Week 2, Reflection 1

Well hello again, it’s good to see you all.

This week we will be discussing a few topics.  The first is good pedagogy, my understanding and an example of good pedagogy from my experience.  To make this section more interesting, I created a short video using a 3D program called ‘Alice’, I hope you enjoy!  The second item on the agenda is Bloom’s Taxonomy, SAMR and more specifically what links them together to create a deeper understanding of effective teaching methods.

In the video above you will have noticed a lot of different ideas on what good pedagogies are.  There is just one problem. All of the things that make good pedagogical content can make bad pedagogy as well; it all depends on the learners. Let me give you a for instance:

I currently teach in primary schools, and I have this group of boys learning trumpet and they just don’t seem to understand the saying ‘Practice makes Perfect’. It has been a very trying few weeks for me, repeating the same information and the same exercises week in, week out. I tried re arranging where they sat in the classroom. I did theory with them, teaching them ‘FACE’ and ‘EveryGoodBoyDeservesFruit’, but it seemed to no avail. I set them a homework task last week. I sent them home with a piece of sheet music filled with notes, all over the page and their task was to write the note names underneath and bring it back, using the mnemonics that I taught them over and over again.

And the result?

Majority of the notes were named correctly, they had even placed the mnemonics underneath the homework so they had something to relate to. I had them chanting the sayings in class numerous times and in this class where they gave me their homework, it seems that I actually had gotten through to them, I just hadn’t given them a chance to show me what they can do!

In that same lesson, the boys started learning pieces of music in their ‘Tradition of Excellence’ books. I hadn’t started them in the book because they didn’t seem to be grasping what I was teaching, but when we opened to the first page and I quizzed them on what the notes were they had almost no trouble answering me. And when I had them play, their rhythms were correct and their notes were too!! I had only gone through rhythm with them as a theory on the whiteboard but they knew. They had remembered what I had been teaching them through mnemonics, repetition, chanting, written tasks and practice. I was teaching using good pedagogies, but I wasn’t seeing them as good, making teaching lessons harder and learning even harder.


Ok, now that effective pedagogy is out of the way let’s dive into the fun world of Bloom’s taxonomy and SAMR. Blooms taxonomy is a way to promote higher forms of thinking in classrooms through activities where analysing and evaluating concepts, principles, processes and procedures are used to help students have a deeper understanding of the subject content they are taught. This helps student’s move away from rote learning (just remembering the facts) so that their knowledge of the content grows and their understanding develops at a higher level.  Blooms’ taxonomy began with three domains of educational activities to enhance students understanding, but through continuous research has developed and grown, using technologies and more modern concepts to enhance the student learning.

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html#cognitive

The SAMR model works in the same way as Blooms taxonomy does. SAMR is a way to enhance and transform students learning so that they have a deeper understanding of the subject being taught and I have included a short video below explaining SAMR further, using technology in classrooms as an example: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us0w823KY0g

As you can see from the SAMR video and the brief explanation of Blooms taxonomy, there is not much that differs between the two pedagogical methods. Blooms taxonomy can be used to break down the SAMR model further and when used together will create the best learning environment for students, where their knowledge and understanding of subjects enhance and transform and their cognitive vortex is engaged and retaining the information discussed through activities and different pedagogical methods. This link between the SAMR model and Blooms Taxonomy is demonstrated perfectly in the image below as it shows what skills and activities will enhance and transform students understandings.

Stay tuned, because up next is my reflection on ‘De Bono’s Hats’!!

References:
Good Pedagogies - Made by me, using: www.alice.org

Google Images

Donald Clark (1999-2015) Bloom's Taxonomy on Learning Domains, retrieved from: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html#cognitive

Candace M (2013) SAMR in 120 Seconds, retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us0w823KY0g

Week 1: The Learning Theories

Hello again J

This is also week 1’s tasks but I have decided to split the information into two posts so you don’t get bored with me and close your RAS’s (:P) The task set for this blog post is to reflect on the 3 learning theories which are: behaviourism; cognitivism; and social cognitivism and add in what I think about connectivism – which isn’t one of the three learning theories but plays a major role in using ICT’s in modern classrooms to advance students learning.  I will start by explaining what each of the learning theories are in relation to my teaching area.

