftentimes on multiple individuals working together in sync to perform a piece, and the challenge becomes exponentially more difficult when members aren’t able to be in the same location (and sometimes not even the same timezone). Adaptability is a must on all fronts!

    ReplyDelete

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