soundingthe teaching II

SUPPORTING AND EVIDENCINGMUSIC LEARNING

A PUBLICATION BY THE SINGAPORE TEACHERS’ ACADEMY FOR THE ARTS (STAR)

We would like to express our appreciation to:

Dr Leong Wei Shin, National Institute of Education, for supporting and providing advice

to the Networked Learning Community.

Principal, Staff and students of: Ang Mo Kio Primary, Canberra Primary School,

Catholic High School, Guangyang Primary School, Maha Bodhi School,

Ngee Ann Primary School, Woodgrove Secondary School, Yuhua Secondary School

ISBN: 978-981-11-6499-6Copyright @2018 by Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRtsAll parts of this publication are protected by copyright. No part of it may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts.

CONTENTS

PRELUDE

EXPOSITION

SUPPORTINGSELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

FOREWORD

06 07INTRODUCTION

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37Supporting Students’ Sense of Relatedness, Competence and Autonomy Chan Hui Juan, CelineMaha Bodhi School

Empowering Students through Negotiating and Understanding Performance BenchmarksSharon Ng Wai YeeGuangyang Primary School

Facilitating Student-Student Interactions with Student Self-Assessment StrategiesKatherine FaroekAng Mo Kio Primary School

EXPOSITION

CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDINGAND PROVIDING FEEDBACK

SETTING MEANINGFUL ASSIGNMENTS

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92

120

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Comparing Students’ Evaluation and Teacher’s Evaluation of Group PerformancesTan Keng HongCanberra Primary School

Motivating P6Students through Differentiated TasksEng Yan Chen AlvynNgee Ann Primary School

Facilitating aSong-Writing TaskLiu Jia Yuen ClaireCatholic High School (Secondary)

Improving Student-Student Feedback Using Socratic Questioning, Accountable Talk, and Co-construction of RubricsLim Hui Wen JwenWoodgrove Secondary School

Harnessing E-Portfolio and E-Platform for StudentSelf-AssessmentLee Yue ZhiYuhua Secondary School

CODA136 139REFFLECTIONS REFERENCES

PRELUDE

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by Rebecca Chew, Academy Principal, STAR

FOREWORD

Teachers go beyond the ordinary and make meaning of their own teaching practices to further encourage their young students. The constant need for sense-making and connecting the dots in today’s complex global world inspire teachers to reflect and reframe their own daily teaching practices. The choices we make in pedagogy become important to making relevant music content and knowledge. These choices in the teaching practice create opportunities to impact teaching and learning, and support student learning.

Sounding the Teaching II documents meaningful teaching practices in the context of our music lessons, guided by the Singapore Teaching Practice (STP), and

makes more explicit how joyful teachingand learning can be for our teacherleadership journeys.

We celebrate with all those who have thoughtfully designed these awesome student-centred projects and collaborated to make this publication possible. We hope more music teachers will be inspired in their own teacher leadership journeys, as this second volume serves as an impetus and catalyst to spark more conversations. It will help us think more creatively and critically as we go about designing the lessons that impact and influence the student learners who will create tomorrow.

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by Chua Siew Ling, Master Teacher (Music)

INTRODUCTION

Extending from the investigations in the first issue of Sounding the Teaching, where we examined learning from the lens of the learner, Sounding the Teaching II examines what supporting and evidencing student learning means. This publication documents the critical inquiry projects of eight teacher-leaders from the Critical Inquiry Networked Learning Community (CI NLC) who embarked on this journey with us. The journey began with an exploration of assessment principles and practices, and a music study trip to the International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education (ISAME) conference in Birmingham, UK. The teachers pursued an idea inspired by the trip and conducted their respective inquiry projects to further their understanding of assessment in supporting student learning in the context of their own music classrooms. Upon their return, they also presented their projects at a mini-symposium held in October 2017.

Supporting and evidencing student learning requires us to be acutely aware of our students’ needs, their psychological environment, their social environment, their abilities, their interests and their learning

styles. As we teach, we are continually trying to understand whether our students are learning, possibly every minute of our lessons. We are learning about our students as individuals through our conversations and interactions with them. We are learning about our students when we engage in music-making with them. We are often looking out for evidences of student learning, from what they say, the way they speak, the way they make music and what they have written down. These evidences help us review our teaching and assessment strategies, so that we can bring about greater learning in our students.

As our students learn, they are continually evaluating themselves, their peers and their teachers. They consider whether they understand the instructions, the concepts and the requirements of the task. They consider where they stand in relation to their peers. These evidences also inform them whether they wish to continue to be interested in learning, whether they should continue to challenge themselves, or whether they should just give up. Our interactions with and feedback to our students can impact them in ways that we might never know.

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The diverse practices and issues investigated in this publication reflect the plethora of perspectives and strategies about supporting and evidencing students’ music learning. The articles have been organised according to the teaching processes in the Pedagogical Practices of the Singapore Teaching Practice. In each of these processes, some questions that have intrigued members of the CI NLC are listed below. They help guide us as we reflect on our practices.

Supporting self-directed learning

• What activities and tasks can support self-directed learning? How can they engender a growth mindset in our students?

• How can activities and tasks be delivered to better support students’ psychological needs and hence empower students to be self-directed?

• How do student interactions support their own learning?

• What self-assessment strategies do students naturally create for themselves? How can teachers help them develop more self-assessment strategies?

• How can students be empowered through enhancing their understanding of performance benchmarks?

Checking for understanding andproviding feedback

• What activities and tasks and facilitation strategies help check students’ understanding?

• How do students’ evaluation of their own work compare with teachers’ evaluation of their work? Is there a common understanding of the assessment criteria and rubrics?

• What facilitation strategies improve the quality of student-student feedback?

• How do students respond to different feedback strategies such as Socratic questioning and Accountable Talk?

Setting meaningful assignments

• What types of assignments and tasks influence student motivation? How do they impact student motivation?

• How can assignments be fair and cater to different student profiles?

• How can different tools such as online platforms be harnessed to facilitate students’ self-assessment and improve their performance?

• How are the assignments experienced by students? • What contexts influence the design of

meaningful assignments? How do the contexts impact the reception of

these tasks?

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In seeking understanding to the questions above, various inquiry projects have been conducted by members of the networked learning community. In reading these findings, one might notice that supporting student learning is about understanding the symbiotic relationship between teaching and assessing. As we consider how we could be more student-centric and teach in ways that empower the student voice and grow student identities, we also consider how we could assess in ways that support what we wish to achieve in our students.

In the spirit of inquiry, a range of methodologies has been explored in this collection, some of which might even be deemed unusual and thought-provoking. For instance, the opening number takes on a narrative approach, as the author describes her journey in supporting her students’ sense of relatedness, competence and autonomy in her music lessons. Relatedness, competence and autonomy are three psychological needs postulated in the Self-Determination Theory by Deci and Ryan, which have often been investigated using quantitative and more positivistic approaches. The analysis of data and reflection of her observations in this study, however, use a narrative approach instead and are told through a story. The intent of the narrative is to paint a more vivid picture of the actual classroom practices and experiences to provide a more nuanced understanding.

