Assignment 20: Kodaly Rhythm Teaching Reflection

Video：

 

Kodaly Rhythm Teaching Reflection

For my lesson plan, I am going to start singing with fingers tap the beat first and then  separating two groups for one for taping the rhythm of notes, another for padding beats on their legs;Thirdly, learn syn-co-pa and quarter dotted eighth rhythm from this song; Fourthly, learn lyrics content and trying to react from my body movements hint; Finally, singing together in a group. Actually in my video teaching, I found that I almost put all those steps into my teaching process except the part of singing together and finding the specific new rhythm patterns.

 

However, I still find out several problems during teaching. Firstly, I pick a low pitch song which might be very hard for female students to sing and for me I need to sing with extra force to make everyone hear the melody clearly and I was very tough. I also need to be mindful about the clarity of lyrics because learners seemed to be confused by what I have sang in the first time. Secondly, the “Jeruslem” is a tricky name of baby that can be replaced by a simple one. Thirdly, I am trying to let them find out the longest note in this song which is the quarter dotted but I forgot there is a half note inside. Fortunately, I had Rebecca’s wooden sticks to help me structure my new rhythm. With a clearer visual structure of wooden sticks, I found that they can learn the rhythmic pattern faster and I can also sing the “Tai-Ti” and “Syn-co-pa” to help them remember the new rhythm. This is the part which worked well.

 

For the next teaching assignment, I will keep using visualized items into my lesson plan and body movements to help them understand the content of song better. I will also have to pick a song with simpler pronunciation and reasonable pitch range. Moreover, I will have to teach with louder volume and more organized sentences.

Assignment: Assignment 21, Reading Response

In my opinion, from the article of Humor in the Music Classroom from Dr. Martina Miranda’s dissertation , the class environment was more relaxing which I think because of the students are all in kindergarten ages. Teachers focused on the communication with adding humorous elements into class discussions. For example, the teacher called Rhoda used a humor into a chant because sometimes kindergarten children are hard to control their emotions and turned the class into a sad mood. She sang “Kindergarten Baby, Stick your face in gravy, Wash it off with applesauce, And send it to the navy” which use nonsense phrases to create a silliness for children to forget the negative side. Humor as a tool for those kindergarten teachers to strengthen the relationship within their children. I think it is a great approach for young kids having more brave to show their opinions and active the class environment.

On the other hands, Mrs. Bedford’s Music Class is a totally different story especially in class environment. Due to she was a full-time teacher who taught from kindergarten through sixth grade, she would like to focus on students’ actual musical skills, volumes of repertoires from variety of culture and the efficiency during class time. It seems to be a way more serious and intense atmosphere for children compared to the class in Dr. Miranda’s dissertation. Moreover, her approach is to set up a class rules for children to be able to follow the pace of her fast pushing class and using traditional Kodaly Rhythm methods for children to learn from imitating. She also prepared well-managed class plan for controlling the class time and at the ends of the class, she usually does the assessment for each students performance.

Assignment 16, Three Related Plans

For my music experience plans, I am going to teach three nursery songs all related to New Year (each experience is thematically related), but in different language or styles. The age group that I focus for this experience is the 3rd grade students.

                          First Song(In English)
Material

I pick a song “Happy New Year in a Nursery Rhythm”, C Major in 4/4 beats.
Here is the video example for this song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaN6Wl9iFEI.
Lyrics:
A New Year is beginning,
Be joyful, one and all!
Then turn and face each other,
And share this friendly call:
I wish a happy New Year,
A glad New Year,
A bright New Year;
I wish a happy New Year,
A glad New Year to you!

Planing Goal

I would like to make a circle games for students for teaching this song; Help children to create new theme related to the content of New Year from their experience;Figure out the melodic progressions.

Teaching Steps

(1)Everyone stands in a circle. I will sing the whole song by myself first. Asking question: What are people in this song doing during New Year beginning?
(2)Separating each phrases and teaching with acting the content for example when the phrase “Then turn and face each other.” begins, every one turns back and then face each other. Asking how many “New Year” appeared in this song?
(3)Teaching the form of this song, listening and finding where are two sections( A and B) of this song by huming the melody once.
(4) Adding their own themes into the song to replace the part of “ Then turn and face each other,
And share this friendly call:” and two adjective words “ glad, bright”. Taking turns for adding themes games. Then answer by “ I can……. Such as make the song interesting, try new words etc.”

