Passing the Torch

It's been a year since I taught orchestra in schools as my full-time job. While I am happy to be where I'm at, I've also struggled with missing being in the classroom. One of the coolest things, though, has been watching a friend really pick up the torch of mashing music + technology together. It is a joy to watch!

Robots + Composition

A few weeks ago, I received this text:

"I assume you've played with the Edison robots? I think it would be really neat to do a composition project with them where the objects/surfaces around it trigger the different notes/phrases...I programmed mine to play the next phrase of Twinkle when it changed to a different surface when driving."

Prior to this, I hadn't heard about these particular robots, but wow, mind blown! I think that coding any robot to respond to outside stimuli differently is an authentic way to mix composition & computer science in a music class. This would make a great #HourofCode project someday!

Video Perspective

A few summers ago, I recorded lots, and I mean LOTS of instructional videos to help my 5th & 6th graders learn their songs. I found that it had several benefits - it helped my students learn their music, but also how to practice, because I talked them through the tricky spots in the video. It also really gave them a multi-sensory way to learn, by listening, looking at my fingers in the video, and looking at their music. Finally, it was a great way for parents to know what their kids were learning and how to help them or for kids to catch up after being absent. It is so common to get an email that says, "I don't know how to help my kid in music," and this game me a great resource to point them to! I even sent them occupational therapist at my school, who was working with one of my students, and she came back knowing how to hold the cello & play our first few songs, making it much easier for her to help this student!

Disclaimer: I totally stole copied this idea from another orchestra teacher in the district...good ideas just get passed around!

My friend shared that she wanted to make her own set of videos this summer, but instead of setting up the camera in front of her, she was going to take it from a forehead mount, showing the exact perspective of the students. This way, they don't have to see what it looks like from the outside and try to make their fingers match that from their angle. How come I never thought of that?!? It shows such a great focus on thinking about the user first, and what their needs are.  I was blown away!

Individualized, Self-Paced Learning

Orchestra Karate has been around for awhile, and is actually something the two of us implemented when we team-taught together. Once again, my friend is finding ways to expand ideas to make them even better! She shared that instead of just doing our "regular" songs for Orchestra Karate, she had made two extra packets - a holiday packet & a challenge packet - that students could work on & earn belts for. This is such a great way to combat the fact that the beginning class has students moving at a variety of paces, and allows all students to be challenged at their own level!

Spreadsheets

Okay, this last one is just because I'm a nerd and I love organizing my life with spreadsheets. I love finding others who do the same! She was telling me how she had one spreadsheet per school, but IMPORTRANGEd them all into one master spreadsheet, had different tabs to sort by different reasons (like who had district instruments, etc), and used conditional formatting to mark who had turned paperwork in. She also talked about using autoCrat to create nametags (to hang on stands) from these spreadsheets, rather than our usual practice of having students write their own nametags, which often results in small, light handwriting that is impossible to read from the podium :-). These little hacks make life so much easier, and I love seeing others use them in a way that works for them!

Passing the Torch

When I decided to move into this district position, one of the hard things was feeling like I was just scratching the surface of what could be done in a music classroom, and I didn't have time to explore everything I wanted to! These interactions with my friend have been incredibly encouraging in remembering that I am not the only one who is exploring. As obvious (and self-centered) as that sounds, it has been so cool to see her not only embrace new ideas, but take them even further to create the best educational environment for kids!

My recommendation? Find "your people" and keep building on each others' ideas. Continue to push further and deeper. Collaborate & share. Together, we can create amazing educational environments for students!

Gamifying My Classroom - Orchestra Karate (Part 2)

For an overview of how I am using Orchestra Karate to gamify my classroom, check out Orchestra Karate (Part 1)!  This post will focus on the materials and organization of my karate belts.

After I had a pretty good idea of the kind of rewards I wanted, my next step was a trip to Hobby Lobby & Michaels to get the necessary supplies!  My requirements were that it could be something that was (1) cheap, (2) easy to prepare, and (3) could be displayed on (and removed from) their case safely (i.e. no stickers for the rental cases).  I came home from my shopping spree with all sorts of fun goodies!  While it sounds like a lot, I ended up only spending about $40 (I already had the rexlace because I've used it for belts in the past), and I am guessing a lot of these supplies will last me for more than one year.  Not a bad investment!  I cut up the ribbons and put beads on some of them to denote higher levels, and sorted out the colors of the different supplies.  Here is what I ended up with:

I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures - my flip phone can only do so much!