The other studies in this collection explore a range of analytical techniques such as discourse analysis (interpretation of what the conversations reveal), content analysis (interpretation of content through the coding process) and statistical analysis (interpretation of quantitative data). They take on a paradigm and an understanding that all of us wear different lenses as we examine data due to our own prior experiences. Hence, our observations, quantitative or qualitative, cannot be completely objective. Therefore, these inquiry approaches aim to explore and unleash different perspectives and subjective possibilities. And hence, more traditional, positivist approaches and the use of control groups are absent from these studies. Instead, the approaches explored in this publication illustrate myriad ways of metacognitive thinking, ways in which we could collect data and analyse them to sound out our own teaching practices. We hope that Sounding the Teaching II will inspire you to carry out your own inquiry of your classroom practices, and to see music teaching in a new light.

EXPOSITION

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supporting

self-directed learning

Self-directed learning is about initiating personally challenging activities and developing the knowledge and skills to overcome the challenges successfully (Gibbons, 2002). There are different kinds of self-directed learning, as well as many ways to facilitate and support such learning. The three articles in this section present three different ways of supporting self-directed learning.

QUESTION

Narrative Approach

ME THODOLOGY

• Be sensitive to learners’ needs and be flexible about making changes to lessons according to their needs

• Have a supportive learning environment where students can work together as a team

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

Supporting Students’ Sense of Relatedness, Competence and Autonomy

How can students’ need for relatedness, competence and autonomy be supported?

supporting

self-directed learning

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

Empowering Students through Negotiating and Understanding Performance Benchmarks

• Students have difficulty isolating the descriptors in the rubrics as they assess performances

• When and how the negotiation and co-construction of rubrics are conducted can determine learning efficiency and engagement

Narrative, Observation

ME THODOLOGY

How can studentsbe empowered throughnegotiating and understanding the performance standards/benchmarks?

QUESTION

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

Facilitating Student-Student Interactions with Student Self-Assessment Strategies

• How do students interact with one another to achieve the goals of the performance task?

• What self-assessment strategies do students create for themselves to reach the goals of the weekly assessment tasks?

• Students have a variety of self-assessment strategies

• Students’ self-assessment impact how they interact in their groups

• Teacher intervention helps with student interaction

Observation

ME THODOLOGY

QUESTION

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by Chan Hui Juan, CelineMaha Bodhi School

Supporting Students’ Sense of Relatedness,Competence and Autonomy

This study uses a narrative approach to explore how students’ need for relatedness, competence and autonomy can be supported.

Relatedness, competence and autonomy are three basic psychological needs of people postulated in the self-determination theory (SDT).

COMPETENCE

means the desire to control and master the environment and outcome. We want to know how things will turn out and what the results are ofour actions.

AUTONOMY

concerns with us having a sense of free will when doing something or acting out of our own interests and values.

RELATEDNESS

deals with the desire to “interact with, be connected to, and experience caring for other people” (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Our actions and daily activities involve other people and through this, we seek the feeling of belongingness.

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WEEK

1Fit the lyrics of the song into the tune that they learnt in solfege

WEEK

3Practice for their assessment task: Create a group song

WEEK

2WEEK

4Scaffolded composition task to match lyrics and tune together

Final rehearsal and performance

This plan was designed and planned with the intention of finding out how students’ motivation could be increased through meeting their needs of relatedness, competence and autonomy in the assessment activities planned.

MY ACTION PLAN

MY STORY

This story is reconstructed from field notes of the entire research process, which covered four weeks of lessons. The story is based on a true account of what had taken place during the lessons. Pseudonyms are given to the characters of the story to protect the identity of the students.

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The Start of a JourneyChapter 1:

“Ringgggg!!” The moment the bell rang, the excited children of 2A chirped, “It’s time for music lesson!”

With eagerness written all over their faces, they hurried out of the classroom to line up.

“Let’s challenge ourselves to take the shortest time possible to settle down so that we can start learning together,” I said, presenting them with their first challenge of the day.

Taking on the challenge, all 29 members of the class worked together, and in no time, they settled down quickly for the lesson. Clearly, consistent routines combined with clear and manageable expectations do wonders for the class.

We started the lesson off by revisiting solfège hand signs. My original plan was to just do a quick recap before beginning the lesson proper. However, as I observed the students, I felt that they needed a bit more time to revisit what they had learnt earlier, before I could start to build up their existing knowledge.

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At the back of my mind, I was battling with the lack of time to complete the lesson as planned if I were to spend a little more time letting them build up their confidence in doing their solfège hand signs. It was a struggle. But I knew there was something for me to learn out of this challenge that laid before me; and so, I decided to take the plunge and set aside more time than planned to revisit the solfège hand signs through the use of a familiar song.

After much practice, the class could do their hand signs with ease and confidence when they applied it to a song they had learnt earlier on.

“Yes!! We did it!” the students cheered excitedly with their eyes opened wide, clearly amazed by what they could actually do.

It was a moment to behold, looking at their joy over their sense of achievement. For me as an educator, it had taught me the importance of being sensitive to the learners’ needs and to be flexible about making changes to my lesson according to their current needs.

Adaptability, when coupled with action, creates new opportunities for growth to take place. The deliberate effort made to build up the competence of the students led me to see an increase in their confidence level and also in their motivation to learn. Seeing the enjoyment and smiles on their faces made the extra time spent revisiting the hand signs worthwhile, even though it meant my plans for the lesson had to change. How important it is to stay committed to my decision while being flexible in my approach!

It had taught me the importance of being sensitive to the learners’ needs

and to be flexible about making changes to my lesson according to their current needs.

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Venturing into the UnknownChapter 2:

As the lesson progressed, I taught the class a new song called Teddy Bear. The moment I flashed the solfège of the song on the screen, I was greeted with puzzled looks.

“Miss Chan, why are you not showing us the lyrics of the song first? We have always been learning it that way,” asked Athan.

The class started buzzing among themselves, trying to figure out what I had in mind. As I stepped back to observe their responses, I knew it was new ground that we were venturing into. Their expressions said it all, as they were surrounded by uncertainty and the fear of doing something that they were not familiar and comfortable with.

When challenges are planned in a structured way, the initial struggle experienced will morph into a

meaningful and beautiful learning experience for the students.

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I revealed to the class, “We have always been learning new songs through call and response, but today, let us try learning the new song purely using solfège first.”

The class moaned, clearly upset by the change in my usual routine. Louis blurted out desperately, “It’s going to be so tough! We have never tried it before.”

The resistance and struggles that they faced were real. When we first tried it out, the class took a while to learn the song through solfège. Then, I noticed them gradually becoming more comfortable with the new approach and saw their confidence growing.

The class soon started to get the hang of it and eventually, they learnt how to sing Teddy Bear in solfège while doing their hand signs. Seeing that the class was getting familiar with the tune, I asked, “Are you ready for another little challenge?”

