MUSIC Lab

Title

Soundtrack

Choose some music to introduce a topic with - we used the 1812 overture to introduce a unit on 'elements, compounds and mixtures'. Then ask your students to do the same - prepare a presentation on a topic using a piece of music as a soundtrack.

Autonomy, Identity

IDENTITY

RISK-TAKING

/ EXPLORATION

KNOWLEDGE

(EPISTEMOLOGY)

ENJOYMENT / MOTIVATION

EMBODIED / SOMATIC LEARNING

THEORY / PRACTICE

EFFORTFUL

LEARNING

PRECISE

LEARNING

AUTHENTICITY

'SCAFFOLDING'

AUTONOMY

• What do students identify with, and what difference does it make?
• How does the learning relate to students':
• personal experiences and motivations?
• life outside the classroom?
• future ambitions?
• cultural or social experiences?
• sense of themselves [as learners]?

• When is learning moving from practical to theoretical knowledge, and when the other way round?
• What difference does it make?
• What technical knowledge is required?

• How can you measure levels of motivation or enjoyment?
• Is there evidence of learning beyond the classroom / transferable learning / learning brought back into the classroom?
• Do increased levels of motivation or enjoyment have an impact on learning?
• Does an element of healthy competition support learning?
• do multi-sensory activities increase engagement and / or learning?

• What kinds of knowledge are students developing?
• What is the nature of the knowledge they are acquiring?
• Is there anything significant about the shift in the nature of knowledge required by science student between KS2 and KS3?
• Does that influence the nature of the processes used to engage students in the learning?
• What factual information are they acquiring?
• What are they learning about themselves as learners?
• The management of factuality and dynamics between this and subjective engagement.
• What's the difference between conceptual understanding and subject knowledge?

• what counts as an ‘authentic’ learning experience in Science or Music?
• How does this differ from the actual practices of scientists and / or musicians?

• Exploratory activities (those that challenge participants to problem solve, investigate, reflect and determine their own actions) by their very nature embrace the notion of risk
• Risk in not knowing, not getting it right.
• What are the characteristics of exploratory activities?
• Do they have an impact on levels of engagement?
• How do you preserve the ‘spirit’ of enquiry while producing outcomes which are factually correct?
• What is it like for teachers trying out something new and unfamiliar / uncomfortable? What can be learned about learning through involvement in projects with unpredictable or uncertain outcomes?

• ‘Proximal’ learning)
• how can learning be structured so that learners can use their existing skills / knowledge to develop new insights and deepen their learning?

• ...that involves resilience - a willingness to keep going despite setbacks, a determination and a sense of purpose for it to be ‘deep’ and for engagement to be meaningful.
• What role does resilience and determination play in relation to meaningful engagement?
• Managing Failure - competent / incompetent failure

• What is its place in both subjects?
• Where does it occur in the learning process?

• Degree of control / authority in the task
• does the level of control / authority / ownership impact on the level of engagement?
• Whose learning is it anyway?

• What does 'emotionalising of the intellect' look like?
• What types of learning experiences stimulate emotional engagement?
• Does it have an influence on the quality of learning?
• Does it improve learning?

Emotional

REFLECTIONS

Intellectual

RESOURCES

Practical

...for further reading

• How can we understand when the students are moving from ‘enjoyment’ of session to deeper learning?
• When does Science become intuitive?
• What is the nature of ‘insight’ and learning in music?
• What happens to learning when you start with the answer as opposed to starting with the question – link to ‘closed / open’ experimentation
• Are there differences between the types of knowledge being investigated in music and science?
• Does / can music practice facilitate ‘intellectualising the emotions’ in a way that is useful to attain knowledge / skill applicability (creativity) in Science? (SP)

• Collaborating for Creativity: Dot Miel – supporting examples of people from different disciplines collaborating
• Ignorant artists / ignorant teachers: Prof. Gary Peters (SP)
• Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds: Liora Bresler - embodied learning
• i, scientist: Beau Lotto - KS2 Constructionist Science
• Knowing About Knowing: Deanna Kuhn - heirarchies of epistemology
• RICO Framework: Boston Arts Academy - skills for learning

EMERGING

THEMES...