Second Song (In Chinese)

Material

I pick a Chinese children song based on a very simple melody called “Xin Nian Hao”( Happy New Year), in a 3/4 beat, F Major. Here is a score below：

Lyrics with alphabetic words, Chinese and English translation:

xinnián hǎo ya, xinnián hǎo ya , zhùhè dàjia  xinnián hǎo;
wǒmen chàngge, wǒmen tiàowǔ, zhùhè dàjia  xinnián hǎo.

happy New Year, happy New Year,wish everybody a happy new year;
we are singing, we are dancing, wish everybody a happy new year.

新年好呀, 新年好呀, 祝贺大家新年好;
我们唱歌, 我们跳舞, 祝贺大家新年好.

Planing Goal:
Although the melody is simple,this song helps children to have a different experience by learning basic pronunciation and meaning in foreign language and stimulating the curiosity of learning something special.
Teaching steps：
（1）I will sing with English throughout the whole song first,then sing the Chinese and tell them to emphasize on my alphabetic words. Asking questions：What are the meaning of each phrase corresponds to English translation part? For example,“xinnian haoya”corresponds to“ Happy New year”.

(2) Clapping each note by humming the melody themselves, finding two rhythmic pattern in this song: two eighth notes followed by two quarter notes; two eighth notes followed by a half notes. Asking question: What is the most frequent rhythmic pattern in this song? How many time does it appear?

(3)Finding two big section by analyzing the differences of rhythmic and melodic combinations. And how the two section separated( by the half notes)?

(4)Let’s everyone found the hardest part of this song , focus on lyrics pronunciation. I repeat slowly and everyone followed me to fix. Singing each phrases by turns to exam whether they know how to sing in Chinese pronunciation.

(5)Sing together loudly in original song. Finding what I can do after the experience, such as “ Singing a song in Chinese, learning new Chinese words, finding rhythmic patterns etc.”

Third Song (In English)

Material:

Traditional “Ding Dong Happy New Year” song, animated rhymes for kids, C Major in 4/4 beat. The song video example below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZjeaPFoHjs.

Lyrics
Ding Dong,
Diggy Diggy Dong!
Happy New Year
to everyone!
Ding Dong,
Diggy Diggy Dong!
Diggy Diggy Ding Dong Dong!
Diggy Diggy Ding Dong Dong!

Planning Goal:
Let children pick instruments such as tambourine, jingle bells etc, which can make steady, rhythmic sound to accompany with music; Imagination of sounds that can be used in this song to make the lyric fun and rhythmic.

Teaching Steps:

(1)Singing through the song, focus on how many time the “Ding Dong”, “ Diggy” appears. Asking question: what are they meant to rhythm ( Ding, Dong = a beat, Diggy= 2 half-beats)? Why the syllable of words effect the rhythmic pattern in this song?

(2)Picking instruments in the classroom that can make clear, rhythmic sounds especially focus on percussion instruments. Learning how to use them to play “Ding, Dong and Diggy” rhythms. Separate into two groups, one groups sing the song with me, the other group plays instrument to accompanying the song, then alternating the activity.

(3)Brain-storming what kinds of sound can be used to replace” Ding, Dong, Diggy” part for this song. Remembering the pattern of syllable effect to the lyric. Also asking why they choose those words for this song?

(4) Thinking about what I can do after this experience, such as “ I can figure out how syllables affect the rhythms, do funny sounds by using instruments or adding new interesting words etc.”

Assignment 12: “Allsup & Baxter” and SITH reading

1)Discuss your understanding of open, guided, and closed questions. For each type of question, give a brief definition and two examples questions (six in total) that you might have asked during your past three in-class peer teachings (e.g. coordinated movement, pattern movement, and song teaching).

The open questions are usually straightforward to the content and followed by some other target questions to gather musical information. For examples, in song teaching I might ask “What happened/did you hear from this song?” followed by “Whose name did I repeat in this song?”. The guided questions are aimed to elicit more targeted responses from students which focus on particular aspects that teachers wants to examine. For examples, during a coordinated movement teaching, I might ask “What was your favorite sections in my dance?” and “ Can you create a movement by yourself based on mine?”. The closed questions are asked to draw attention to a particular feature to make up the missing part in guided questions and produce a single answer. For example, in song teaching, I might ask “ Can we go through the song again with me?” and “Can you sing by yourself and follow the piano melody?”

2)Discuss your understanding of analytical, judicial, and creative question frameworks. For each framework, give a brief definition and generate one question (three in total) that you might have asked in your song teaching.

The analytical question frameworks will address all kinds of musical knowledge such as elements of music, style, form etc as well as our mental feelings and visual images. It might be a combination of open, guided and closed questions. For example, I might ask “ Why do I need to sing with piano accompaniment?”. The judicial question frameworks are related to the musical information previously collected and focus on the subjective response that student has shared their feelings with. For example, I might ask “ Which part of the melody attracts you the most and why it is more attractive than other parts?”. The creative question frameworks are so much related to higher-order thinking which is usually hypothesis or conservative questions. For example, I might ask “ What elements will you add into this song to make it more interesting next time?”.

3)According to the Allsup & Baxter as well as your based on your own developing thoughts about teaching, why would you want to use questioning in your teaching rather than only relying on direct instruction? How might questioning be problematic in your teaching?

By giving many questions during teaching will be able to create a dialogue connection between teachers and students, which really helps students to create critical thinking habits and discovery their illumination. It also helps teachers to examine students progressions in class by questioning./ However, it is much more difficult to use questioning methods than giving directions. Because questioning teaching requires teachers’ professions to be a thoughtful and patient listeners all at the same time. So I think the preparation of questions before everyday classes is important for teachers. They need to analyze students preference, academic level and personalities very well in order to lead a successful questioning class.

4)How do the questions from Campbell’s “Appendix 2″Songs in their Heads relate to the question types and frameworks in the Allsup & Baxter reading? What types of questions does Campbell favor? Why do you think this is? Generate two additional questions that you would want to add to Campbell’s list in light of the Allsup & Baxter reading.

The questions of “What kinds of musicking were going on in this environment? What did the children’s play look like and sound like?” are opening and analytical questions. The question of “What “I can” statements might a teacher write after observing the children’s musical skills?” and “how might you create formal (teacher-facilitated) musical experiences with and for children in this age group (3-5 yrs.)?” are probably closed and creative question./ I think she favors analytical questions frameworks./ Because Campbell is a great observer and knowledgeable music teachers and she really goods at combining all her information into academic and critical thinking in her book. In my opinion, I would generate “ How might rhythmic patterns always be important to children’s music learning experience?” and “ What can we do to facilitate musical connections between children and teachers in class? ”

Assignment 12, Video Teaching Project

Teaching Video：

 

 

 

 

 

Transcription：

This video teaching combines 5 steps.

(1) Introduction: Hi everyone, My name is Ziwei. Today, I am going to teach you a song, called, “Chase the Squirrel”. I will sing through it for the first time!
“ Let us chase the squirrel, up the hickory down the hickory, Let us chase the squirrel, up the hickory tree.” Is this song interesting for you？
Question 1： What’s happen in this song？（Pause） We chase the squirrel and we climb the hickory tree then we go down the tree. The squirrel is so naughty for us!

(2) This time, only the melody: DDEE F A, DDEEFFEE, DDEE F A, DDEE D.
Question 2: How many pitches in this melody? 4! D,E,F,A.

(3) This time, want you to follow me and find out which phrases repeated for four times in this song.
(I used the fingers for hints).
Yes, I think everyone knows that. The repeated part is DDEE.

(4) This time, I will put the lyrics into melody a sing through it first.
After that, I will sing the DDEE part, and I want everyone to sing the rest of the part in this song/
Then I will reverse to sing the rest of the part and everyone will sing the DDEE part.
（I will give hints with body language）

(5) Finally, we will sing through the whole song with everyone together.

