Editor’s Note: This is Melody Jenkin’s third post in a series of three regarding her internship this semester. You can view follow-up posts to this one, and her internship proposal, here.

I can’t believe that the Outreach Opera performances have finally come to a close.  I’ve learned so much this semester about Music-in-Education, teaching, and working with kids.  Posted below are a couple videos of interviews with the students after they had completed my study guide, but before they viewed the performances.  I was pleased with the amount of knowledge they retained from the guides.  I noticed that the lessons where they had to do more activities were the lessons that they remembered most.

Touring Opera Student Interview

Another Student Interview

Here are some great questions they had about the performance after they had seen it:

When was your character born?

How do you sing so loud?

Were you nervous before you went on stage?

How do you feel when you are singing?

How did opera start?

Can kids sing opera?

I think that these are all great questions that the kids are asking.  Inquisition plays a large part in education.  These questions show that the students have a lot of interest in learning more about opera.  I’m glad that the workbook and the performance sparked their interest.

One of the main ideas that I wanted to get across to the kids is that anyone can participate in and enjoy music.  Sometimes the student’s initial reactions would be, “I could never do something like that,” but we try to show them that they can.  Music is a specialized field, but not any more so than math, for example.  Many have more of an aptitude for math or a talent for music, but both are worth studying and can be appreciated by anyone.

The video below shows a peak into one of our first explorations of using ‘Multiple Representations’ to teach musical concepts at the YMCA in Chinatown. The video shows intern, Pui, taking the lead in demonstrating rhythmic concepts, numeric pitch identification and solfege using Lego blocks that we found in the classroom at the YMCA. The students were surprised by this use of the Lego blocks initially, but caught on quickly.

At the beginning of the video is the initial introduction of rhythmic concepts. One sees intern MusicLaunch intern, Pui, pointing to a block and together with intern Devin Ulibarri demonstrating the desired action – in this case, clapping according to the size of the blocks. The clapping patterns were introduced separately (1,2 and 3 beats), but were combined to create an 8 beat pattern consisting of three of the smaller patterns. The students were then asked to manipulate the blocks in order to come up with their own structures. For example at 0’53” in the video, one observes Kayla’s pattern (2+1+3) and then her brother changing the pattern (2+3+1). This moment is important because it empowers the student and demonstrates that musical concepts can be mastered and manipulated – it develops their creativity.

At 4’22” into the video, one can see the culmination of the entire lesson. In this final review, Pui asks students to identify the solfege names of the notes by hinting at the numeric name. Pui asks the class what the second pitch in the scale is to which a student answers, “Re”. Pui then asks the class to answer using pitch to which the class accurately sings the intended pitches that she is identifying using her fingers (numeric name). At the end of the review, Pui tests the students mastery by asking them to skip “Re” and accurately sing “Mi” from “Do” – the students have some difficulty doing this, but this is their first time and subsequent videos will reveal their progress.

The video ends with quick demonstrations of other types of multiple representations that we have used in the break off sections of MusicLaunch. Future blog posts will keep you posted on the significance of these other forms of multiple representations and how they have helped the development of the students in MusicLaunch at the YMCA in Chinatown.

Editor’s Note: This is Melody Jenkin’s second post in a series of three regarding her internship this semester. You can view follow-up posts to this one, and her internship proposal, here.

I’ve had the privilege of working with NEC’s Touring Children’s Opera through the Community Performances and Partnerships Program. The internship involves several things: writing lesson plans for the teachers to prepare their students to see the opera, scheduling all of the performances at local elementary schools, speaking to the students about opera before the performances, documenting the work, and making surveys to send out to the schools.

I found myself facing many challenges and questions. Such as:

• Which information and exercises are the most important for the study guides?
• How can the kids take something away from just five lessons before the performance?
• What did they learn from the packet?
• What did they learn from experiencing the performance?

Although these questions aren’t completely answered, I feel that I’m on the right path. Today we performed for the schools in Rockport, MA. The students were incredibly receptive to the pre-performance talks and to the show itself, which is Bizet’s Doctor Miracle. When I asked one student what opera was she said, “That’s easy… it’s a singing and dancing play.” I thought that summed it up well! At this point, I think that any information or excitement we share about music is contagious to the kids. I heard them talking about the different characters in the opera with each other on the way out after the performance.