As I briefly scanned the room to look out for their readiness level for the next challenge, I saw different emotions written on their faces. I thought to myself, “Everyone’s readiness level is different. How can I help each of them raise their readiness level?” With that thought, I assured the class that we would take on the challenge together.

“Alright, 2A, I’ll be showing you the lyrics of the Teddy Bear song and you will work with your buddy to try and figure out the song together, using the solfège of the song that we had just learnt.”

The moment the lyrics flashed on the screen, the students immediately got started on the little challenge they were given – to fit the lyrics to the tune based on the solfège they had learnt. Some tried out the first line of the song in words while matching the solfège, while others tried singing the song in solfège before attempting to fit the words into the song. The start of a new journey is never easy, but with courage to face the challenge, they eventually started singing the song out loud in unison as a class, bursting with pride that they had figured it out.

“We actually did it!” Louis shared enthusiastically, amazed by his discovery. “I can’t believe it!”

“It’s really fun,” Athan chimed in. “And it’s actually not that difficult to sing the song after learning how to sing in solfège!”

Hearing their responses, I smiled as I watched them slowly transform through the little challenges. It seems that when challenges are planned in a structured way, the initial struggle experienced will morph into a meaningful and beautiful learning experience for the students. The turning point was when the class experienced the ‘Aha!’ moment when they overcame their own struggles and the restrictions that they had originally placed on themselves. Truly, there is no greater journey than the one we must take to discover all of the mysteries that lie within us. I wonder what other discoveries the children will make for themselves as they embark on a journey of self-discovery in their learning process.

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Unexpected DiscoveriesChapter 3:

After I introduced the pentatonic scale to the class and guided them to sing out the Teddy Bear song, they started commenting excitedly among themselves.

“Miss Chan, this song uses the pentatonic scale,” the enthusiastic boys and girls in the class exclaimed eagerly, as their faces lit up at the discovery that they had made on their own.

The joy I observed in them was priceless. It meant a lot to me to see them being so motivated and engaged from constructing their own understanding and extending their own learning.

I posed another challenge to them – to figure out what notes I was using on the xylophone to play the bordun. Determined to find out what notes were being used, every one of them listened very attentively. After the demonstration of the open and closed bordun, I asked, “Could you hear which notes were being played?”

It is always easy to assume that young children like them are too young to learn

accountability. Clearly, this was not the case.

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Many hands shot up high in the air as they remembered that one of our class rules is to respect one another by giving others a chance to answer.

Directing my gaze to a shy girl, Hazel, she answered meekly, “Miss Chan, you were playing on the first and fifth notes.”

The rest of the class nodded in agreement excitedly and gave her a thumbs up. When I revealed that they had got it right, the entire class broke out into wide smiles and applauded themselves for a job well done.

For the next part of the lesson, the class and I worked out the melody of the Teddy Bear song on the xylophones. Before I got them to try it out on their own, we played together as a class and they took turns to play out each line of the song. Gradually, I took a step back and allowed them to take over. The moment they were given the space to explore and experiment on their own, the music room was soon filled with the crisp and short sounds of the xylophones and the occasional sprinkle of laughter as the children made little mistakes now and then.

As I watched one member of each group try out the xylophone, a heartening sight greeted me. The other two members were engaged in helping their friend check that they were hitting the right notes. It is always easy to assume that young children like them are too young to learn accountability. Clearly, this was not the case. As I watched the class interact with one another, it amazed me how they took ownership of their own learning and also learnt to be accountable for one another.

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Overcoming Learning PitsChapter 4:

When they were ready for the last segment planned for the lesson, I gathered them together as a class to brief them on what they would be working on for their group work. Excited murmurs broke out among them as they started their little discussions with their group members before they were sent to their respective group areas to start on their group work.

“Can we get started on our group practice now, Miss Chan? I can’t wait!” asked Louis with a sheepish grin.

The moment my instructions were given, all of them hurriedly gathered their group members. In a flash, they were off to their group areas and started on their discussion.

While the class was busy working together on their group item, I observed an initial struggle in one of the groups. Walking close to the group, I overheard Si Yuan commenting, “I don’t want to play the bordun.”

The rest of his group members tried to negotiate with Si Yuan, but he refused to give in and insisted on playing the melody. It was a struggle to stop myself from intervening. Holding myself back, I continued to observe how they interacted with one another. Eventually, another boy, Justin, offered to let Si Yuan take his place. They may have taken a bit more time than the other groups to iron things out but eventually, they settled on their roles.

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As I continued to walk around to facilitate the class, I beamed. Seeing the shy ones being encouraged by their friends in the group to try the roles assigned and also supporting one another as they put things together, made me feel proud of how these children overcame their own struggles and came out of their own learning pits with one another’s help.

The room was filled with boisterous laughter as the class made full use of the time given to them to rehearse their group performance. It was amazing to see all 29 of these eight-year-olds so serious and focused as they worked on their parts, and the joy that radiated from within them when they were given the space and autonomy to work things out together on their own without much of my intervention.

When it was time for their group performance, all five groups were eager to showcase what they had prepared within the short time to their peers, as they knew they would have the support and attention of their friends from other groups. The learning environment is a subtle factor, yet one that is so impactful in promoting their learning and in increasing their motivation level. For 2A, they have learnt to trust one another over time, as they know that they are in a safe space to make mistakes and learn together.

As I concluded the lesson, I reminded them that we may all be at different levels of competence and readiness, but together as a team, we can help build each other up and achieve more than what we could have on our own, just like what they had done for their group work. Towards the end of the lesson, the students were excitedly singing the Teddy Bear song in solfège as they made their way out of the music room. Looking at them, I let out a wide smile as they broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

The learning environment is a subtle factor, yet one that is so impactful in promoting their learning and

in increasing their motivation level.

Together as a team, we can help build each other up and achieve more than what we

could have on our own.

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Going Beyond Comfort ZoneChapter 5:

In the next lesson, we revisited Teddy Bear.

“Can you let us do the entire song of Teddy Bear on our own without your help?” asked Louis, wide-eyed.

The whole class nodded eagerly, desperately hoping that their nods would convince me to agree to the request that was made. I was surprised by how ready Louis and his classmates were to take on challenges, as compared to the previous lesson. It was definitely heartening to see them excited and eager to prove that they could do it. Undeniably, with increased competency in handling a task comes increased confidence to take it on and do it well.

Then, I revealed that we were going to learn another song. Athan asked cheekily, “Are you going to give us another challenge today?”

I was surprised. I had originally thought that they would resist the idea of having yet another challenge come their way. Seizing the opportunity to let them have a choice in how the lesson was structured, I asked, “What do you want the next challenge to be?”

The class was quiet for a few seconds before Si Yuan raised his hand, asking, “Can you let us figure out the song in solfège on our own today?” His classmates nodded readily.

Sensing support from his classmates, Si Yuan added, “We need a different challenge in order to be better than the last lesson.”