Thanks for watching!

In the future , I will use the same kind of song teaching video into children teaching especially in elementary school. Because children during 7-11 years old are old enough in absorbing the information from a short and simple song like “chase the squirrel”. And by singing and repeating the “dol, rei, mi……,ti” and connects it to musical alphabet really helps elementary students to develop their basic musicianship and sensitivity a lot. This video teaching can also be very helpful if some days I have a bad throat and can not be able to in front of class sometimes.

Assignment10,11, Song Teaching Plan and Reflection

Teaching Video:

                                Song teaching Lesson Plan

Title and the source of song: “Billy Boy” written by Edward L. White.

Children will learn and what they can do:
1.New vocabularies such as “dimple”, “chin”, “ringlets” and “wink”.
1. The progression of Billy Boy’s story through the lyric content I provided from beginning til the end.
2.I Can remember the melody of song by many times of repetitions.
3. I Can sing with body language to imitate the character in the song content.
4. I Can create a game in class for children to play related to the lyric of music.

Procedure for teaching：
1.Singing with piano accompaniment throughout the whole song to give learner primary impression of song.
2.Teaching only the lyrics content with body language to help them understating the whole story of song.
3.I lead the song without piano accompaniment and let them repeat my singing.
4.Everyone sings with my piano accompaniment with me.

Assessment of “children” understand my teaching:
1.Ask them what happening to “Billy Boy” after I finished each verse of song.
2.Adding piano to accompany with them and hear the quality of their singing, whether or not “children” can follow your piano tempo, the volume of singing, their face expression is confused or not?
3.Asking what are progressions of story in this song? What are important vocabularies for them to learn this song effectively?

          MUE 413 Self-Evaluation and Reflection

Ziwei Bai

Lesson: Song Teaching

Musicianship (5 points) _____3____

For my song teaching, I used piano for accompaniment for singing part which caused me sometimes distracted in singing. Because of that, I actually started a bit slower in tempo and pause unnecessarily for a while after my first verse of song and then I pushed the tempo into the original beats and my tempo becoming better in the next two verse. Moreover, I need more phrasing emphasizing and dynamic changes too.
Leadership (5 points) _____3_____

I actually tried to smile while facing learners and I used body percussion to help them understanding and memorizing the lyrics contents. However, I found that when I was playing the piano and singing at the same time, my voice volume can not be clear enough for listeners. So I had to only use my own voice for leading instead.

Preparation (5 points) __4________

I prepared a old folk song called billy boy and I planned to teach with piano accompaniment. Moreover, for the knowledge of music, I tried to let my learners find in my lyrics during my teaching process. In the second verse, I changed the word “bid” into “pay” because I thought “bid” should be hard for children to understand. However, I totally changed the original meaning and the I found “ask” should be a better word to replace it.
Facilitating the Music and Learning Experinece (10 points) ____7______

In my teaching process, I was doing a modeling first and then asking their question about who(billy boy, his wife) and what happening(seek her wife etc.) in my song content. Then I actually sang without piano to make my teaching clearer because I found out that the first verse made my learners confused about the song content. Then I closed with everyone sang with piano accompaniment. Throughout the whole teaching, I found that my pace is too fast in the beginning of teaching and I need make sure everyone can maintain the content when I taught each repetition.

Overall Reflection

According to this song teaching experience, I actually found a great material with very interesting “ billy boy” story for its contents and beautiful piano accompaniment materials. For me, I like the song with many melody repetition and a progression of story in my song because it should be easy to practice and plan. This song material is also good for attracting learners attention and it is a really interesting material for children to imitate with body languages that helps them understanding the content faster.

However, I ran the whole song a little bit too rushed for my learners. Most of them can follow the melody but not the lyrics and I found that they were hard to remember all the lyrics if I went through all verses from the beginning to the end. In fact, the lyrics are too much and too tricky even for adults to learn at the first time. If I am going to teach it again, I will teach the melody without lyrics first, and then let learners talk with the song lyrics without singing or put the important words into game cards to help them making a big image of the “billy boy” story–what happening to him and her wife? And finally practiced with with body language and sang lyrics with melody to strengthen their understanding of the song.