OTHER QUESTIONS

Areas for further investigation

• Would it help to keep teacher journals as well as student ones?
• How long does it take to build a trusting relationship between teachers, musicians and students?
• What encourages risk-taking? Confidence to hypothecate, or not afraid to offer suggestions. How do we encourage risk-taking? SK
• What opportunities are there for students to have a totally free approach to creative output?
• Could you try experimenting with other than the 50-60 minute learning period?

• How important is the inter-relation between what students are Doing (hands-on), Thinking (heads-on) and Feeling (hearts-on) in relation to levels of engagement and subsequent learning?
• What opportunities are there for ‘peak experiences / flow’ when learners are fully engaged at all levels?

• Cycle 1
• Video
• Images

DATA

• Cycle 1
• Session plans
• Musician reflections
• Review document
• Observations
• Reflective journal
• Cycle 2
• Session plans
• musician reflections
• semi-structured interviews with students, teachers and musicians
• Reflective journal

• Cycle 1
• student questionnaire feedback
• Musician / teacher reflective accounts
• Session plans and reviews
• Cycle 2
• semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, coordinator and musicians
• observations
• Evaluation sheets staff
• Reflections each week from students
• Cycle 3
• Transcripts of evaluation meeting

• Cycle 1
• Student questionnaire results
• musician reflections
• field diary summary
• Cycle 2
• Review document
• Audio recordings of performances
• Notes from informal interviews with students while they were devising and rehearsing their performances
• Summary sheets explaining what each of the four groups did
• Field notes
• Students’ test results, particularly on the topics they were responsible for performing to the rest of the cohort
• Semi-structured interviews from 27.4.12 with SD, JD and 8 year 8 students, conducted by MC – to be analysed
• Cycle 3
• Student exam data from end of Cycle 2
• Science teachers’ written reflections from the end of Cycle 2
• Interviews with students, teachers and musician
• Photographs
• Student accounts of subject knowledge and understanding
• Statistical analysis of student test results

What have we collected?

• Is the music an illustration, analogy, or explanation? (NJ)
• Is it deep learning? How do you know? (NJ)
• What are the underlying issues behind the challenges of photosynthesis? How is this similar to or different from other science topics?

• A good example of ‘Hands on, Heads on, Hearts on’
• How are the teachers reflecting on this experience...? And what changes are they making in their own Science lessons?
• Facing our fears: teacher, student, musician alike
• What is the social code implied in the Music practice?
• What are the social codes implied by science learning?
• How can you promote confidence in doing practical work in Science?

• Does your learning log do what you wanted it to do?
• Would other projects benefit from using it / adapting it for their project? (both teachers and kids are reflecting on their experience and learning)
• Would it be interesting to have pupils keep a learning journal to track their journeys in evaluating their own learning?
• How open-ended was the science? Not many ways to measure the energy content of food! Investigation does not necessarily lead to emotional engagement
• Is it about the difference between practical activity leading to a known outcome as opposed to a pre-determined outcome?

• Status of music as Illustration—the functionality of this in the learning process? SP
• What’s distinctive about a musician’s approach to making learning engaging that’s different from anyone else’s?
• Is the music an aide memoire? What happens if the students need to remember when it’s not playing? (NJ)
• It’s about PROCESS not CONTENT (NJ)
• Why is having music as a background hard to get used to for students? What do you hope it will do? What is currently getting in the way?

Advice...

What did we learn?

• Need to refine understanding of the relationship between theory and practice:
• students need to know the information before they can work on how to present it
• effortful learning is important to deepen understanding, but if theoretical knowledge isn’t in place, the practical elements are not as engaging. Providing smaller, more structured and scaffolded tasks for the students might have worked better.
• Striking a balance between pace of learning and depth of understanding – developing deductive and inductive thinking skills is very important, but requires more time and there is always the pressure of curriculum content that has to be covered.
• Cooperation and competition are both important as motivations for learning
• Good to be pushed to develop activities – project as catalyst for developing learning activities to more dynamic and larger scale
• Sample of students is not necessarily representative i.e. not a random sample, but using a top set because of timetabling convenience.

