11/13/09 Triple Entry Journals in “Intro to Music in Education
On October 13th, Michael Glicksman presented a video of a composition lesson with his 2nd grade students at the Atrium school in Watertown, MA to the Music-In-Education Introduction class at NEC. In the lesson, students listened to a poem written by a fellow student earlier that year and, with Michael’s guidance, were able to analyze the repetition of words or phrases within the poem. The students then composed a piece of music using various percussive and pitched instruments based on the poem. The video shown in MIE class documented the process of creating and performing music, from talking about the poem, picking instruments, deciding where an how to use instruments, all the way to the actual performance.
Before the video began, Michael and professor Larry Scripp asked a question of the class: “To what extent does studying music increase understanding of poetics, and vice versa, to what extend does studying music increase understanding of music?†Professor Scripp also reminded students to use Triple Entry Journals while they viewed the video. These three column journals are tools for learning and note-taking: the first column is reserved for objective information in the form of quotations, observations, etc. The second column is reserved for a subjective or personal response, and the third column is used to draw meaningful implications to Music-in-Education.
As the current documentation specialist for this class, I am most interested in researching how class participants are encouraged and inspired to use the key topics in class in their own learning and exploration of MIE. I feel that this presentation by Michael Glicksman was designed, at least partly to encourage students to inquire and to use the five learning processes (Listen, Question, Create, Perform, Reflect) of Music plus Music Integration. Inquiry, the question presented before the video, created a context for an educational activity. The use of triple entry journals provided structure for engagement in that inquiry.
An example of my own use of triple entry journals for Lyle Davidson’s Music, Brain Development, and Learning. I went through a process of finding a good way to organize my thoughts and research. The first column is objective information from a reading, the second contains connections to other readings and personal experience, and the third is my reflection on implications for a research paper and MIE in general.
It took me a while to look at triple entry notes critically. The idea was first presented to me a year ago, when I took Intro to MIE solely as a student. Since then, I’ve been involved in MIE in a number of ways, and triple entry journals have become vital to my learning. I find that, especially when I get overwhelmed with concepts, ideas, or just too much information, creating an inquiry question (setting context) and setting that MIE context in the third column of a triple entry journal focuses my attention completely on the task at hand. Suddenly, I’m able efficiently engage myself in a learning experience in which I’m always setting goals (converting objective experience in the other two columns) and getting feedback about my work.
I think Michael’s presentation, while a great opportunity for Michael to explore his own teaching and get feedback, became, at least for me, an opportunity to explore key MIE ideas about learning.
Please use the following links to view a clip of Michael’s inquiry question and part of a class discussion after Michael’s presentation: