Technology Integration Lesson Plan

This lesson is an introductory answer to the unit question of what rhythmic patterns are and how they feel, specifically the feeling association with rhythm. The goal is for these 5th graders to be able to associate specific time signatures with a certain feeling and rhythmic pulse. In this lesson, they are meeting the standards of employing discipline-specific technology to categorize works of music, demonstrating basic concepts of rhythm, and identifying elements of music in response to aural prompts.

The students will be working in groups to develop an understanding of a specific time signature, and the whole assignment will be done using music player apps and displaying information they find using RealTimeBoard. In using these technologies, students will be meeting the standards of selecting and using appropriate digital tools and resources to accomplish tasks and collaborating with peers to illustrate components of a designed system in the RealTimeBoard. They will be assessed in the standards as well, for they are asked to articulate the beat to different rhythms, describe different time signatures and how they feel, and determine a time signature given a rhythmic pattern.

Per an email from me the afternoon before, the students will come to class with a basic understanding of how to use RealTimeBoard, and have an account connected to the board I have already created. The board has boxes for the different time signatures of 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, and 9/8, as well as a link to Pentatonix's "Carol of the Bells" on Noteflight. The Sonos speakers will be ready to go before class starts. After welcoming students, I will ask them to take out their iPads and login to RealTimeBoard. We will discuss what is meant by the beat of the music, and I will play two songs using the speakers ("It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and "O Come All Ye Faithful"), asking them to clap along with the beat of each. In this, I will be able to assess their ability to find the beat, and will gauge how long to keep playing the song based on their level of ability.

After discussing the beat, I will ask someone to describe a time signature in very basic terms. I will show them an example by having them click on the link in the RealTimeBoard, and then play the "Carol of the Bells" while clapping its beat, to show the link between the time signature on the page and what they hear in the song.

Next will be the main activity, where I count students off with numbers 1-4, and give each resulting group a time signature: 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, or 9/8. They are instructed to work together to find 3 songs in the time signature, list the songs in a sticky note in the correct box on RealTimeBoard, clap the beat for each song, and write 3 short phrases/words in sticky notes that describe the feeling of the time signature. This activity meets technology standards, as well as assesses their ability to describe time signatures and how they feel. Students have 15 minutes to work on the assignment.

Each group will present by playing one of their songs, having the whole class clap the beat, and using their words to describe the time signature. Other members of the class can add sticky notes to their box if they think of other words. After all groups have presented, I will answer any questions.

To put it all together and assess their ability to determine time signatures based on what they hear, I will play a few songs in different times, and have them raise their hand and guess the time signature while clapping the beat.

I will send the students a PDF of the RealTimeBoard after class, and tell them they can use it to review these 4 basic time signatures. I will explain that they can practice by listening to songs at home and trying to guess the time signature, checking themselves by looking for sheet music on Musicnotes.

Overall, I think this lesson offers a great introduction to time signatures and rhythm that is based on feeling and hearing, that will allow a nice flow into how time signatures and rhythms translate in written sheet music. It also meets several standards and assesses students in several ways so that I am able to see their understanding.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5zCiXr7vgQ6RUZnb3NBeFVTd1k/view?usp=sharing

Anytune

Anytune is a wonderful iPhone app that you can also get on a mac or iPad. It is an amazing app to use for practicing, and I can see myself sharing it with older students, because it just has so many little features. Also, I think the best use for it would be at home for practicing songs, or in little section rehearsals, so the students would need to have either an iPhone or iPad, which older students may be more likely to have already.

What the app does is connect to the music you have on your phone and allows you to slow down, speed up, and change the key up or down at any point in the song. It's helpful when trying to decide the best key to sing an existing song in, and perhaps the most helpful when practicing a difficult part of a song, because you are able to slow the song way down.

The main features are available in the free version of the app, and that version is shown above. It would be easy for high school students to figure out how to use it on their own, if they just spend a little time playing around with it. 

There is a $15 pro version of the app. In that version, you are able to isolate certain instruments and/or vocals in the song. This allows for very specialized practicing, and a musician friend said it has been a really helpful tool! If students wanted to use this, it would be worth putting on school iPads or computers if the funding was there. If not, the free version is still very useful and helpful.

Out of the classroom, this would benefit student practice time and make it very effective. In the classroom, I could see using this if groups of students are practicing their part of a piece. The groups could each go in a room and isolate the song so that the other instruments or vocals besides theirs are playing to practice along with. Sectional rehearsals are very effective, and change up the rehearsal time and style for the traditional high school band/choir model.

SFS Kids

The San Francisco Symphony (SFS) offers a wonderful, fun, and in-depth free website for young musicians called SFS Kids! It would be especially great for elementary students exploring string instruments. I am amazed by how detailed and informative it is, while keeping it fun and easy to use.

One section of the website is for listening to different orchestral pieces. The site gives a description of the piece, including what instruments are in the piece:

Another section of the site is about composition, and contains different lessons related to theory and composition that students can use to get started! The lessons themselves are also interactive, which keeps them engaging and fun. I like how it breaks down all of the topics for students, and allows them to track their progress as they go through the lessons.

Perhaps the neatest part of the website is where students can learn what it's like to perform on different instruments! This would be wonderful to use when students are young and trying out different instruments, because they can explore so many instruments through this website much more efficiently and interactively than they would be able to in the classroom. If students were engaged with this beforehand, then they could already have an idea of which instruments they were really interested in to try out in class!

The website also includes music games: one that changes picture according to feeling, where users click which "feeling phrase" the part of the song is connecting with them and the screen changes according to the phrase chosen, and one that has a movable rabbit that collects stars in a pattern according to the pitches in the piece that's playing. They are both very fun, and introduce students to important musical concepts, like themes, tones, pitches, and lines:

I would love to give students interested in exploring instruments time to use this website in class, if we have access to computers. Alternatively, I think this would be a great example of a way that a flipped lesson would work well: students would be able to explore and play around on this website at home, and then come in ready to play on an instrument in class. The benefit of this site is that all kids need is access to a computer to use it!