Behaviourism is where as you teach a student their behaviours change around what you have taught them. In the case of instrumental teaching, as I teach a trumpet player to sit with his/her back up straight, feet flat on the floor, with the correct embouchure and to hold the trumpet up and not let it drop, and I continue to reiterate that this is the correct way to play the trumpet, the students behaviour will change around this information and he/she will automatically sit with feet flat, back straight and correct embouchure before playing.

Cognitivism in instrumental music is the knowledge of notes, scales, correct fingering, all of the theory behind playing an instrument being repeated until the information is stored in the students long term memory.  If I didn’t repeat the information that I taught a student regarding the theory behind performance, the information would only barely make it to the students short term memory and they will eventually forget.

In Instrumental Music, and orchestras more importantly, social cognitivism is where the students learn from each other and discuss what they have learnt in lessons, furthering their knowledge and engraining it into their memories further.

Connectivism would help instrumentalists as they could advertise if there are upcoming performances on Facebook, Google, twitter, any social media sites so their audiences will grow and they will get more coverage for the events they do.  Students who study music could also get in contact with professional performers and learn from their experiences; create a blog and talk through the pros and cons that they have come across during their learning experiences and even find music that they would like to perform and bring it to bands, making their learning more self-directed.

From my experiences teaching these past few weeks and learning since grade 5, there is no one learning theory that informs successful learning approaches. All of the learning theories are important to music education and how students learn.

Week 1: Know your Learner

This week’s tasks started with a webinar by psychologist and teacher Judy Willis.  The Key features she talked about in “How the Brain Learns Best” was what causes stress in classrooms; how to de-stress students so they learn better and ideas to get the course materials through students ‘RAS’, into the Limbic System and finally into the Pre-Frontal Cortex or “Thinking Brain”.

Ok, so I know all of that sounds a little scary.  And it is.  Until it gets broken down into sections, so here goes:

First with stress. I found the stress part of the webinar interesting because –although she went into stress only briefly – she talked about ways to de-stress situations and related back to simple human nature.  Or should I say, Mother Nature.  Judy Willis used the analogy that students are like baby foxes. A fox will pop its head out of its home to discover if anything has changed. It smells sees and feels danger. The same goes for students. If something is different, they will immediately begin to stress.  

When the RAS closes because a student gets stressed, it has been recorded that students react in three main ways.  They fight back with the teacher, they flee from the stressful situation or they freeze completely.  In the webinar, Judy Willis provides ways to prevent the Fight, Flight or Freeze reactions with easy steps that any teacher can do periodically within a class. The de-stressing prevention methods that I would use in a classroom to keep stress levels low would be to include individual whiteboards in my classes. This way, when you ask a question, all of the students write the answer on their whiteboard and hold it up so only I can see what they have said. The students aren’t worrying about being wrong or being embarrassed to talk in front of their classmates and stress levels are already significantly lower. 

I will also use frequent feedback as a way to prevent stress because the students will have a chance to discuss amongst themselves and with me what they are struggling with, what they want to know more of and they will be able to help each other understand the content from the lessons, further ingraining the knowledge in their own brain.  As a teacher I will also use the student’s strengths to help them combat fear.  If a student is very tech-savvy I will request for them to find additional information online to share with the class.  If they are very artistic, I will ask them to create a poster/diagram/sculpture/etc. to do with the topic that will be engaging for the whole class.

Another technique that I would use is individualisation of the students, whether they are falling behind or getting bored because they already know the content. I would let the students falling behind know that the expectations I have for them isn’t to understand all of the information right away because they will pick up key words and pieces of information and I will discuss with them later in the class the topics that they are struggling with. I would individualise the students who are excelling and getting bored by informing them that they can go on in the textbooks or go online and do some extra research or give them activities to engage them in learning while I teach the rest of the students.

