It is often assumed that you need to be a musician in order to
participate in the music making process. Part of our jobs as music educators is
to open doors to students to experience music in ways they had not anticipated
before as well as in ways that we cannot currently anticipate. Western music
specifically has been known to function within certain boundaries that have
been established over hundreds of years, so those who are not familiar with the
musical notation or vocabulary may have a very difficult time finding their way
into the music world. It is our jobs as educators to find ways to make our
subject matter accessible to every student in our classroom.
The tools that we've gathered through our
collaboration can be used in any classroom that we may find ourselves in. The
benefit of these technologies are that many of them are found online and can be
accessed from any computer at anytime, allowing the creative process to continue
outside of the classroom, whether it be by homework assignment or by choice of
the student.
Some of these tools can be used in our CURR 314 module to as a
tool for intermediary assessment throughout a unit plan to determine how
effectively we are teaching and well our students are retaining the information
discussed in class. There are valuable resources on our database as well that
can easily speak to our READ 411 in terms of developing literacy and critical
comprehension in the discourse of music and creating music.
I totally agree with you, on how our job as music educators is to open doors to students and so forth. I also think that you hit the nail on the head in your first paragraph when you furthered the job of educators and what we can/should do for our students and how things affect them in terms of western music. I also think we had a great list overall for our group project. These technologies will definitely help out in our future classrooms, and even now.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am not a music major, thoughout my life music has played an important role in inspiring & entertaining me. I do believe that most individuals are under the mindset that to produce music one must have expensive instruments & singular talent. This might be true if you wish to achieve stardom, however there are decent musicians that create worthwhile music using atypical instruments or just their voice & creativity. Music is an element that has major influence on today's youth. Unfortunately, many school-aged youth conform to solely listening to the contemporary music they are exposed to in their common surrounding. Much of this music may contain negative messages which many decide to listen to because it is what they find available & popular. Students should be encouraged to be original & creative in their search for appealing music. They should be inspired to express how they personally feel & think through the choice of music they listen to, instead of conforming to the often brainwashing messages of the status quo music. Ultimately, they can have the potential to even begin to produce their own music in which they voice their own unique perspectives & approaches to life.
ReplyDeleteCassie, can you help me understand what are some ways to make subject matter accessible in the classroom?
ReplyDelete