Reading Reports for 110B Fall 2020

Please include a reflection of the following questions after reading the assigned chapters:

a) What is the most important information that you have learned from the readings?

b) How can this information help you become a better teacher?

Week 1 Due 10.12.20

Chapter 2

This chapter gives a comprehensive overview of learning theories in children and how knowing a
variety of different methods will be most effective in helping each unique child form their own
understanding of music.
Some theories approach teaching by understanding maturity levels of children, like Jean Piaget
and Jerome Bruner. I can use Piaget’s theory of development stages to determine what kind of
approach to music is appropriate for the age group of children we’re teaching.I can use Bruner’s
3-part model to break down the music notation learning process. I particularly liked the ideas
that Laren Sosniak presented: it’s important to note how the teacher’s and student’s goals evolve
over time as the student’s skills mature. But as a teacher, a student’s age group is not the only
thing I have to be aware of.
The next section of the chapter makes its readers aware of different social systems and scapes
that will be influencing the students’ perspective towards music. Arjun Appadurai says that we
must take into account all the different scapes of impact (ethnoscape, technoscape, ideoscape)
that shape our students so we can understand their musical tastes and values.
I particularly enjoyed the section on the importance of musical play. I intend to make it more of
a priority in my future classroom, primarily with younger students, who need that freedom to
explore and play with music.
It was also incredibly useful to hear from Kristin’s point of view at the end of the chapter, how
knowing about learning theories helped her in her classroom.

Chapter 3 goes more in-depth to music-specific learning theories and teaching methods.
Dalcroze’s method uses rhythm movement (called eurhythmics), ear training, and
improvisation. He developed this because he noticed that “students were demonstrating
mechanical, not musical, understanding,” in their instrumental studies. Utilizing Dalcroze’s
methods would help me strengthen my student’s musical foundation in terms of tonality and
rhythm and hopefully bring them to a musical understanding.
The chapter next talks about Zoltan Kodaly and his singing-centered approach to teach the
fundamentals of music in any student. My teaching philosophy is similar to Kodaly’s “music
belongs to everyone” approach. I do wish there was more of an emphasis in singing in my
musical upbringing, and I’m sure to use Kodaly’s techniques when strengthening my students’
inner hearing.
Carl Orff gives a four-step process of building a student’s musicality: imitation, exploration,
literacy, and improvisation. I think this is a very good progression that reflects a student’s
maturity in music. For me, I feel I’d need to make sure to not skip any steps. This would also
help me understand how to challenge or help students in their musical journey.
Week 3 Due 10.26.20

Skills must be developed gradually, moving from simple to complex tasks.

Concepts, once learned, do not need to be practiced. A person either does or does not
understand a concept.
Atitudes do not need to be taught, but emerge in response to musical experiences.
Repertoire develops from engaging children in quality music through singing, playing, moving,
and listening.

Chapter 12 was about designing a curriculum for your class. I liked what it said about quality
curricula: “Such a curriculum reflects the nature and content of music; is balanced,
comprehensive, and sequential.” I will keep this in mind when building curricula for my
classroom, making sure to keep the content well-rounded, keeping smaller units in context of
the year as a whole, and progressing forward in a way that is at a good pace for the students. The
text also gave more credit to the National Standards for me. I now see that I can use them to
reflect current education trends in my teaching.
My initial thoughts on creating a curriculum were, ‘This seems very… not exciting,’ but I know
that having a plan laid out of long term goals, short term goals, and various assessments
throughout the year will keep me on track to accomplishing what I want to get done. The book
went more into detail about how to make a curriculum specifically for elementary-level students,
and I really liked it saying how we need to think about ALL aspects of the child, being physical,
social, emotional, and cognitive.

Chapter 13

When approaching a chapter titled “Assessment and Evaluation”, my thoughts first go to testing
the students’ to track their progress and comprehension of the material. But this chapter shows
how assessment and evaluation can be of more use than just that. As a teacher, I now know it’s
important to not only assess the student’s progress, but the progress of my instruction as well.
The text states that for effective evaluation to take place, there need to be clear goals stated at
the beginning of the term and there needs to be a mixture of both objective and subjective data
taken into account. I read it’s also important to note the difference between formative (specific
feedback) and summative (holistic feedback) evaluation, and how to use both of them
effectively. I particularly liked that part that distinguished the different assessment techniques
needed for covert and overt responses - responses you can see, and responses you cannot.
Something I read that will be important for me to assess my students in the classroom is how to
ask questions that will help them and truly help me evaluate their understanding. I will do my
best to ask specific, stimulating questions that are relevant, ones that make them think, but are
still easy to answer. In terms of reporting to parents, I realize my high school band program did
a really good job at this, and I can follow that example of holding concerts, having a booster
program, sending home student contracts, sending out emails, etc.

