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!

Hey MIE Blog readers! Got some great news for you. We have finally given a name to the music program we started last year in Chinatown. We’re calling it MusicLaunch, and it’s going to be an amazing opportunity for both our MIE interns and for community youth.

NEC’s MusicLaunch was founded in 2010 in partnership with the Wang YMCA of Chinatown (Boston). MusicLaunch is an innovative community-minded music education lab, where programs and curricula are driven by the dynamic, multi-faceted, and versatile faculty of NEC’s Continuing Ed Music-in-Education Certificate Program. It follows the YMCA’s commitment to “developing the potential of every child” with its open enrollment (no audition) policy and classes that encourage music literacy from the ground up, starting with parent/child music circles (ages 2-5). Small-group lessons in guitar, band instruments, and recorder are also offered.

Like the YMCA, MusicLaunch is committed to promoting social responsibility, critical thinking, and socio-emotional development. While many arts organizations focus on free performances as their way of giving back, MusicLaunch instead puts experiential, hands-on learning and multi-level (sometimes, multi-generational) instruction at its core. Youth are guided, mentored, and instructed by experienced teaching artists from NEC’s Continuing Ed faculty, as well as by adult intern volunteers from the MIE Certificate Program.

Here are some posts from Devin U, who started out the MusicLaunch guitar program last year.

Editor’s Note: This post is the fourteenth in a series by MIE guided intern Devin Ulibarri. Devin is a first year graduate student of Eliot Fisk. His internship at the Wang YMCA is supported both by the MIE department and NEC Prep’s Community Engagement program. Read others in the series here.

Both Janea and Jason have put in good work and displayed performances the reflect their progress!

Editor’s Note: This post is the fourteenth in a series by MIE guided intern Devin Ulibarri. Devin is a first year graduate student of Eliot Fisk. His internship at the Wang YMCA is supported both by the MIE department and NEC Prep’s Community Engagement program. Read others in the series here.

“Real learning is a volitional act…”– Eric Booth
Journal for Learning Through Music/Summer 2003

Jason was the first one to learn ‘My First Rock Song’ during one of the weeks that Janea was away (she learned it the following week). I think that the lead in to this piece was a very good example of what Eric Booth is talking about when he says that “learning is a volitional act.” The lesson that day was very spontaneous. Jason asked many questions and I answered them with improvised, musical answers. For example, he mentioned how the thumb seems to attack more comfortable when it is the lower strings and when the motion is opposite to that of the other fingers. This was a very astute observation in itself and I was taken aback by his making it. Then, I decided to keep the momentum going by taking it one step further. I asked myself, “why not learn about the thumb now? He is asking good questions, what can I do with the thumb and open strings?”

So together we played a blues progression in A major, using the open bass strings, E, A and D. He did very well following along and asked, “Is this ‘My First Rock Song?’ I replied that it wasn’t and that we had just made it up together, then he asked me if we could learn ‘My First Rock Song’ today. Again, I decided to go with the momentum that Jason was providing and we learned ‘My First Rock Song’ together. The following week we reviewed and showed Janea how to play and sing the piece.

Editor’s Note: This post is the twelfth in a series by MIE guided intern Devin Ulibarri. Devin is a first year graduate student of Eliot Fisk. His internship at the Wang YMCA is supported both by the MIE department and NEC Prep’s Community Engagement program. Read others in the series here.

Janea always asks very good questions. Today’s big question was, “why do you play with your fingers?” The simplest answer is that you can’t do what I do with a pick. I hope that my demonstration speaks for itself.

As for strumming – I think that is cool too and there are definitely sounds a pick can make that fingers can’t, but I think that there is a lot more benefit to be had from starting with finger-style, especially in the early stages since the possibilities are almost limitless.

Editor’s Note: This post is the eleventh in a series by MIE guided intern Devin Ulibarri. Devin is a first year graduate student of Eliot Fisk. His internship at the Wang YMCA is supported both by the MIE department and NEC Prep’s Community Engagement program. Read others in the series here.

What’s up with “The Ninja?” The kids have some good guesses, but the thumb in the left hand is the ninja because it hides. This is an easy and fun way to learn a technique that will help Jason and Janea play with their fingers and produce simultaneous lines. The thumb must be behind the fretboard in order to support and allow the other fingers flexibility. I then take it one step further by challenging them to move up and down the fretboard.

Editor’s Note: This post is the tenth in a series by MIE guided intern Devin Ulibarri. Devin is a first year graduate student of Eliot Fisk. His internship at the Wang YMCA is supported both by the MIE department and NEC Prep’s Community Engagement program. Read others in the series here.

Jason’s First Fretted Note –

The technique needed for playing the classical guitar is a balance of musicianship, well-planned acrobatics and, yes, that last extra push during a practice session. Jason did really well with his right hand, but he discovered that the first few notes using the left hand can be a little painful at first. He stuck through it and the first thing that he did the following week was play “I’m a Little Chipmunk” and tell me how, “last week it was hard, but now it’s not. I don’t know why.” Hard work pays off – that’s why!