Exploring Copyrights and Wrongs

 In this video from The Teaching Channel, high school teacher Nichole Niebur addresses the issue of copyrights with her class in different ways: she defines vocab specific to the topic, has them define them in their own words, shows a slideshow with important bullet points about the topic, and then gives them an activity. The activity involves a real-life situation where advertisers are asked to choose from a series of pictures for a billboard advertisement for becoming vegetarian. The students work in groups to decide which picture is best, and must consider who took the picture in their decision. After the groups have discussed, the teacher explains that one picture of meat is maybe not the best choice because it was taken by a chef, and that chef would not want a picture of their creative dish used for an advertisement about becoming vegetarian.

I think Nichole did a very thorough job of getting the students to think about what they find online as someone’s creative work, and using where it came from to consider whether they should use it or not. As a music teacher, I would like to apply this lesson to my classroom, because music is stolen so often. I think the students would really connect to the music as being someone’s creative work that they wouldn’t want to be stolen or used in a way they would not want, because the students are creative musicians themselves. In addition to spending a day teaching a lesson like this towards the beginning of the year, I would want to make sure to bring back this topic every time the students use someone else’s work in a presentation or anything, to reinforce the importance of properly crediting creatives.

Scales & Modes Quick Reference

Scales & Modes Quick Reference is a free Chrome app, and actually an extension, that provides users with any scale played in any mode, as well as pentatonics. In high school music theory/ear training, or for instrumentalists practicing on their own, this app is very enticing.

The app comes in the browser format shown above, where you pick your scale, scale type, and whether you want it to be played on piano or guitar. You can also adjust how separated each note is, in case you are wanting to check yourself and play (or sing) along after each note.

What I find nice about this app is that it comes as an extension to the browser, so if you are surfing the web, you can click on the Scales & Modes icon, and it will come up as a pop-up with all the same capabilities as the browser version. That makes it quick and easy to use for reference.

As a teacher, I would encourage high school theory/ear training students to use this at home to practice their scales, whether they are a singer or instrumentalist, so that we could come together and play them as warm-ups collectively in class. Also, this would be great to have accessible at home for students learning about modes, because they are not necessarily intuitive, and it can be hard to understand what they are and how they sound.

As long as students have access to a computer, there shouldn't be an issues. It's not the most exciting app ever, but it's really useful for scale help. And, I really see it being used in high school, so they are a little older and can handle the more practical help.

Flipped Lesson

My flipped lesson is for the 5th grade music classroom. My Padlet unit was about the Building Blocks of Music, and I decided I wanted to teach about rhythm basics using a flipped classroom style. 

https://ed.ted.com/on/asxs9cWL

I thought rhythm would be an excellent choice for a flipped lesson because, at the elementary age, I think an understanding of the foundations of what rhythm is is very important, but that students will just get bored being lectured on what quarter notes are. I think it would be much more engaging to use the flipped approach- where the students learn the basics in interactive video format at home, and then come into the classroom to do rhythms in practice on real instruments. I would write rhythms based on fractions of beats, since not all students may be up to reading from the staff yet.

I would want to make the most of the day after the flipped lesson by not only allowing students to practice rhythms on percussive instruments, but by exposing them to music from different cultures and countries they may not have heard before, and asking them to all tap the beat along with each song. This activity would ensure that they are all finding the beat, since they are doing it at the same time, and also would expose them to different kinds of music. I think with rhythm, it is essential that kids understand how different rhythms completely change the mood! 

I would want to spend a good portion of the day allowing students to work together in groups to create their own rhythms, or, for students who have gone beyond and already understand how to read rhythms from sheet music, playing the rhythm to an existing song from sheet music. I would spend this creative, group time going around to help groups that are struggling, whatever stage they may be at. At the end, I would ask each group to perform their rhythm on their instruments.

I love the idea of a flipped classroom. Some of the major benefits of flipped lessons are the technologies and equipment available in the classroom that aren't at home. So, for instance, instead of just tapping along with the beat, or learning to tap the rhythm of what they are reading, students are able to play on percussive instruments. I also think that in this model, in general, students will be more engaged in the classtime because they are not being lectured at. Also, they will have in-class space to practice what they might make time to practice on their own. 

Noteflight

Noteflight is a great introductory music notation website. On the site, you can notate your own music either one note at a time or by using a midi controller. When creating it from scratch, it has all the features you need such as rhythm values, dynamics, and different instrument sounds.

On Noteflight, you can view many other users' free arrangements. My first fear was about copyrights; you would have to be careful of this. Actually, this would be a great opportunity for a lesson on copyrighting in music production! 

I listened to an arrangement of Pentatonix's version of "O Come O Come Emmanuel" for clarinets, and it was pretty cool.

In a music theory or music composition class, this site would be perfect for beginner composers or songwriters. It is easy to use and many of the functions are free. You can subscribe to the website; for $69 music teachers can use all of the site's music education features for a year. If you do not have the funds, the basic functions are great. 

This website is accessible for any student with a computer, so the only limitation there would be if students don't have a computer at home. I don't think there would be an issue with student interest since this is creative and individual. I think if students are taking what they are learning in music theory/composition and work on writing/arranging for themselves outside of class, they will learn so much as musicians! Of course, students would be free to email me with questions. 

For beginner students, I see them working on one piece of choice for the entire year/term. For more advanced students, they might have different themed compositions throughout the year. Students would then be able to share their work in class; maybe even have other students play the pieces for an added sight-reading practice.