Editor’s Note: This post is in a series of several by undergraduate composition major Juhye Lee. Read Juhye’s previous MusicLaunch posts here. Or you can also see the whole MusicLaunch blog archive.

Today Devin and Pui tried to teach the rhythms and pitches with the blocks. They started to clap according to the blocks. For instance one block means clap once (which could be quarter note) and the longer block of the two is followed by clapping twice(which could be two eighth notes in quarter note). Singing the pitches were followed by the rhythms. Singing One-Two-Three (which is Do-Re-Mi) was added to the rhythms they were clapping. Do (in a quarter note), Do-re( in a quarter note, so there would be two divided notes of quarter notes, which are two eighth notes), Do-re-mi(Each do-re-mi is an eighth note singing in two quarter notes as (8th rest)-do-re-mi). I was curious when they sing do, do-re, (rest)-do-re-mi, The do-re and (rest)-do-re-mi has eighth notes in each, not a quarter note as the first Do. The next step would be building a harmony on Do-re-mi as singing the thrid above them(Which is mi-fa-sol). The kids will naturally learn about the sounds of thrid intervals.

In Pui’s Class, most of them were beginner and I could see that every kid’s ability (understanding, time that take them to get Pui’s teaching) was different even though they all are in the same situation.

About a year and a half ago, I was given the opportunity to initiate an education-based Community Engagement program under the auspices of NEC’s Preparatory/Continuing Education division, led by Leslie Foley, the (then) newly-appointed Dean & Executive Director of NEC’s Preparatory/Continuing Education division. At the time, I had been working with the Music-in-Education National Consortium, managing its FIPSE grant and consulting on documentation & portfolio assessment practices for its teacher professional development (“PD”)-driven elementary music programs.

Throughout my time with the MIENC (roughly 2004-2011), teacher and teaching artist training became an increasingly large part of how the programs were designed and implemented. I would travel with a small team of other experts and give PD sessions on a regular basis at each school; sometimes at many schools within a district, or at a district/region-wide teacher conference. While the other experts usually focused on standards-based curriculum design and teaching methods, my area of specialty was classroom documentation. I’d observe individual classes, meet with the teachers one-on-one, and offer advice on how to document and exhibit their work (in school community spaces; in online digital portfolios; on blogs, etc.) so as to simultaneously showcase their curricula, teaching style, student learning outcomes, answer project inquiry questions, and how their classrooms meet‐and often exemplify— inquiry questions and content/subject area/grade-level standards. We’d also look at how to design student assessments so that they could easily be used in those kinds of ways. Teachers loved the opportunity to demonstrate the artistry of their teaching, side-by-side with the development of their students’ scholarship.

Towards the later part of my MIENC tenure, I began freelancing as an educational researcher with Larry Scripp and served with him as a consultant for the PAIR Program (Partnerships in Arts Integrated Research), led by the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education organization. In that project, math & social studies classrooms (3rd-5th graders) were paired with music, drama, sculpture, and painting teaching artists, and we were charged with designing a portfolio program to document and assess those outcomes, as well as collect reflections by students, teachers, and teaching artists. Many of the participants (kids and adults alike) had never participated in a program where portfolio documentation was central to the curricula, and in the beginning, we had to do a lot of teacher training to setup the structure for collecting rich documentation, particularly when it came to eliciting student responses. Part of the challenge was finding a way to exhibit this data in ways that were rich, conversational, and authentic to both the kids and the teachers/teaching artists.

We eventually devised an interview protocol that put 2-3 kids at the same table as their classroom teacher and teaching artists, in which they had the chance to reflect on they learned (individually and from each other) throughout the semester; and perform or demonstrate their composition (music or play). Most students relished the chance to ‘show off’ for their teachers in a non-classroom setting, which was pleasantly met by their teachers’ candor. Unsurprisingly, this type of exchange boosted camaraderie back in the classroom, raised students’ self-esteem, and provided a rising platform for quality student participation.