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Not wanting to be a wet blanket, I agreed to let them try out the challenge that they had requested. Without any knowledge of the rhythm of the song, the class was shown the solfège of the song Ding, Dong, Digidigidong on the screen. The moment they saw the solfège flashed on the screen, they began singing the song out loud with the given solfège while exploring different rhythms. Clearly amused by the title of the song, the class started to share the different compositions that they had come up with among themselves. Though this challenge was more demanding as compared to the previous lesson, I noticed a change in the class, from being resistant to being willing to go beyond their comfort zone.

When I revealed the actual rhythm of the song, Athan exclaimed, “Mine is so different from the original song!”

Louis added, “Mine is so different in the rhythm and the tempo, too! It soundedso sad!”

The whole class roared with laughter. When their laughter subsided, Si Yuan reminded the class, “But Miss Chan, you always tell us that it doesn’t matter if we get it wrong, as long as we never stop trying and don’t give up, right?” Si Yuan’s wise words set off the rest, and they nodded their heads vigorously.

“Even if our song is different, at least we made our own song!” joked Louis.

Amidst the laughter shared by the class, I felt unspeakable joy as I witnessed the journey of discovery that the class had embarked on and the learning pits that they were learning to overcome along the way. Though their compositions were not anywhere close to the original song, the way they handled their little setbacks and managed their emotions was a far cry from the start of the journey. That, to me, became one of the defining moments of the journey.

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A Journey of TransformationChapter 6:

Upon revealing the solfège of the song, the class learnt it within minutes and proceeded to fit the lyrics of the song into what they had learnt. I observed the amazed looks on their faces when they sang the song out loud with gusto, without me having to go through it with them.

When learning is planned intentionally with a clear structure and with proper scaffolding in place, they

make a difference in the way our students learn.

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“Why were you able to do it?” I posed this question to the class, wanting them to take some time to reflect on their learning.

Hazel, the quietest girl in the class, raised her hand to share her thoughts. “I feel confident and ready to try on my own because I had enough practice while singing out together in solfège,” she said softly, but with a steady eye contact and an assured look.

Clearly, what Hazel said had nuggets of truth in it. Building up their competence is an important aspect of engaging students and increasing their self-determination to do things well, so as to lead them to become more confident in what they believe they can achieve. As I got the class to reflect on their journey, I found myself reflecting along with them as well. It was not just a learning journey for the class. It was one for me as well.

As I watched the class work on the new song that they had learnt on the xylophones, they made me realise that giving them a sense of autonomy to co-plan and refine the lessons with me motivated them to be self-determined and self-directed learners. From the beginning of the journey that the class had embarked on, they had taken on numerous challenges. Though there were struggles experienced along the way, these little struggles had been planned in a structured manner, which led to a meaningful and beautiful learning experience for them.

While looking at them working together, the class reminded me of the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly. It was a moment worth reflecting for me as an educator. When learning is planned intentionally with a clear structure and with proper scaffolding in place, they make a difference in the way our students learn. Increasing students’ motivation level and readiness to take on more challenges will transform them into individuals who are intrinsically motivated to give their best and to love what they are learning. All they need is the time, space and the right environment that caters to their individual learning needs to help them grow.

All they need is the time, space and the right environment that caters to their individual learning

needs to help them grow.

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Taking Ownership Chapter 7:

During group work, as I was walking around the room to facilitate their group discussion and practice, I overheard some groups suggesting role rotation, so as to give others a chance to play the melody or bordun on the xylophone. It was really comforting and heartening to see such positive interaction among the members in each group, and to have the class sharing the responsibility to create a positive, safe and encouraging environment for one another to learn and make mistakes together.

During the group performance, the class volunteered themselves and were eager to show friends from the other groups their items. It surprised me to observe that the students were eager to showcase their performance, even though they didn’t have much time to work on it together. With the laughter I heard and the joy I saw, I am convinced that apart from giving them the space and autonomy to work things out together on their own without much of my intervention, creating opportunities for them to relate to one another and to build trust is pertinent in promoting their learning and increasing their motivation level.

Creating opportunities for them to relate to one another and to build trust is pertinent in promoting

their learning and increasing their motivation level.

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At the end of this lesson, I gathered the class together as part of the usual class routine to do a quick reflection on what they had learnt. One of the more enthusiastic boys in the class, Coen, shared his observation that they were able to work faster together for this lesson. When I questioned what helped them to work faster, the class shared that they were familiar with the songs and their individual roles in the group. Just then, the bell rang to signal the end of lesson. With springs in their steps, 2A made their way out of the music room. As you would have guessed it, everyone was singing the solfège of Ding, Dong, Digidigidong in unison while bursting into fits of laughter.

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The Need to ConnectChapter 8:

While all the children were busy practising with their group members in the following lesson, Si Yuan, who had always been very participative, started behaving strangely. He was unlike his usual self. Seated quietly at a corner away from his group members, I was puzzled to see him not joining in with the rest of his group members in the group discussion. I noticed that he looked crestfallen. As he gazed at the floor, I walked towards him to find out what was happening.

On the brink of tears, he sighed, “My group members do not like to work with me. I want to play on the xylophone, but they do not allow me to.” By now, his tears welled up in his eyes and began rolling down his cheeks. In order not to distract the rest, I asked Si Yuan to head out of the music room to share with me more about what was making him sad.

Upon finding out more from him, I asked his group members out to make some clarifications. As it turned out, Si Yuan took it to heart when the rest of his group members wanted to give another member a chance on the xylophone, as she had not had hers in the previous lessons. This genuine intention the rest had, to give everyone a fair chance, was misunderstood by Si Yuan. He had thought that they didn’t like him, and hence, they voted for the other member to have a go at the xylophone. When this was clarified and made known to Si Yuan, he told his group members apologetically, “I’m sorry for thinking that all of you do not want to work with me.”

As teachers, we often only think of the need to connect with our students, but it is also just as

important that we help our students learn to connect with their peers.

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The next moment, the sight that I saw before my very eyes, touched me beyond words. The rest of his group members actually gathered around him to comfort him and gave him the assurance that everyone in the group plays an important role. Giving him a pat on his back and with some giving him a hug, the entire group went back into the music room after the little misunderstanding had been resolved. As they continued with their discussion and practice, the rest of the group members paid close attention to Si Yuan’s feelings and made sure that he felt included. The atmosphere of the group was instantly changed as they moved on together from the little stumbling block they encountered as a group.

As teachers, we often only think of the need to connect with our students, but it is also just as important that we help our students learn to connect with their peers.

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EmpoweredChapter 9:

The following week, the day of their actual performance finally arrived. At the start of the lesson, the class of excited children bargained with me for more time so that they could be even better during the final performance. After I had briefed them on the assessment criteria, all five groups went on auto-pilot mode and started rehearsing the group item that they had put together in the previous lesson. While I stood at a corner to observe the children giving their all during their rehearsal, I felt a glow of pride watching them so driven and determined to give their best.

