Ways to Use Music in the Classroom
How many times have you ever had to ask a student to get rid of their headphones this week? It’s a request that I create daily in my schoolroom, and although I’ve learned to be less annoyed by students isolating themselves with a wall of sound, I ne’er extremely understood why that’s thus pervasive.
The other day I finished considering this drawback essentially. Why are so many of our adolescents walking around with their ears stopped up, blocking out abundant of the globe around them and missing valuable moments in the schoolroom by not being present? I decided to ask them, and also the overwhelming majority of the replies I received were variations on the theme: “Music makes me happy.” International high schools in India bring up extreme talents and a platform where a student can perform.
I’m unsure why it took me so long to consider tapping into the ability of music in my classroom — music is not new. A 2001 book referred to as The Biological Foundations of Music claimed that it goes back over 250,000 years, although the oldest excavated instruments are around 40,000 years old. Whereas the origins and functions of music still fascinate and mystify researchers, academics understand obviously that it’s participating to students.
Here are some ways in which schools in Dehradun found to use music in my schoolroom to spark joy, create community, and create learning additional participating.
- Produce playlists for various occasions in class:
I discovered this concept on Twitter recently and set to possess my students to create a playlist of songs they’d wish to play to wake up after quiet activities or when they’re feeling a bit sleepy-eyed.
I didn’t understand the total impact of implementing this concept until I had a full class of 12th graders singing the chorus to “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond. What I had supposed as the simplest way to infuse my schoolroom with a bit more fun changed into a moment of joy and community building.
Now, I’m building, with the assistance of student suggestions, playlists of songs to listen to whereas students are writing, doing selection reading, and getting into and exiting the area. I will enhance the mood of my students with merely a click of the mouse.
2. Use music to assist students in remembering the necessary facts:
I noticed the English teacher at our school using music to help scholars learn and remember the alphabet and also the days of the week, and those of us of a certain age learned the preamble to the Constitution and lots of grammatical rules from watching Schoolhouse Rock! On Sat mornings. Why not have scholars make up songs to remember different facts and ideas they have to internalize?
I decided to experiment. Rather than our ancient vocabulary activities, I divided up a list of literary devices and gave teams of scholars a few words every to form a song. Using karaoke tracks of trendy tunes as backing tracks, students had a surprising amount of fun creating up songs to assist them in remembering the operation and effect of each of the terms. The performances were epic: Imagine scholars singing, “Is this the real life; is this hyperbole?
3. Use students’ music preferences to attach to your subject matter:
In my English classroom, I use music lyrics to introduce poetry analysis. Once students 1st enter my class, they’re usually apprehensive about their ability to understand and talk about poetry, and music lyrics are a well-recognized and compact medium for discussing several of the aspects of the study.
We begin with a short, simple song like Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here,” and once digging into the multiple layers of meaning within the lyrics, I assign students a “Music as Poetry” project. They choose a song — one that’s applicable to share at school. Then they will take the print out the lyrics and annotate them for tone shifts, patterns, structure, and any other literary devices they will realize. Next, they write up a topic statement for the song and evidence of how the literary devices they found within the song contribute to that theme.
Students gift their songs to the class along with their analyses. The scholars get observe noticing literary devices that pop up within the world, and that I get exposed to some wonderful songs I’ve ne’er detected before. Scholars have introduced me to artists, and on the way, I’ve returned to grasp my students a bit higher through their musical tastes — a win-win in my book.
I don’t have songs taking part in constantly in my classroom — there are times when silence is more effective, like with certain writing and reading tasks, and each teacher has to confirm this balance for themselves. However, it can not be denied that music exerts a powerful pull on our students, a pull that will be harnessed to form a more effective learning environment.