Now onto the “thinking brain”.  Judy Willis highlighted that this was where all of the conscious thought takes place and that information needs to travel through the RAS, into the amygdala which then passes information onto the pre-frontal cortex allowing the students to learn and develop their knowledge on course topics. A few techniques I will be using – that was mentioned in the webinar – to gain the attention of my students and to stimulate curiosity (allowing information through the RAS) will be to surprise the students. Whether this is by dressing up as Johann Sebastion Bach (can you imagine a 20 year old female in that costume – yikes!!), or advertising future lessons in a fun way that makes the students guess what is to come.  

I will use movement, if I dance around the class or have the students repeat specific movements that relate to a certain topic or idea that has just been said, or I could use colour, maybe I’d have the kids paint all of the keywords they hear during a lesson on a big canvas to be hung in the classroom.  I could also use different technologies to keep their brains engaged, have them create a blog and write reflections on each weeks classes (:P) or have them discover the meaning of words as I teach them the topic so that they can share extra content that they have found by themselves.

No matter what techniques I use or what topic I teach, I will make sure that the information gets through to the students in a fun way, so they never feel like they are learning, but that they feel involved and so that they show up to the next class with bright smiles, their pre-frontal cortex wide awake, open for business and ready to receive information, and their stress levels are down so that they welcome learning as if it was play time.

With all of the above in mind I have come to the conclusion that the shortcomings of traditional classrooms and the way curriculum was taught before the age of modern technologies brought a negative effect on students learning and information retention as they were given one chance to take in all of the information in topics. This shortcoming differs today as the materials for learning is online, giving students multiple opportunities to catch up on things they might have missed or to clarify what they didn't understand. Because of this digital age, instead of students being forced to learn at the same speed, a students learning can be self-paced and self-directed so that they are involving themselves in their learning more than if they were i a classroom setting.

References:
Google Images

Introducing Trumpet Take Over

Hello Everyone, 
My name is Monique Pearce, and over the next few weeks you will be getting to know me through reflections of what I am learning in my Post Graduate of Learning and Teaching.  More Specifically, my ICT's for Learning Design classes.  I completed my Bachelor in Jazz and Popular Music (specializing on Trumpet) in 2014 and have been fortunate in landing teaching jobs in primary schools in Gladstone and the surrounding towns.  I hope to put all of my learnings into practice as I get ready for the practicums to come within the Graduate Diploma at these schools and look forward to testing different strategies to find what helps students learn best.
Before I start reflecting on each weeks topics, I'll provide a bit of a background about myself. 

I am a born and bred Gladstone-ite and didn't want to be a music teacher until grade 9/10 of high school.  No, I wanted to be an actor.  And yes I mean actor, I see no reason why we label silver screen workers in gender specified classifications.  That's like splitting doctors into doctors and doctoress's. It doesn't make sense to me.  Anyway, realization hit me in the face one day when I was telling some friends what I wanted to be my career choice and got shot down (hard).  I started to re-evaluate my life choices, and the only constant that I kept going back to was music.  Music was my everything.  It had the ability to change my moods, to make me happy or sad or angry or empowered.  I could turn to music in my times of need and forget the world.  My best moments in high school (besides drama) was when I was surrounded by music, whether I was in band, or class or lessons.  It was music that made me smile.  

And so the path to music teacher began.  It consumed me, it was all I wanted.  I didn't have the drive to be a constant performer.  But I could teach.  I love helping others, whether it's my sister with her TAFE work, or my friends with their UNI assignments.  I was a student mentor at the University last year, and helping students with their assignments (which 90% of the time I didn't understand the content) made me feel good.  Seeing them happy that they received good marks for their assignments and kept on track every week so they weren't behind in their studies.  I feel good knowing that I'm helping another open their brain to more information; helping them succeed at what they want to do.  

And music does that!  There has been so much research into music and the brain, experiments with people who have Parkinson's disease.  Autistic children.  Students from all backgrounds.  Music is something that connects people from so many different ethnic backgrounds because it's a non-verbal form of communication that forces the emotion that you feel from it bring you closer to others.  It doesn't matter if your Spanish or German or Indian.  If a good song comes on that is full of happiness, everyone will be dancing and smiling.  

Music is that powerful.  And I want to rally behind that power and teach others to experience the life that music can give you, that so many other things cannot.