When it was finally time for them to perform their item in front of their other peers, the children amazed me with what they had within them. The past four weeks of their learning journey were made up of numerous planned challenges, but they had shown how they were able to rise up and take on so much more when they were given the autonomy to make choices, and their levels of competence increased progressively. A safe and positive environment combined with the opportunity to work with their peers allowed the students to overcome whatever challenges that were placed in their way, as they helped one another out of their own learning pits.

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LEARNING POINTS

1 BE ADAPTABLE TO CHANGE

Just as I had intentionally placed challenges for the class, forcing them to constantly adapt to what was before them, the class had in turn challenged me to be adaptable and change accordingly based on the current needs as the lesson progressed.

2 BE INTENTIONAL

In order to grow and nurture a growth mindset in each child, I had to be very intentional in my approach to throw in challenges that would bring them to the next level. At the same time, I had to make intentional effort not to intervene so quickly, so that they could learn how to resolve issues among themselves and in turn learn to be self-motivated learners.

3 EMBRACE CHALLENGES

This journey made me realise how we often place limitations on ourselves before we even make an attempt to overcome the challenge before us. The students had initially shown so much resistance in the initial challenges that I had planned for them. However, challenges, when planned in a structured way, build up the students’ competence and allow them to embrace challenges over time. When the students start embracing challenges, they grow in confidence and are willing to take on even more challenges.

4 GIVE ROOM FOR FAILURE

Failures are always associated with negative feelings and experiences. However, when we change our perspectives towards failures, it can bring about positive learning points. Seeing how the class took on the challenges and struggled with them at the various learning pits made me realise there is a need to provide students with the space to experience failures, so that they can eventually learn to rise up and take on the challenges. Supporting their needs for relatedness, autonomy and competencies when they fall, encourages them to embrace and take on the challenges.

5 FIND THE RIGHT BALANCE

The power of self-fulfilling prophecies was evident as I observed how the expectations I had of the students in turn made them believe in what they were able to achieve. Knowing that I had the power to mould their behaviour, I realised that it is especially important that we do not undermine their potential or cause them to stumble with our overambitious expectations of them.

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LEARNING POINTS

7 KEEP EXPECTATIONS IN CHECK

By giving the class autonomy to co-create the lessons with me and giving them a voice to share their views, they became motivated to take on the tasks, as they take on the ownership of their learning. However, giving too much autonomy has its repercussions, too. There were times when they became too engrossed in the control that they were given and they came up with challenges that are good for growth but too challenging for them. This, instead of motivating them, may end up demoralising them, should the challenge be too hard and their level of readiness and competence unmatched. Hence, we need to discern and decide when we can let go and when we need to hold back.

6 GET OUT OF COMFORT ZONE

I’ve lost count the number of times that the class and I were pushed out of our own comfort zones. It’s nice to stay in our comfort zone where everything stays the same. However, if we were to always stay within our comfort zones, we will never be able to progress beyond them and explore other areas that we could have ventured into. In order to motivate the class, the three basic psychological needs were met through the structure, activities and support put in place for them. Though students were initially reluctant and resistant, they eventually came out of their own learning pits and emerged much stronger, motivated and confident in knowing that they are able to do greater things.

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by Katherine FaroekAng Mo Kio Primary School

Facilitating Student-Student Interactions with StudentSelf-Assessment Strategies

RESEARCH PURPOSE

LITERATURE REVIEW

To determine how student learning in playing the ukulele can be enhanced through meaningful interactions between them in a group work setting and through using student self-assessment strategies.

• Student self-assessment is regarded as vital to success at school and is “an essential component of formative assessment” (Black et al., 2003).

• Self-assessment is a valuable learning tool as well as part of an assessment process. Through the process, students can identify their own skill gaps, see where to focus their attention in learning, set realistic goals, revise their work and track their own progress. (Stanford University, n.d.)

• In an ideal situation, students will begin to improve their ability of monitoring or tracking of targets which had been set. In practice, students’ ability will be different and the teacher’s role as a facilitator will become more important for some students.

QUESTION

How do students interact with one another to achieve the goals of the performance task?

What self-assessment strategies do students create for themselves to reach the goals of the weekly assessment tasks?

INTERACTION MEANS:

SELF-ASSESSMENT INCLUDES:

• How they work with one another• How they assess themselves e.g. their own self-assessment based

on the feedback they receive from one another• How they observe others to improve

their own performance

• Individual self-assessment• Group self-assessment• Peer-assessment within the group

Through interaction with their peers, students gain knowledge from their peers and then apply it in self-assessment. Peer interaction is therefore an important step which promotes their own learning and achievements.

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THE CURRICULUM

THE CONTEXT

30-minutemusic lessons, twice a week

Students have

no prior knowledgeof playing the ukulele

A Primary4 class of

32 students

This study reliesheavily on field notes of student-studentinteraction and recordings oftheir conversations.

ME THODOLOGY

PROCESS

Teacher gives assessment tasks

Teacher observes students’ work –how they interact and their self-assessment strategies

1

2

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UKULELE LESSONS

Lesson Objective

Play C chord on the ukulele as they sing as a group

Assessment Task

Perform by playing and singing in groups withthe C chord

LESSON 1

Lesson Objective

Play G chord on the ukulele as they sing as a group

Assessment Task

Perform by playing and singing in the groups with the C and G chords

LESSON 2

Lesson Objective

Play F chord on the ukulele as they sing as a group

Assessment Task

Perform by playing and singing in groups with the C, G and F chords

LESSON 3

ASSESSMENT RUBRICS

Beat and Rhythm

The beat is usually erratic and seldom accurate, detracting significantly from the overall performance.

The beat is somewhat erratic with repeated errors which occasionally detract from the overall performance.

The beat is mostly secure. There are a few errors, but these do not detract from the overall performance.

The beat is secure and accurate throughout the performance.

Chord Changing Accuracy

The group is able to keep very few accurate chords.

The group is able to keep some accurate chords but there are frequent repeated fingering errors.

The group is able to keep most of the chords are accurate using correct fingering with an occasional fingering error.

The group is able to keep the chords are very accurate. There are completely no fingering errors.

Able to play and sing together in a group

The group is unable to sing and play at the same time.

The group is able to sing and play at the same time but with frequent mistakes.

The group is able to sing and play at the same time but with little mistakes.

The group is able to sing and play at the same time with no mistakes. High confidence level was also portrayed.

C G

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CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENT-STUDENT INTERACTION

FACILITATING GROUP WORK

Students were put into different groups assigned by the teacher. Even though they were in the same class, some students hardly spoke with one another before. The first challenge of setting the class for group work was getting them to be comfortable with one another so that effective discussion could take place.

Teacher also gave guidelines to help students before each session. Examples are:

• Make sure all your members have correct fingering on the correct string and fret.• Don’t leave anyone behind!• Make sure every member in the group are playing to the beat together. • Can everyone change chords at the correct places?• Play one C chord, followed by one G chord and a C chord. Play the pattern continuously. • Most importantly, remember to keep on practising and never give up.• Help your friends in need achieve success!

