Making Music Together: Hooray for Monday - Center for Inspired Teaching

December 14, 2020
By Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching

Hooray for Monday is a weekly blog filled with questions, ideas, reflections, and actions we can all take to remodel the school experience for students.

Last week’s post talked about why singing belongs in the classroom. Today’s post includes concrete ways you can make it happen. In this last week before winter break, it may be challenging to keep everyone engaged. Singing can help with that! Below are some ideas to bring singing into your online classroom, and some Covid-safe strategies for incorporating music into your classroom if you are teaching in person:

Invite students and their families to share recordings of folk songs, lullabies, and other songs that are part of their family traditions. If you’re online so it’s safe to do so, invite them to teach those songs to their classmates, and to you!

Invite students to make up songs that demonstrate an understanding of content. We often see multiplication raps or songs that teach procedures. These are not really examples of higher-level thinking, and simply serve to instill memorization. But a song that tells a story, or sends a message about a theme or bigger idea takes thought and creativity. Consider analysis of ballads and have students write one about a moment in the life of a historical figure or the interaction between characters in a novel.

Music often defines moments in our lives or can play a key role in our identity. Invite students to share their favorite music with one another, even making a playlist and explaining why each song has been included. Remember to share your own favorites, as students will like learning about what moves you too!

Playlists can also be great ways to explore key moments in a book, period of history, or scientific process or phenomenon. Ask students to imagine the songs that would play in a documentary or movie about this story or concept.

Just as music can set the mood on film, at a party, or in an exercise class, songs strategically placed in your instruction can change the experience for your learners. Simply writing or working independently to instrumental music can help some students to focus. Songs of varying intensity can slow down or speed up a process. Music with lyrics can invite discussion. A song to open and close a class creates bookends on an experience.

When it comes to music you don’t have to always be the DJ. Once students realize that you are using music as part of your instruction, don’t be surprised if they come to you with ideas about what more you can do. Invite them to introduce you to new artists, songs, and genres. Invite them to be experts in sharing what they know with others. Depending on your school’s expectations you may need to have conversations about what is and isn’t allowed in terms of lyrics, and that’s great. It could well launch you and your students into important learning opportunities around the lines between freedom of expression and hurtful or offensive speech; speech that provokes for the purpose of creating change and speech that offends; and more!

Whether you bring music into the classroom this week, into your own quiet spaces, or both, we encourage you to experiment with what it does to your own mood and productivity. Wishing you a joyful week, and some energizing tunes to keep you going.

Micaiah Anderson

Community Outreach Specialist

As a Community Outreach Specialist, Micaiah is responsible for program promotion and outreach support for Inspired Teaching events and workshops. Micaiah has a passion for collaborating with community members to build-power and connect. She is an educator with a heart for youth and has experience supporting students fight injustices within their schools and communities. She has a BA in Political Science from, the real HU, Hampton University & anticipates graduating in May 2024 with a Masters of Arts degree in Educational Policy Transformation from Georgetown University.

AUTONOMY

"I want to have a say in what happens to me."

Autonomy is the need for independence; the ability to make choices, to create, to explore, and to express oneself freely; to have sufficient space, to move around, and to feel unrestricted with opportunities to exercise free will.

Brady Maiden

Outreach Coordinator

As the Outreach Coordinator, Brady helps maintain Inspired Teaching’s social media presence and supports the organization’s mission to connect with DC community leaders, educators, and parents. Brady has her Master’s in Public Policy from George Mason University and her BS in Political Science from Northern Arizona University. She is passionate about community, equity, and coalition building recognizing that learning and growing with the community at large is how we continue to be impactful.

What brings you joy in life?

I find joy in spending time with my friends and family and meeting new people. I like going to concerts and festivals, and finding new books to read.

The Learner’s Cycle, Wonder-Experiment-Learn, and the Teacher’s Cycle, Observe-Plan-Instigate, comprise Inspired Teaching’s approach to engaging students in inquiry-based learning.

When they are engaged in the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, students are immersed in learning. They take the lead in designing authentic learning experiences around their own interests and their school’s standards of learning. Each discovery leads to a new question which in turn leads to more wondering and more learning. In the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, Learn is not a destination or an endpoint; it is a deeper understanding, leading to a deeper wondering and new possibilities that create new entry points to further exploration. The cycle continues because what students have learned generates more wonderings that require more experiments that foster more learning – and on and on.

The Observe-Plan-Instigate Cycle is the work of an Inspired Teacher. While a student is expected to follow the Wonder-Experiment-Learn Cycle, the teacher joins them on the learning journey while following their own cycle of Observe-Plan-Instigate. This cycle ultimately serves to ensure an inquiry-based atmosphere is at play in the classroom.

Jaqueta Abbey

Teaching and Learning Specialist

Jaqueta is the Teaching and Learning Specialist for Inspired Teaching. In addition to her current role with Inspired Teaching, Jaqueta is a first-grade teaching assistant. Her background features a variety of traditional and non-traditional experiences in the field of education, including working as an adjunct professor, teaching summer reading programs to children and adults, and tutoring children in the foster care system. Jaqueta earned a B.A. in Communication Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an M.A. in Interactive Media from Elon University.

What brings you joy in life?

Creative self-expression! In addition to my passion for storytelling, I love dancing of all kinds. I've studied belly dance, bachata, and Brazilian Zouk among other styles. I also enjoy glass fusing, crocheting, photography, and cross stitching. These art forms allow me to express myself and build connections with other people at the same time. I think life would be a lot less vibrant without artists and storytellers!

Michelle Welk

Communication & Marketing Specialist

As Communications and Marketing Specialist, Michelle is responsible for finding and creating new ways to highlight Inspired Teaching and promote its programs in order to expand and deepen the organization's impact. Michelle has worked in communications in an array of settings, from creative agencies to state politics to national nonprofits. She has a BA in Journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and is passionate about education, access, and equity.

What brings you joy in life?

My son, the beach, making a persuasive argument and good food!

Max Peterson

Real World History Assistant Teacher

Max received his Bachelor’s degree in History and African American Studies from Boston University in May 2016. He has worked in museum curation at the Museum of the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Max has worked with young people of varying ages from young children to young adults transitioning to college.

Feedback and Accountability

We grow through feedback and an understanding that the quality of our work is a reflection of what we are learning, but the shift to remote learning this spring disrupted a lot of the tools teachers were used to using to evaluate student growth. How might we do things differently this fall? Participants in this workshop will explore ways to bring meaningful assessment into the virtual and/or socially-distanced classroom and approaches to student feedback that strengthen motivation, and build relationships and achievement.