Chapter 14

This quote I think summarizes this chapter and what it’s trying to teach us: “Each of these
teachers was hired to teach music, and each has gone beyond the boundaries of what has
traditionally been taught in the elementary general music curriculum.” This quote also goes well
with my teaching philosophy, “Making music to make better people.” The text talks about how
different types of art can be from one another, but how we can use them to strengthen our skills
in areas where they intersect, such as aesthetic development and expressing ourselves in ways
beyond words. I can think of times when integrating other forms of art into the music classroom
has been beneficial for students’ musical abilities. For example, the Orff-Schulwerk method
often uses body movement and dance to help children understand musical concepts through
musical play. I look forward to getting creative about integrating other forms of art into my
classroom as a teacher.

Week 2 Due 10.19.20

Chapter 4

One of the first things that stood out to me in this chapter is the text’s unwavering belief in
children and the singing skills they can accomplish. I have never experienced - as a teacher or as
a student myself - younger children, as in the age of elementary school, being able to sing and
perform skills from what I consider higher level pieces like rounds or canons. Seeing the book
talk about it like an ideal thing, in the sense that all children are capable of this, made me
excited to see this in my own students but also a little intimidated because I have no idea how to
go about it. I loved reading what the text had to say about the child’s voice changing as it grows
older, because then we as teachers can give them appropriate repertoire to work on. This is
especially important for the middle school level, since that is the age where children become
more aware of societal gender roles placed upon them. I can be more aware of the diction I use if
I understand how children at that age feel about singing. Reading the Toward Accurate Singing
section made me feel more confident in how to help my students recognize melody movement. I
love the idea of mapping, or teaching the students body movements to help them feel the
direction of the melody. This reminds me of Kodaly solfege signs with the hand or with the body.
I also personally really liked the importance portrayed of giving the first note and a steady
tempo before having your students sing, and to always set them up for success. There were also
wonderful resources given for where to find repertoire for students learning to sing, so that they
can have a varied selection. I think the most useful section for me was the section on how to
teach singing two parts. I honestly didn’t even think it was possible for children as young as
third or fourth grade to be able sing such songs, but the book taught me that with the right
repertoire and good modeling, young children are more capable than the average person
assumes them to be.

Chapter 5

This chapter goes more in depth into how to teach students pitch and how to think about
melodies in their own lives. Seeing how the book broke down learning pitch into a progression
that made sense from most basic to more advanced made me more comfortable with
approaching how to teach pitch to my students. As a beginning teacher, I only know the student
side of learning things, and I’m not sure how I really learned them. I’m glad to re-learn pitch
accuracy in a way that I can help my students best understand. At first, I didn’t understand the
book’s emphasis on the importance of children being able to tell the difference between
melodies and their contours. Then I realized that the first step to being able to sing and identify
melodies is understanding what makes them different from each other. Something else that
stood out to me in this chapter was that we should not talk about pitches being high or low, but
rather as being higher or lower, moving upward or downward because music is in motion. I did
not know this, but students around the age of six or seven can understand the concept of major
and minor scales. We teach them this using scale songs such as “Alle Meine Entchen” and “Frere
Jacques”. (Traditional songs in English like to use perfect fifth jumps…)
Week 4 Due 11.02.20

Chapter 6

This chapter emphasizes the importance of movement being a crucial factor to a child’s musical
development. This makes a lot of sense to me; since young children’s brains are still developing,
movement can help them get a sense of rhythm or melody in their bodies even if they can’t
explain or understand it with words. I really love the idea of movement helping students
understand music, and music motivating them to move. This natural cycle has an incredible
potential for some serious musical understanding in our students. I also particularly liked when
the text advised to set boundaries when having the students engage in movement activities, to
keep the classroom from becoming too chaotic. Children are filled with a lot of energy, and it’s
our job as teachers to channel that energy into productive musical learning! The text also tells of
the importance of action songs and playground songs. Even without music class, children are
singing while they play. As a teacher, I would definitely take advantage of my students’ natural
inclination to such fun tunes.