For my next teaching goal, I will make sure my voice is clear for my learners and my teaching pace is not rushing. I will also make sure to check the feedback of every learner during my teaching process.

Assignment #9 Reading Response

 

Read the section on “The Lakeshore Zebras” pp. 29-35.

1.What kinds of musicking were going on in this environmet? What did the children’s play look like and sound like? What “I can” statements might a teacher write after observing the children’s musical skills?

Due to the high paid and high quality educational environment, the musicking of the Lakeshore Zebras Development Center are designed experiences relevant to childrens’ individual needs especially according to particular themes such as “alone/together”, “family/community”, animals and rain forest etc. It also trains and stimulates children individual levels of learning ability through weekly music classes. For children’s play, it looked like a large space movement and free play in the center of the room, and teachers should lead the play with taking their recording along with children. Their rhythms were as visible in their movements. For children sounds, they like rhythmic words and repeating pitches with interesting children stories. Moreover, he found that children can do acting, singing and imitating while playing a theme, some of them can even do small chorus with the triad pitches and counting rhythm with sticking etc.

2.After reading about the Lakeshore Zebras’ informal musical experiences, how might you create formal (teacher-facilitated) musical experiences with and for children in this age group (3-5 yrs.)?

Firstly, we need to find out a group of folk song resources which related to their interests and with body movements involved. It is better to have call and response or two-part harmony for training their sensitivity of pitch learning. Secondly, make sure to provide and teach the information on songs text. Children need to be connected with music to develop enthusiasm and more efficient process. Finally, is creating rhythmic exercises. For instance, the metric shifting concept that the article talks about is a very advanced method for pedagogical training. However, teachers need to make sure their musical skills are sophisticated enough.

Assignment 7, Patterned Dance/Folk Dance Reflection

Ziwei Bai

Patterned Dance/Folk Dance Reflection

Teaching Video:

 

Self-Evaluation:

Musicianship (5 points) ___4______
For me, the music I have chosen the “ Bekendrfer Quadrille for this experience is melodically good. This piece includes several repetition with interesting tempo changes which is good for children. However, it is a very tide song for doing movement and I do get miss a little bit during this experience.

Leadership (5 points) _____3___
I think the Marching and Jumping part is energetic for this songs, but the other body movements are not looking so related and organized. Sometimes I still forgot to make eye contact and expression by dancing with busy movements. Sometimes learners had a hard time to follow or remembering each specific moves.

Preparation (5 points) ___3_______
I think my folk dance teaching plan is exciting to learn but not easy for teaching. For my preparation, I have missed one important step which is demonstrating slowly and carefully instead of showing the movements without noticing learners. For my plan, I need to also put watching others movements and saying my motions at the same times while teaching.

Facilitating the Music and Learning Experinece (10 points) _____7___
For the first verse of music is fine for everyone to follow because I have already shown some movements. However, I haven’t do well in making the transition to the second verse of repeating moves I have added to many random movements which look messy. So this is why everyone gets missing at the second repetition. I think some movements are too modest and tiny such as slides and tapping head, which I may use something more humor and interesting movements to replace. I need to analyze the structure of music better in order to make a good combination for dancing on beat.

Overall Reflection:
For this teaching experience, I showed many movements such as spinning left and right, marching forward and back, twisting and tapping heads. After we have repeating twice, I have asked someone to explain how many type of movements in my dance and Yu Wei said I was only jumping and walking outside. So I tried to do it again to make it clearer and I can find they are doing a little more better at the third time. It is usually good for enlightening other learners who do not understand at the first time by letting learners talk and fix them. However, I found that when everyone is struggling in learning my movements, there might be some reasons occurred in my teaching. First, my movements is not straightforward and energetic enough to learn. I really had mixed to many tiny movements like twisting, tapping and marching too much. Secondly, my transition into second repetition is changing too much and too tricky which is not helpful to memorize. Finally, I hadn’t explained my motions careful enough and my speaking volume is not big enough too.