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CASE STUDIES

Key observations:

• Strong leadership in a group helped the group attain greater success in evaluating one another’s performance.

• Constant revision and improvement is an integral part of self-assessment and peer assessment. Some students were able to confidently assess their peer’s weaknesses and progress and find ways to coach their peers. When they were able to assess themselves and their peers, their independence and motivation improved.

CASE STUDY 1

Key observations:

• The leader of the group constantly encouraged her group members to play with confidence, with words like “sing loudly”, “let’s try again”.

• A high level of peer assessment took place as the leader heard each member play one by one and corrected them individually. The group members benefitted from her guidance and improved their own learning based on her feedback.

CASE STUDY 2

Key observations:

• One student, who has a natural flair for music, sang the loudest and overshadowed the rest of the group.

• This group did not listen to one another. Most of the time, group members devised ways to learn how to play with the right fingering by observing what one student was playing and tried to catch up on their own by looking at their own fingering.

CASE STUDY 4

Key observations:

• This group needed more teacher facilitation in ensuring that their group was doing their peer and self-assessment.

• The abilities of the group members were

similar; they lacked communication and did not observe one another at all when they were playing as a group. All of them could play the song and sing together. They played the song over and over again without checking on one another. After a while, they stopped because they did not know what else to do.

• It was apparent that they lacked self assessment and peer assessment skills. They did not even realise that one of their group members was playing the note with the wrong fingering. Therefore, in this group, the teacher had an important role in teaching them how to observe one another and constantly bring them back to the purpose of the group work.

CASE STUDY 3

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KEY FINDINGS

The strategies which the students used to achieve the assessment task included:

• Asking each member to play one at a time while the rest of the group members listened

• Playing together as a group, stopping only when one of the group members made mistakes

• Learning from more confident peers who either modelled for the group or coached the group members

• Splitting the group further, usually into pairs

Student-student interactions:

• Strong leadership can encourage weaker students achieve greater success

# Students who possessed strong assessment capabilities were able and motivated to use information from the peer assessment and self-assessment to affirm or further their learning.

• Student interactions were richer in mixed groups (abilities, learning styles, personalities)

# When the students were actively engaged in peer assessment, they stayed involved and motivated in the learning process. This enabled them to take greater responsibilities in their own learning.

• Teacher intervention helped with student interaction e.g. quieter groups

# The teacher needed to establish clear assessment criteria and how to apply them in grading their work.

# The teacher needed to facilitate discussion among the students to improve the quality of their discussions so that the time spent in the group work benefitted their learning.

Self-assessment:

• Students have their own individual self-assessment strategies

• Students who self-assessed themselves as ‘better’ will drive the self-assessment of the group through peer assessment

• Students who self-assessed themselves as ‘weaker’ will follow a model of excellence within their group

• Group interaction may help students individually self-assess (e.g. they have models of excellence to follow)

• Not all students were able to do group self-assessment – therefore teacher intervention (e.g. questions) could get them to think about how to help themselves as a group

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CONCLUSION

The teacher has an important role to play in students’ self-assessment. It involves:

• Helping students develop self assessment capabilities

• Recognising that self-assessment is a valuable tool in learning

# When students are in groups with mixed abilities, they are able to identify their own skill gaps, where their knowledge is weak and see where they can focus their attention in learning and track their own progress. Thus, the students experience an improvement in their learning because they come to know how they learn rather than just what they learn.

1

2

3

4

5

identifytheir own skill gaps, where their knowledge is weak

seewhere to focus their attention in learning

setrealistic goals

revise their work

tracktheir own progress

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by Sharon Ng Wai YeeGuangyang Primary School

Empowering Students through Negotiating and Understanding Performance Benchmarks

Our school’s Annual Pupil Survey revealed a lack of confidence in singing, dancing and playing instruments amongst students. The reasons included a lack of self-awareness and a lack of language to be able to describe what their gaps are.

Hence, this project was conceived to address these concerns, so that students can be empowered to take ownership of their learning.

LITERATURE REVIEW

• ‘Teaching for understanding’ … involves iterative processes of doing and understanding, as shown in this diagram (Fautley, 2010, p. 94-95).

• Sustainable assessment is ‘assessment that meets the needs of the present and prepares students to meet their own future learning needs’ (Boud, 2000, p. 151).

• Rubrics give structure to observations. Matching your observations of a student’s work to the descriptions in the rubric averts the rush to make judgments that can occur in classroom evaluation situations. Instead of judging the performance, the rubric describes the performance (Brookhart, 2013).

QUESTION

How can students be empowered through negotiating and understanding performance standards/benchmarks, in order to bring about a deeper understanding of a musical performance?

Understanding

Understandingevidenced in achievement

Learning by doing

Doing

Empowered students – motivated, confident to perform, desire to improve, awareness of standards and able to apply them

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A qualitative study that examines two music lessons1 through:

• Narrative research• Observation research

Data tools:

• Post-lesson field notes (personal journal)

• Focus group discussions• Videos (artefacts of

students’ performances)

Participants:

• 10 Primary 32 students with mixed abilities

ME THODOLOGY My Journey: Lesson 1

1. Using YouTube videos, I showed students two ukulele performances.

2. I asked students to notice what is required in ukulele playing:

a. how the sound is produced b. parts of a ukulele c. how to hold a ukulele d. cannot touch other strings e. strumming patterns leading to chord changes matching

the melody of the song f. importance of strumming in time g. strumming techniques (right and wrong) h. importance of changing chords in time

Introduction to ‘raw’ beginners who have never handled a ukulele

Recognising the importance of teaching for understanding through a spiral curriculum, we want learners to meet their own future learning – to ‘learn how to fish’ by understanding what is expected through rubrics and bring about a more sustainable and deeper understanding of their own performance.

1Between Lessons 1 and 2, the teaching of ukulele was done by a vendor. After Lesson 2, there was another lesson by the vendor, followed by the actual assessment.2Primary 3 is the level when students first start to learn the ukulele.

Main intent was to create an awareness of various aspects of handling the instrument. This would preempt students what to expect and what they were about to learn for the upcoming term.

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3. I elicited responses from students on what makes a good performance.

4. They continued to watch the second clip.

5. I asked students why they had enjoyed the performance and we brainstormed what made the two performances so good:

I asked students what they thought of that performance. Many said they enjoyed it and hoped to be able to play the ukulele like the performer on YouTube.

During the interactive segment, the students were invited to sing along and they were delighted! They had the opportunity to experience singing while being accompanied by strumming on the ukulele. As educators, we know this is an important aspect in teaching and learning - a good exemplar, coupled with positive feelings invoked. The value of practising diligently was also mentioned.