From these two particular experiences, I saw first-hand the positive benefits of having a strong documentation component in music-integrated programs, and it’s from that vantage point that MusicLaunch was born. Like the MIENC initiatives and the PAIR program, MusicLaunch combines the two worlds of teacher professional development and demonstrating student understanding:

• MusicLaunch teachers and interns both have a hand in documenting the student experience, and in fact, kids do too. (Kids love taking video of themselves and each other!) A frequent activity is watching the videos together and reflecting on what the camera captured.
• From the ‘moments of learning,’ ‘aha! stories,’ and similar vignettes captured by documentation, we can look across them for meta-themes and overarching inquiry questions. What questions does this kind of anecdotal evidence answer, and to what degree are those questions different from the ones we set out to answer?
• Each week begins, and ends, with collaborative sessions with all students talking and sharing in the same room, in a structured reflection session facilitated by ML staff. Children are encouraged to demonstrate what they learned and—regardless of their age group, chosen instrument, or skill level—teach it to their peers. (We believe this to be a crucial first step in developing children’s musical and cognitive self-awareness!)
• All documentation is collected and organized by ML interns, and will be assembled into an evolving digital portfolio, to be shared and discussed with parents at designated times throughout the year.

Stay tuned for more posts as MusicLaunch grows and blooms this year, particularly from our interns and teaching staff!

It’s that time again! MIE @ NEC students are working on their digital portfolios and I post links to recent exemplary ones.

All links here have been cleared with their respective authors for public sharing.

School Project Portfolios

• Auburn Elementary

• Exploring relationships between Math and Music at Hickory Hills Elementary

• The Music PLUS Music Integration Violin Program at the Atrium School

Internship Portfolios

• Building a Culture of Assessment for A Street Music
• The Wang YMCA’s New Music Program

Seminar Portfolios

• MIE Teaching Seminar (Spring 2010)
• Introduction to MIE Seminar (Fall 2009)

Cumulative Portfolios

• Improvising in Education (Spring 2009)

My name is Soo Kyung Chung, a 1st year Master’s student in Music Theory, so what am I doing at theMendell School with 2nd grade kids?
I am helping with a creative program called “The Cantata Singers” that encougages kids to compose and perform.
What a great idea that kids can compose! While mostly we learn music by singing or playing an instrument, kids in “ The Cantata Singers” discover music not only by singing but also composing.
Although we only meet for about one hour, the program is rich. The first part is to learn singing. In this program, kids approach music through very general terms. For example, students learn how the melody is shaped. By using one hand, the kids designed the rising or falling lines of melody. I think that following the melody with finger movement is a good method to figure out the shape of melody. The kids could understand that melody could be conjoint(stepwise) or disjoint(leap) and ascending or descending.
The kids also learn about the dynamic of how soft or loud music can be created. The depth of between two hands indicated the loudness. If an instructor shows a large depth by spreading her hands apart vertically, the kids respond with the loud sound [u]. When she puts her hands together to show a shorter depth, the kids respond with a softer sound. In this way, the 2nd graders learn about dynamics in a way that is fun, simple and very visual.
The second part is to participate in a small group where kids compose with a group leader. We have four small groups. Every group has a different topic about the Mexican culture. I work with Sojourner, a 2nd semester’s composition at NEC as one of group learders. The compositional style is totally free. Kids can emphasize any words that they like by melody or rhythm. If one student initiates the idea, the other kids can finish it. Or if one makes an ascending melody at the end of the phrase, and the other wants descending melody, we can make a melody by combining each phrase consecutively. One of the leader’s jobs is to catch what kids want by singing back to them because often young students are not good at pitch so it is hard to understand. We also write down what they are singing, and show music score what they did the previous week. They are so happy to see their achivements.
At the end of each session, each group shares what they have done. We listen to each group’s song, and learn some melodies. Each group has such different styles of music that I am always surprised.
Last week, we made a song over the course of 5-6 sessions. All of the 2nd graders will learn group’s song, and perform them for other students at the Mendell School. Later, on May 6th, the Mendell students will join with another group participating in the “ The Cantata Singers” program, at a local elementary school. I invite you to come listen to these great young musicians.