For my next teaching, my primary goal is to make my plan more organized and interesting. And my secondary goal is to improve my transition part when I have changed to another topic during the teaching process. Moreover, I need to work on my speaking volume too.

Assignment 4, Reflection on Moving to Music Experience Reflection

Experience Plan:  

                           MUE 413 Music Experience Plan: Moving to the Beat

Understanding: This piece of music is quite familiar that everyone in the country should have already heard last year and the beat is very steady and strong in a duple meter.

Skill Development: Children can learn how to move on beat by following their teacher first and then children can create their own move based on that.

Material：“Uptown Funk” performed by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson from YouTube website with lyrics.

Process：

*Sit on the chair and face the teacher with legs open and relaxing body. Then I will say “ Let’s start” and play the music.

Intro melody will start and I will do:
-Single Coordinated:
Nodding Forward 8
Toes 8
Shoulder Right Twist 4
Shoulder Left Twist 4
Shoulder Right Twist 4
Shoulder Left Twist 3 , Clap 1

Main part:
-Single alternated:
Shoulder Twist R-L 8
Arm Twist R-L 8
Elbow Twist Low R-L 8
Elbow Twist High R-L 8
-Double coordinated:
Touch face both hands 4( i AM TOO HOT), Palm grip both hands 4
(4 times)
Feet R-L and Elbow Twist Low R-L 8
Feet R-L and Elbow Twist High R-L 4
-Single alternated and coordinated:
Climbing Posture R-L Hands 12
Clapping on top of head 7 then Stretch arms to both sides 1

Repeat the intro melody in new version:
-Double alternated and Complex:
R Foot R Clap low, L Foot L Clap low 16
R Foot R Clap high , L Foot L Clap high 16
Hands cover moth and Foot R-L 4
Hands Stretch R-L to the air and Foot R-L together 12

*Then move to the Main Part and new version intro melody again. The rest part after that can be freestyle created by students and they need to be back to single alternated movement for the ending.

Assessment: Check whether children can understand the structure of this song and each repetition after experiencing and watching teacher’s modeling.

  

 

Teaching Video

Self Evaluation and Reflection：

Musicianship (5 points) ___4______
Most of the time, I could follow the accurate beat and stayed in appropriate tempo. However, it is still a little bit rush for me to do changes between each phrases and I need to be more familiar with my song.
Leadership (5 points) _____3______
My body language for this song is enough for me and facial expressions can be ok. However, it is still not enough intensity and energy in my body movements. Sometimes my eye still don’t know where to go during the teaching.

Preparation (5 points) ___4_______
I think my plan is good for children to learn this song because every move is related to the melody progression and meaning of lyrics. But I am still not 100 percent prepared for teaching it fluently and memorized each step perfectly.

Facilitating the Music and Learning Experinece (10 points) _____7___
Facilitating the Experience：

Although I picked an energetic and popular song this time, it is still a little bit tricky for young children to learn or memorize easily even for me too. I think it will be better to make some changes in particular body movements and slow down the speed for teaching next time. My idea to make it simpler is to change the part of arms twisting movements into wrist twisting up and down which should be more straightforward and energetic. Moreover, the pick up between sit and stand needs to be smoother by moving from sit position to stand position 4 beats before the pick up melody begins. I also need to step harder for foot motions to make children more involved.

Overall Reflection：

For this teaching experience, I am putting many interesting elements into my body movements which are good for creating excitement and enthusiasm for children instead of some basic movements. This is a good start for building connection with young students and stimulating their interests of music. However, many movements are not really well-organized for my teaching process because the changing of every motion are not smoothly connected with a transition. Moreover, some twisting movements will not be easy for children to do or remember very well. I am also really curious about how children can show up their own movements and the best way to move their body on beat to me. That is what I need to reconsider something new and try to simplify for children. I felt so great for full of enjoyments from all my classmates during the leadership experience because it is very important for me to know whether my plan is working or not from future educators’ feedback. In fact, my goal is to make my teaching process smoother and more energetic to help students learn faster and more efficient.