Chapter 7

This chapter explores ways that children learn and interact with rhythm. I love the idea that
rhythm without the context of music is almost meaningless, and that as a teacher, I should
always strive to connect rhythmic concepts to songs and/or movement. As with singing, I am
once again impressed by the advanced rhythms the book claims students of such a young age
can grasp the idea of and begin to execute. Something that the text brought to my attention I
think would be useful for me personally to think about is the importance of teaching duration
when introducing rhythm to my students. As a percussionist, a lot of our instruments do not
sustain. I understand how it wouldn’t be good if students saw a half note, then saw a quarter
note and a quarter rest and thought for both of them, ‘Wait’. For a snare drum, the two rhythms
would sound the same. But even percussionists need to understand the concept of duration in
order to fully understand rhythm in music. I very much like the idea of using words that
students do know to help teach them rhythms they do not.

Week 5 Due 11.09.20

Chapter 8

This chapter talks about instrumental playing in students, which was a really interesting read
during a quarantine where all our teaching is over zoom. This has given me a new perspective
towards instrument teaching and has challenged me to get creative in how we are to teach the
students instrumental music. Some things I think about when it comes to instrumental music is
resources. So far, everything in our text has been something we’re able to execute with little to
no resources, and more with just our brains and our experiences. When I think of teaching
students instruments, I think about how varied the degree of resources that each student will
have access to is. Some students will be able to practice at home, some students will not. Some
students will be able to afford private lessons, some will not. And most, if not all students will
need the instrument provided to them by the school. So just by reading the first few paragraphs,
I think of all the assumptions that come with teaching music instruments, as opposed to just
music. The text moves on to a section about body percussion, and I feel a little better. Body
percussion is a great way to help students understand and quite literally feel musical concepts
like rhythm. It can also help make connections and bring meaning to melodies in music. Moving
on to non-pitched percussion instruments, reading this section made me realize the importance
of having students play an instrument that suits what stage of development they’re at in terms of
coordination. If you give a student an instrument that is too complex for them at that age (for
instance, giving your average kindergartener a violin to play during music class), they won’t be
able to see past the technicalities or difficulties of that instrument and will lose interest in music,
or they will think music is too hard for them. Using body percussion and non-pitched
instruments can help students connect to and develop a love for music before they get scared
away by the technicalities of playing a more complex instrument. I loved reading about the Orff
instruments, it’s a brilliant way to help the students play with tonality without it being too
complicated to play.

Week 6 Due 11.16.20

Chapter 9

When I first read the title of this chapter, I was simultaneously excited and nervous. I was
nervous because I’ve always felt it hard to discern a child’s listening, since it goes on in their
head, where I can’t see it. But I was also excited, because I was about to learn how! The book
goes on to talk about how important listening is to music making. It makes me wish I had more
of a foundation in listening and playing. I had just been playing instruments since the recorder
in fourth grade. I do think that a lot of Western music education is centered around notation,
and it has led students to rely more on their eyes than their ears when it comes to listening. This
sounds preposterous, but it's true! So I agree with the book all the more that it’s incredibly
important for students to develop their listening skills as soon and as much as possible. I like
that the book says this: “Children need to learn to reflect on the quality of their own and others’
performances.” Without this, what is the point of music? Reading on, I realized that just because
months-old babies can’t form words to describe that they’re hearing, it doesn’t mean they’re not
listening! This concept makes me ponder on the idea that listening to music and developing the
vocabulary to describe it are two different skills, and we as teachers need to strengthen them
both in our students. I also loved learning about how open young elementary level students are
to a wide variety of music. This is a crucial time in their lives to be exposed to music that they
probably won’t hear very often later in life if they’re not seeking it out. For instance, music like
gamelan music, classical Indian music, and music of indigenous peoples. The book also gives
good advice for what the music we have our students listen to should try to accomplish; it should
be challenging them culturally and skill-wise, the students may need time to get familiar with
some pieces, and that we should help them practice how to put sound into words the best they
can.

Week 7 Due 11.23.20

Chapter 10

This chapter was about encouraging creativity in a child’s musical journey. The book explained
how teaching music without composition or improvisation is like “teaching writing by having
children copy other people’s work.” That blew my mind because English teachers would never
have students do that! I see composition, improvisation, and creativity in music now as one of
the most, if not the most important aspect of music education in children. I liked how the text
defines the difference between convergent thinking and divergent thinking. I see the problem
with convergent thinking in the entire American education system, not just in music. Students
should always be taught that there might be (and often is) more than one answer to any given
situation. In regards to music, this encourages creative thinking, which in turn produces better
and more fulfilling musicianship. Reading the chart on page 266, I appreciated the summary of
the development of creative thinking in children. Young students first need the freedom to
explore musical instruments and ideas with little to no structure, but when they get older a
teacher can start asking them to connect meaning to what they are creating. The next step would
be to help them constructively critique their own works. The text then offered brilliant examples
of creative activities.