SD worked with a small group of Year 8 Students for 10 weeks, acting as Musical Director with the students’ ideas, developing a ‘Spy Academy/Mission Impossible’ performance and science experience for Year 6 students on ‘Step Up’ days.

What did we do?

Cycle 3

• Does the process of devising and rehearsing something deepen the learning involved?
• To what extent does peer learning support depth of understanding?
• What’s the relationship between theory and practice?
• If you work with a smaller group, is there more opportunity to develop deeper learning?

What do we want to learn?

•That the students had fun and enjoyed the experience

•That it was challenging for them – having to explain the content to a lecture theatre of their peers forced them to think about what they were doing

•That while there was some inaccurate science presented, there was also some very helpful science content put forward

•That the four teachers involved took different approaches in terms of the amount of support they gave their students

What did we learn?

• JW and RK alternated in their teaching of the Y8 class, starting from 1st Feb.
• JW, RK and KM observed the lessons (weekly).
• Students and staff completed learning journals at the end of each lesson.
• Immediately following on from each lesson (i.e. from 11.15-12.15), the project team met to discuss findings, plan, review etc.

What did we do?

A half-year (4 science classes) devised and delivered a series of science ‘performances’ during their revision week in the week before the year 8 exams. Each class was allocated a particular topic with a brief to distil their knowledge of the topic into a revision ‘performance’ for the rest of their half-year. The young people were encouraged to be as creative as possible in their performances, drawing on music, drama, and visual arts, as well as ensuring scientific accuracy.

By having a half-year group involved in a process of devising, rehearsing and performing in the lecture theatre in front of all 4 classes, it was hoped that a level of excitement and possibly competition between classes would be generated, leading to the emotional engagement of participants.

Cycle 2

• This term, we have refined the investigation to explore how having a 'performance' at the end of term will affect the class's motivation, creativity and understanding of their topic:
• Set 1, 2, 3 and 4 to have a topic to present to the rest of the half year group in the revision week
• First double for ordinary revision. Single lesson to prepare / rehearse their 'performance'. Last double in the Lecture Theatre for 'revision performances'
• Enquiry question: ‘Can involving young people in the process of helping their peers to understand science through a ‘performance’ approach enhance engagement, motivation and learning?’

What do we want to learn?

• The agreed question for the school’s internal research in 2012 is: which approaches to teaching are most effective in improving learning and meaningful engagement in Science?

Collation and analysis of results

• The first review will be after the first 4 weeks of teaching and any necessary amendments made.
• Case study interviews (when and who to conduct these, if face-to-face?; video/audio recording?)

Enquiry: What is engaging about an enquiry-based approach to learning in music?

We will undertake some sampled observations of students’ engagement during music lessons, focusing on:

1.Individual student engagement in Science and Maths. While either teacher is teaching, the musician will discretely observe a sample of selected students individually, and keep a record of their engagement through the session using the agreed observation template

2.Small group interactions and how they construct learning

3.The kind of interactions between teacher and student/s

• Participating teachers will meet 4 times as a group during the summer term 2012, to work with The Sage Gateshead musician Wendy Doyle to form a new steel pan ensemble. They will:
• work as a group to learn percussion repertoire
• reflect on the kinds of learning / teaching experienced
• discuss what insights the process of musical learning might provide for the development of teaching and learning activity for students in KS3 Science
• Participating teachers will meet for a final two times in the autumn term to share any impacts of participation on their design of learning for students at KS3, and capture any wider impact on learner engagement.

• We learned that the pressures on schools makes participation in extra-curricular activities challenging - the logistical challenges of working in St. Thomas More proved insurmountable.
• A decision was taken in March to re-locate the project within The Sage Gateshead and make it available to the teachers involved in St. Thomas More, but to extend membership to other KS3 Science teachers.

What did we learn?

