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Where I Am, and Where I Want To Go

Lately, there have been a lot of "alternative" teaching methods circling around. It seems that more and more educators are coming to the conclusion that the traditional classroom involving lectures and homework is not necessarily as effective as they'd like. With that in mind, and with my current understanding of how a choral classroom works, I'd like to explore the following topic: student leading in music classrooms. Choirs tend to have large student to teacher ratios, and with a large classroom body comes varying degrees of musical knowledge. I'd like to get students more involved in the experience by having some of them lead sectionals, giving them a say in what pieces they'd like to perform, and hopefully leading them to conclusions on how to improve. Thus, I'd like to explore how other music educators have gone about making their classrooms more student-led and what results this has had in their students' experiences. Offhandedly, I also imagine that things can also potentially get out of hand when giving students more initiative, and I'm curious to know how these educators toe the line of letting the students have those opportunities without sacrificing too much of their authority.

Some resources I plan to look into to explore this topic include:

"Creating a Student Centered Choir Classroom:" https://studentsatthecenterhub.org/blog/creating-a-student-centered-choir-classroom/

"Student Centered Classrooms:" http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=09d04d77-eb8e-49cb-9a6d-e93319898755%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVpZCZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=120333126&db=a9h

"Everyone Has a Voice: Informal Learning in Student-Led Collegiate A Cappella Ensembles:" https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.lib.uwm.edu/stable/pdf/10.5406/bulcouresmusedu.219.0061.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Ftbsub-1%252Frelevance_config_with_tbsub&refreqid=excelsior%3Aa02316a21b6e3d8e6d821503122487c5

"MTT26: Student-Centered Learning in Choir using Chromebooks and iPads with Karla McClain:" https://midnightmusic.com.au/2017/07/mtt26-student-centered-learning-in-choir-using-chromebooks-and-ipads-with-karla-mcclain/#play

Comments

  1. dherronFebruary 12, 2019 at 4:42 PM

    Aileen,

    This seems so cool. When I first read your blog, I was a little lost. I understood the idea of making the classroom more student centered, but your resources gave me a better idea of how it looks differently when working with an instrument. What I am saying is that I thought it would be really fun and easy to let the students take charge. Once I read the resources and read the narratives, I realized student centered classrooms in music appears to have complexities that teaching Math, ELA, or more text book based subjects wouldn't have. For example, there is the idea of having a student lead the orchestra. The conductor has to make sure they teach all their cues and signals, so the people playing don't miss a note. That is a lot of pressure to place on anyone let alone a student. I still think it is cool, but I realize it may not be as easy as I thought it was. With English it isn't hard for me to have a student teach a skill set they have mastered, or take over by modeling something I have just taught, but with music they have to be prepared to deal with creating music. That just seems scary to me, but as I kept looking I also found that the teacher relinquishes power of certain duties to meet specific goals, which I realize is in a way similar to student centered classrooms for English.

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  2. RosieFebruary 15, 2019 at 7:27 PM

    I think the way you want to teach your classroom is the best for you especially if you have those large classrooms like you said. I thought about this for my classroom but, I thought it would be hard for an ELA classroom. But, actually it is a lot easier than doing it within a music classroom. It is more complex than I ever thought to be honest. I took choir so I understand what the teacher has to go through to get us all on the same page. Making sure that we can all read the sheet music, know the cues from her when to sing higher when to not sing at all. The teacher also has to make sure that the student feels comfortable tell her peers what to do. I say this because I know people who joined because they would be in a crowed of people singing and it wouldn't just be them alone. With conducting, they are al alone, you have to make sure that they are comfortable but also insure them you will be right there in anything happens. I think you bringing this into your classroom is going to be a learning curve for you and your students. Maybe your students will teach you something you didn't think of before.

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  3. CPA814February 17, 2019 at 5:37 PM

    It does seem as though there are so many alternative approaches that educators are advocating these days. Many of them involve the student-centered classrooms that you mentioned. I like your idea of having students lead sectionals. This would be great if students are comfortable with leading. Another thing that you could do in choral classes is ask students what kind of dynamics or gestures they want to do at certain points in the song.
    -Dennis

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  4. Chiung-Yueh WeigandFebruary 17, 2019 at 8:32 PM

    Hi Aileen,
    It is a big challenge to let go of authority. Teachers are often accustomed to being in charge of learning in their classroom. But it would be an interesting experiment to let students take charge in their learning. I wonder if students can handle this self-guided learning responsibility !

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
    Chiung-Yueh Weigand

    ReplyDelete

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