Contributions from Students

Eye Contact Example cited was You are my Sunshine in which the performer maintained a steady gaze to the front

Posture was good forboth performances

Interactive Example cited was “invited the audience to sing along”

Played continuously An unexpected answer from the students but it showed us the children’s perspective

Strumming (referring to the right hand) – in time and in tune

Chord knowledge The students were not yet aware of the correct fingering to be used by the left hand

Singing along & movingalong with the music

I accepted all their answers and they were forthcoming and enthusiastic. There were answers I had not expected such as ‘playing continuously’ and the ‘interactive’ aspect. It is definitely true that a good performance must be played continuously, and these are words from children. Even at the age of nine, the children noticed the engagement level of performers.

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6. I shared with students an example of rubrics for singing (taken from Otto Petersen Elementary):

The above set of rubrics was taken from Otto Petersen Elementary (an American School). What is so special about this set of rubrics? Yes, it is the USE OF QUESTIONS!

I specifically chose ‘SINGING’ because singing is something that the students are very familiar with, hence it allows us to teach from known to unknown, concrete to abstract. Surely, students can relate to aspects of signing such as singing in tune, singing the correct rhthym and phrasing.

Questions I ask about my work

I’m still learning how to do it. (1)

I basically get how to do it, and I’m getting better. (2)

I can do this pretty well. (3)

I perform at an advanced level. (4)

Do I sing the right notes?

Do I sing in tune?

I’m still working on singing the right notes. I sing a small range of notes and may match the shape of the melody, but my notes may not be the same ones in the song.

Most of my notes are right and I sing mostly in tune, but I make a few bigger mistakes.

My notes are right and I sing in tune, but I may make a couple of small mistakes.

All of my notes are right, and I sing in tune very well.

Do I sing the right rhythms? Is my beat steady?

I make many rhythm mistakes. I have trouble keeping a steady beat when I sing, or I start and stop often.

My rhythms are pretty close, though a few may not be accurate. I may not keep a steady beat the whole time.

My rhythms are good, and my beat is pretty steady.

My rhythms are all correct, and I maintain a steady beat the whole time.

Do I sing with a great tone quality? Do I sing the words clearly?

I am still working toward using an open and free tone. My tone is harsh, forced, pinched, or breathy. It is hard to understand many of the words I sing.

My tone is OK, but may sound a little bit harsh, forced, pinched, or breathy. Some of the words may be hard to understand.

My tone is usually open and free. My words are pretty easy to understand. Most of my vowels are pure and most consonants are clear.

I always use an open and free sound when I sing. It is easy to understand the words I sing. My vowel sounds are pure and consonant sounds are clear.

Do I sing with a good body position and posture? Do I use my breath well?

My body is not ready to sing. I may be slouching, have my mouth nearly closed, or my head down. I do not take a breath big enough to help me produce a great singing tone.

My body may not be positioned in the best way for singing. My head may be down, I may slouch, or my mouth is not open enough. I took a breath that was too small or shallow.

My head is up, my mouth is open, and I take a big breath to support my singing voice.

My body position makes it easy for me to get a great sound when I sing. My head is up, my mouth is open, and I take a big breath that supports my singing voice well.

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7. I facilitated students to develop questions for ukulele performances:

Criteria drawn from earlier brainstorm Questions developed by Students

Posture Am I holding the ukulele correctly? Do I look up confidently?

Chord Knowledge (Left Hand Fingering)

Do I press the correct strings?Do I touch the other strings?

Strumming (Right Hand)

Are all 4 strings strummed consistently without any finger touching other strings? Do they match the tune?

Chord Changes Do I change chords at the correct time?Did this match the melody?

Singing Do I sing in tune?

8. Students worked in pairs to grade exemplars of video performances I recorded from their seniors who performed on the ukulele:

Video clip 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Posture

Chord Knowledge (Left Hand Fingering)

Strumming (Right Hand)

Chord Changes

Singing along while playing

At this stage, the descriptors have not been written/ developed yet. So, I told them that 4 stars = excellent, 3 stars = very good, 2 stars = fair, 1 star = improving. I noticed that the way students graded were rather haphazard and their judgement was affected by the other/different aspects. For example, a student gave 1 star for Posture and when I asked why, his response was “the singing was out of tune”. What about the Chord Knowledge? The response was “the chords were not together with the music...”. Hence, there were only vague ideas between chord changes and strumming.

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Reflections on lesson 1

1. The strength of the lesson was developing the questions together with the students.

2. The awarding of stars by using ‘Excellent’, Very Good’, ‘Fair’ was

NOT a good strategy. The experience

reminded me that students do get distracted by other aspects instead of focusing on a single aspect.

3. Expecting students to write out the band descriptors would require too much use of language for the Primary 3s and I decided to make adjustments to the approach in the next lesson.

4. I would continue to empower students towards better musicianship with a better understanding of the rubrics (aka band descriptors).

My Journey: Lesson 2

1. I revisited the YouTube exemplar Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Students had had lessons on ukulele conducted by the vendor since my

last lesson.

2. I reminded students of the five criteria that contribute to a good performance:

• Posture and fingering • Knowledge of Chords • Chord Changes • Strumming in Time • Singing in Tune (depending on abilities)

3. I asked students, “Do you think rubrics are more important for the students or for the teacher?”

Students’ responses included:

• ‘They are useful for students to make improvements for the future’

• ‘Students can try harder in the next lesson’• ‘If there are no rubics, we do not know what we are weak in’• ‘Rubrics are important for teachers, so that they will know

how to advise students’• ‘Both teachers and students can work together to improve

in the playing of the ukulele, it’s useful for everyone’

4. I went through the construction of rubrics with students:

• Reminded students to focus on a single aspect and not be distracted by the singing or other criteria of assessment

• Had a whole group discussion and went through the criteria on ‘posture’ and ‘singing’ before breaking them up into groups.

• Divided students into four groups, provided each group with two video clips, and assigned each pair to look at a specific criterion (e.g. strumming, chord knowledge, chord change, singing)

• Informed them that each clip has been awarded a certain number of stars, and their task was to work out the band descriptors for the criteria.

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Example of Template - Writing band descriptors in groups

To simplify the process, three of the four band descriptors were given in this example.

5. I went through exemplars for each descriptor to calibrate the scores with students.

Questions I ask about my work.

I perform at an advanced level. (4)

I can do thispretty well. (3)

I basically get how to do it, and I’m getting better. (2)

I’m still learning how to do it. (1)

Two Chord Knowledge(LH fingering) • Do I press the correct

strings?• Do I touch other strings?

• All the strings are correctly pressed.

• All chords are correctly played without touching other strings.

• Most of the strings are correctly pressed.

• Most chords are correctly played without touching other strings.

• Strings were correctly pressed only once or twice

• Most chords were wrongly played on wrong strings.

Write the number of the example or name of student in the various columns for 4-3-2-1 stars =>

1. Good facilitation techniques were required in helping students to understand the rubrics and arrive at a consensus on the various criteria of assessing a ukulele performance.

2. Students were engaged in the discussion and supported their responses with reasons.

3. They were able to understand why the

teacher had awarded x no. of stars for a certain criterion for a video example.

of the rubrics (aka band descriptors).