• Firstly, that the music approach to learning Science concepts worked. The Science content was put forward by the Science teacher, and they confirmed that the information ‘performed’ by the students was scientifically accurate.
• We also learned that ‘performing’ knowledge is not always as engaging as we might think – we believe that some of the students’ presenting behavioural challenges arose because of the ‘outsider’ nature of the musician in what is quite a structured and disciplined school culture. Students reported feeling vulnerable and uncomfortable with some of the ‘performative’ aspects of the project, which might have been different if the activity had been more integrated into their normal curriculum. This prompted us to re-focus the project in the next cycle on how students are currently engaged in both Science and Music.

We see a progression in what we have done, in that prior to the project music was being used to help students learn facts, whereas now we are looking more towards using it to stimulate an emotional engagement. This still feels somewhat artificial, partly because it is still ‘new’ and partly because adults and students are uncertain about where we are going with it. It felt more natural when SD introduced the astronomy topic with a presentation that included a music ‘soundtrack’. This also helped students when they were asked to design their own presentations.

Some students showed they could engage with the task at a ‘deeper’, more thoughtful level, while others appeared more superficial in their approach. To what extent can we, as educators, take such different levels of engagement into account when designing learning programmes?

• In the interviews and questionnaires the most significant feedback related to the importance the pupils placed on working in a team, in relation to their enjoyment but also as a key factor in helping them learn. ‘you can share ideas’, ‘they [team members] can help you if you get stuck’.
• Pupils felt they learned better when engaged in an activity they considered to be fun.
• They considered activities outside the text book (i.e. not reading or writing) to be most enjoyable and therefore most effective in helping them to learn.
• However they did identify how important it was to spend time at the end of each lesson to reflect on their learning.

• We delivered three different approaches to experimentation and composition in two classes of Year 8 students; 30 children in each class.

• A number of sessions were run with teacher in St Thomas More (video evidence collected of the first session)
• Teachers were very engaged in the project, but the school found it hard to provide consistent support in terms of staff time and space in the school for the project to happen.

What did we do?

• A small cohort of 7 students in yr 9, worked with a community musician both on site and off site at The Sage Gateshead to develop a core group of music specialists. The group were taught the principles, including the chemical formula, for photosynthesis through music rhythms. Every aspect of photosynthesis was represented musically.
• Further workshops gave students the music ‘tools’ that they needed in order to create their own presentations. These workshops were held in the music room of the school but in the science timetable, with the science teacher present.

The focus of the enquiry was to find out whether using music as a ‘soundtrack’ to science lessons could enhance students’ engagement and learning. This involved playing music that was appropriate to the topic/module (sometimes combined with images) during the lessons, with the idea of stimulating students at a different, more emotional level, to see if that affected their engagement with the science. Towards the end of the enquiry, students were given the task of choosing and presenting their own music ‘soundtracks’ to help them express their feelings about the new topic of astronomy. Music was also used to help demonstrate scientific theory (e.g. during a kinaesthetic activity showing how atoms behave in response to heat).

CYcle 1

Working with NQT’s to model best practice in community music teaching practice – practical, group work, quick fulfilment. Teachers engaged “achieved so much”. Big emotional response. About to have conversations about whether the emotional engagement is important in their learning and questioning the importance of the ‘practical’ on the emotional engagement. Documenting underway and teachers are doing some reflective writing.

• ‘Soundtrack to Science’ - using music to enhance introduction of different topics. Baseline questionnaire completed at the beginning looking at student thoughts around their perceptions of music and science. Thoughts around music needing to be used more.
• Additional maths enquiry focused on group working and practical problems with no music but looking at how SD works as a musician and transferring that teaching style in to the lessons.

• We will compare the similarities between 'experimentation' within science lessons and 'composition' within music lessons.
• We are exploring different approaches to teaching these subjects to see whether this has an impact on the engagement of the participants.

What do we want to learn?

• Does music help to learn Science concepts?
• Mainly working with the music teacher exploring Year 9 struggle with concept of photosynthesis. Leading practical and interactive music sessions linking music with the topic. Using the Kodaly method of unconscious learning, and learning theory by singing. 4 sessions so far - 2 in school, two at The Sage Gateshead. Thoughts around whether there was consensus about learning science through music and whether the science was a by product of the music. Research had unpicked the need for language and terminology to be precise and how open questioning can be a barrier as you potentially then don’t get the right terminology in response.

School 1

School 2

School 3

School 4