This week, the reading inspired me to think deeply about the ways in which students receive and offer musical critique in my class. Indeed the following quote has inspired almost this entire post. " Part of teaching students to become composers is to help them learn how to reflect on their work and formulate appropriate strategies for revision (Bauer, 2014, p. 62)"
Over the last few years, I have invited my third through fifth-grade students to practice evaluating pieces of music that we were studying as a class. When we are practicing this skill in a low-tech setting, the assignment might be as simple as turning to a neighbor and sharing thoughts about a piece, guided by a series of questions. Alternatively, there have been times, when technology was available that I have used CANVAS which is the learning management system (LMS) used by my district as described by Bauer (2014, p. 66), as well as Web 2.0 tools like Today’s Meet, to facilitate discussions about the music that we study. In both modalities, with technology and without, my students need more practice in evaluating music.
Over the last few years, I have invited my third through fifth-grade students to practice evaluating pieces of music that we were studying as a class. When we are practicing this skill in a low-tech setting, the assignment might be as simple as turning to a neighbor and sharing thoughts about a piece, guided by a series of questions. Alternatively, there have been times, when technology was available that I have used CANVAS which is the learning management system (LMS) used by my district as described by Bauer (2014, p. 66), as well as Web 2.0 tools like Today’s Meet, to facilitate discussions about the music that we study. In both modalities, with technology and without, my students need more practice in evaluating music.
While my students have certainly demonstrated growth in how they discuss the musical attributes of a piece, I find that when the element of technology is added, students lose ground in the quality and usefulness of their comments when compared to the quality of their evaluation when allowed to simply share their opinions verbally. They often revert to a sort of texting short-hand that is inappropriate for academic use. It seems that in order to reach a point in their musical development where they can both give and receive meaningful critique of performances and composition, several intermediate steps will be required. To that end, I have attempted to break down the act of musical critique into steps that students would need in order to enable students to both give and receive musical criticism in a meaningful way that fosters creativity in an encouraging way.
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The left side describes what discreet skills are necessary to receive and give meaningful performance critique. The right side describes what discreet skills are necessary to receive and give meaningful composition critique. |
Along with the steps described in the graphic above, students will need to simultaneously develop digital literacy. In order for a digital tool to effectively expedite the evaluation process, students need to be able to read and write within the digital genre as described by Chase and Laufenberg (2011). They described digital literacy as a genre within the domain of overall literacy. In order to use technology as a platform for musical reflection, my students must become more familiar with accepted practices within the digital genre they are using. For example, typing in ALL CAPS is considered rude and is similar to shouting. Students must also practice using complete sentences when providing feedback because a smiley face emoji might be kind, but it is not useful to the person recieving feedback.
My hope is that as part of our music composition workshop, I will be able to build opportunities within our LMS for students to share their compositions while receiving and giving feedback. I plan to use the closed discussion feature within CANVAS. First I will invite a student to volunteer their work for critique. I will choose a student who I believe will be receptive and whose composition is well established with perhaps a few minor errors. We will listen to the piece together. I will then model my own thinking for the class as I write comments about the performance.
During the next class, I will present a mini-lesson about how to make a meaningful comment. The anchor charts below will serve as writing prompts. During the mini-lesson, we will practice completing the sentence frames in different ways. For example, in chart number four, one of the sentences might be completed like this; "My favorite part is the beginning when you chose to jump from mi to la and back down to sol. I wonder what would happen if you repeated that pattern in measure 2? The anchor charts below will be posted in a place where students can reference them while we practice our critique. When Bauer (2014), spoke about how to give appropriate feedback, I realized my students needed more support in that area. Therefore I included an entire anchor chart that focuses on described as a compliment sandwich. After introducing the anchor charts, I will let students critique a composition that I have written. As students compose their comments, I will model how to respond to the comments and even how I might apply their advice to improve or edit my composition. Once those lessons occur, I will allow students to post compositions for peer-review if they choose.
Bauer, W. I. (2014). A conceptual framework for technology - Assisted music learning. In Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music (pp. 44-74). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Chase, Z., & Laufenberg, D. (2011). Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(7), 535-537. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41203403
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