• Video Belts = Bracelet Clips for the rubber band bracelets that are so popular right now!
• 5th Grade Performance Belts & ML Scale Belts = Rexlace (so  many colors to choose from)
• ML Coyote Quest Belts = Zip Ties (lots of colors and easy to prepare)
• 7th/8th Music History Belts = Ribbons with star beads on them (to make them a little more special for my older students)

Armed with my supplies, I went to work on creating a chart to organize all of my belts:

(This screenshot was taken before I added in the Video Belts for 5th graders)

I also started creating a handout for students, detailing the Coyote Quests:

Obviously not finished yet, but it's a start!

And, of course, I had to give myself all of the belts so that I could show them off and generate excitement among the students:

And there you have it, my first steps into the world of gamifying my classroom!  It is important to note that I already have been doing most of these tasks in my classroom, it's just re-structuring it and making it a little more formalized with the belts.  This would be wayyyyyyy to much to implement from scratch!  I hope that students will enjoy the opportunity to show off their learning and earn extra belts that will increase their musical knowledge!

Do students earn "badges" for their learning in your classroom?  What do you think should be "belt-worthy" in an orchestra class?

Gamifying My Classroom - Orchestra Karate (Part 1)

I have been reading the book "Explore Like a Pirate" by Michael Matera this summer, and been alternately REALLY inspired and REALLY overwhelmed with all of the great ideas in the book!  It raises the question, what is it about games (video games in particular) that motivates kids to go back for more, over and over again?  And how is this different from their learning in school?  Both games and schoolwork are (or should be) challenging and require them to constantly learn and grow to improve themselves.  So why will kids spend hours playing video games, but drag their heels on 30 minutes of homework?  And, more importantly, what can we as educators learn from how games motivate kids and apply it to our classrooms to make learning more fun, engaging, and applicable?

In thinking about these questions, I could go off on a bunch of different tangents, but I decided to first stick with something simple, that I know well: Orchestra Karate.  Many music teachers are familiar with this structure (it could be Recorder Karate or Scale Karate or anything else), where students accomplish certain feats of mastery on their instrument and are rewarded with a "belt" of a certain color corresponding to their level of achievement.  These belts, in my classes, are proudly displayed on cases, and fulfill the function of "badges" in a game.

I have used this structure with my 5th grade classes since I started teaching, but always thought it was too "kiddy" for my middle schoolers.  Every year, though, my 6th graders ask me if they can keep earning belts.  I finally decided, why not?  This year, I will try to implement Orchestra Karate with all of my 5th-8th grade classes!

In thinking about how to structure this, I decided there would be five different kinds of karate belts:

• Video Belts - for students watching the videos I have posted on my website and completing the Google Form to tell me what they learned.
• 5th grade Performance Belts - this will continue my same structure, where students will have to master a certain song in the book and play it individually to earn a belt.  I am thinking about allowing them to submit a video to earn their belt, to save class time, but I am worried about the extra time it would require me to grade, in addition to the practice videos I assign my middle school students each week - but that's a discussion for another day!
• Middle Level Scale Belts - students who successfully perform their scales at a certain level will earn the color belt that corresponds to the scale.  They must earn their belt before being eligible to "level up" to a 2-octave scale (and the chance to earn a Free Practice Points coupon)!
• Middle Level Coyote Quest Belts - these are side quests, demonstrating mastery of certain elements of music besides playing their instruments, such as theory and terms.  I haven't completely figured this out yet, but I plan on requiring a certain score on eMusicTheory drills or Staff Wars for some elements, and making my own Google Quizzes for others.  None of these quests will be required for a grade - but they will be open opportunities for students to earn belts!
• 7th & 8th Grade Music History Belts - I have been working this summer to develop a series of Digital BreakoutEDU games to teach students the basics of music history.  I haven't fully decided how and when these will be used yet, but I hope to be able to play them in class about once per quarter to break up the monotony of rehearsal during certain times of the year.  If students successfully break out, they will get a special belt for accomplishing that feat!

Next step: Gathering the materials to put this into action!  Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!