Week 8 Due 11.30.20

Chapter 15

I loved the intro the textbook gave to this chapter, explaining how the acknowledgement of
multicultural and multiethnic music is relevant to the diversity we will find in our students
today. I also like how the book addressed that covering multicultural music can seem daunting
because it’s so broad. A personal benefit I see to covering this in the musical curriculum of
young students especially is that they will learn that they will learn that music doesn’t just come
from America and that it has other functions than entertainment. I like how the book
emphasizes that this generation of students need to be more understanding of people different
from them. The text goes on to dismantle common difficulties teachers might face when
thinking about covering multicultural music in their curriculum. It provided useful ways to
overcome hesitance that might prevent teachers from teaching it at all. For example, the book
advises to work collaboratively with other teachers of the arts if one is having trouble fitting
multicultural music into their schedule. I liked how the text reminded me to teach the students a
single concept from a specific culture’s music, like a rhythm commonly found in Cuban music or
a melody of traditional Japanese music. It makes the idea of it all a bit more digestible, and the
students will be able to appreciate it as well. I also loved how the book emphasized the
importance of teachers becoming multi-faceted musicians and educating themselves on musical
styles from many different cultures. I really appreciated how the book was stern in telling its
readers to take seriously the authenticity of music that is learned orally by not always deferring
to notation. I do agree that listening is a super important skill that’s growth is sometimes
stunted by the over-emphasis of notation in Western music education.

Week 9 Due 12.07.20

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 of the text focused on motivation and management, things every teacher must learn
to master to succeed in the classroom. The book says it clearly: “the ultimate goal of any
motivational or management technique is to help students learn responsibility for motivating
and managing themselves.” This makes a lot of sense to me, that students should do well
because they want to, and it also helps relieve the teacher of extra work if the students are
already self-motivated and managed. It was also super relieving for me to hear that mastering
these skills takes a long time, since there are different kids each year, and they even change
within the year. I enjoyed reading about the three different types of motivation; internal
motivation, external motivation, and the motivation from the task itself. I do believe a teacher
should be thinking of all three to help their students succeed. Reading the section on
competitive motivation, I can conclude that using competition can be tricky. I feel like that type
of motivation is more personalized to certain students. If I were to try and use it in a classroom,
I’d take caution. Maybe I would use a small form of competitive motivation to gauge the
students’ reaction to it, in a way that wouldn’t be too damaging to their self-esteem if it
resonated poorly. I thought the chapter’s section on Parent, Child, and Adult voices was
interesting. It was a way to try and convey the attitudes behind the way someone chooses to
interact or respond to something. I love the idea of Cooperative Learning and how working in
groups can help students learn better self-management. It can teach the students to do more
independent or cooperative thinking, instead of just doing whatever the teacher says.

Week 10 Due 12.14.20

Chapter 16

Chapter 16 was I feel, the most interesting and one of the most practical chapters in the
textbook. This chapter covered exceptional students, which the book defined as “individuals
whose physical, mental, or behavioral performance deviates so substantially from the average
(higher or lower) that additional support is required to meet the individual’s
needs” (Hardman, Drew, and Egan, 2011, p. 11). This includes not only differently abled
children, but children whose skills exceed far above their classmates’. I think about the
importance of this chapter and its content in that these exceptional students are the ones who
often slip through the cracks when academia had previously neglected any specialized assistance
these individuals needed in their education. I loved reading the section on Person-First
Language, as that’s something I’m still in the process of mastering. I do feel that the way we
approach discussing topics like these heavily influences our priorities and methods we use to
provide accessibility to all students. Music is so important in helping exceptional students
because it facilitates growth in ways that other classes cannot. It provides practical and engaging
ways to help the students learn about themselves and how to interact with others - essential life
skills that can only benefit their futures. The main thing that this chapter has taught me is that
when teachers are faced with exceptional students, the answer is not to separate them from the
other students in isolation (even if that might be easier for the teacher), but to bring the
students together inclusively, so that all the students can learn from each other and benefit from
everyone’s unique skills and perspectives.