Reflections on lesson 2

DISCUSSION

TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVE

Challenges

• Time is a challenge• Getting students to buy-in the idea of

co-construction• Students may have difficulty in

isolating descriptors when assessing e.g. posture and singing

Benefits

• Develop common language and benchmarks amongst students

• Showing exemplars provides greater clarity to benchmarks and is able to motivate the students

• Allows time for students to apply their learning

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BENEFITS IN EMPOWERING STUDENTS THROUGH NEGOTIATING AND UNDERSTANDING PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS

CONCLUSION

• Develop shared language – for the younger learners, this can be considered part of the language acquisition process

• Enhance quality of learning • Enhance thinking in the learning processes

What students said about their learning:

• “Know what is a good posture”• “I now know I must strum all four strings”• “I now can understand the expectations of

3 stars, 4 stars and try to work towards it”• “I can try to improve to get more stars”

How students felt:

• “It was fun and enjoyable”• “I can learn from my friends and make

improvements”• “I was surprised! I did not know that my

friend had such a good understanding of performing the ukulele! These are good opportunities to learn from one another!”

Reflection

• Students see rubrics/benchmarks as a tool towards improvement

• Students are able to learn from one another

• Students motivate and influence one another

• The key challenge is that students need reminders and opportunities to practice

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Operability – weighing shorter-term time constraints with longer-term benefits

• Simple process/format of calibration of rubrics to facilitate understanding

• Selecting and calibrating standards using video exemplars – simpler and more practical approach

STUDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE

Reflection

When is a good time toco-construct rubrics?

• Facilitating co-construction of rubrics at the start of the module when the students are new to an area of music provides an initial insight to the different aspects and introduces new terminology.

• Facilitating a more in-depth discussion after two to three lessons helps students better understand the expectations and work towards an improved musical performance.

• Joint negotiation of expectations using authentic assessment artefacts is meaningful as we “teach less, learn more”.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

• Provide adequate professional development for teachers in this area – i.e. facilitation skills and questioning techniques, or even teaming together to do the calibration

While we may think of using the shortest and most effective approach, the effort made in going through this process of negotiating and understanding performance benchmarks and rubrics will certainly reap longer-term benefits. This kind of experience will definitely remain etched in the students’ minds for a longer time.

checking for

understanding and providing feedback

Checking for Understanding and Providing Feedback are approaches to ascertain the gap between students’ current understanding and the desired learning outcomes, and to close this gap. This section examines two less often discussed areas that could lead to enhanced student learning outcomes.

checking for

understanding andproviding feedback

QUESTION

Comparison of Assessment Data

ME THODOLOGY

• Using rubrics in assessment does not necessarily mean there is shared language and shared understanding of assessment criteria

• Co-reviewing of rubrics and co-assessing with students

increase student understanding of assessment process and criteria

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

Comparing Students’ Evaluation and Teacher’s Evaluation of Group Performances

How do students’ peer evaluation compare with the teacher’s evaluation of group performances through a rubric that is co-reviewed by teacher and students?

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

Improving Student-Student Feedback Using Socratic Questioning, Accountable Talk, andCo-Construction of Rubrics

• Students’ responses may not necessarily reflect their levels of musical understanding as many factors influence their thinking

• Varied facilitation strategies help teachers look beyond the quick responses on the surface to explore deeper understanding and meanings

Qualitative Observational Study with Content Analysis and Discourse Analysis

ME THODOLOGY

How do facilitation strategies improve feedback among students in a music classroom?

How do students respond to different facilitation strategies (e.g. Socratic questioning, Accountable Talk, Co-construction of rubrics)?

QUESTION

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by Tan Keng HongCanberra Primary School

Comparing Students’ Evaluationand Teacher’s Evaluation ofGroup Performances

In 2015, the Music teachers in my school came together to review and redesign our existing rubrics. Since then, we have used the revised rubrics faithfully. However, we could not be certain how reliable they were, and if our students really understood them. Ideally, our students should be using the rubrics to assess their peers’

and their own learning in the same way as the teacher. But in order to ascertain if that was the case, an inquiry would help shed some light.

If it turned out that my students neither understood nor used the rubrics in the same way as their teacher, I wanted to find out ifco-reviewing the rubrics with my students would help to bridge the gap towards building common musical understanding between them and me.

This research was inspired by Nancy Whitaker’s findings on ‘Instructional Change Through Rubrics Evolution’, which were presented at the 6th International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education (ISAME) in UK.

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RESEARCH PURPOSE

To achieve a shared language for assessment of group performances within the primary General Music context.

Why students should be involved in the assessment process:

• “… it may be more helpful to think of knowledge as a continuum, … as constructed or co-constructed by the learner/s…” (E. Hargreaves, 2005, cited in Fautley, 2010, p. 54)

• The purpose of music assessment differed between the teachers’ and learners’ perspectives. Students should be involved in the decision making process for their music assessments (Mogane, 2017)

• “… individuals extend their musical understanding by engaging actively with teachers and peers … (Scott, 2012, p. 31)”

• “Our task as teachers is to help students learn and we can harness the power of assessment to achieve this end by involving them in the process (Falchikov, 2003, p. 102)”

• “… have found that devolving some responsibility to students by involving them in self and peer assessment is an excellent way of enhancing the learning process (Falchikov, 2003, p. 107)”

QUESTION

How do students’ peer evaluations compare with the teacher’s evaluations of group performances through a rubric that is co-reviewed by teacher and students?

HYPOTHESIS

Involving students in the assessment process through co-review of rubrics with their teacher improves the accuracy of their peer evaluation.

LITERATURE REVIEW

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FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TASK

Canberra Primary SchoolPrimary 4 Music

Music Assessment - Recorder Playing & Bass AccompanimentTerm 3

In groups, students will be able to:

Assessment Outcomes

• Compose the bass accompaniment using notes G and D (or other improvised notes)

• Notate their bass composition and letter names on Ode To Joy score.

• Play the melody and bass accompaniment of Ode To Joy

on the recorder with the correct fingering and technique, and use the Bass Xylophone for bass accompaniment.

4 Lessons, 8 periods approximately

Students have already learnt to play notes E to high D on the recorder.

Duration:

Prior Knowledge:

The formative assessment task required our Primary 4 students to perform the piece Ode to Joy by Ludwig van Beethoven in groups of five or six. They had to play the melody on the recorder and compose a suitable bass accompaniment using the notes as stated. Only one or two members of each group were to play the bass on the bass xylophone(s); the rest were to play the melody on their recorders.

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Primary 4 Music AssessmentGroup Recorder Playing & Bass Accompaniment

Term 3 - Weeks 8 to 10

My Name: Date:

Class: Teamwork ( ) Marks: /18Group being assessed:

My Group Members Role My Group Members Role

1. Melody/Bass 4. Melody/Bass

2. Melody/Bass 5. Melody/Bass

3. Melody/Bass 6. Melody/Bass

In groups,

1. Compose the bass accompaniment using notes G and D (or as otherwise instructed) to accompany the piece, Ode To Joy.

2. Play the melody on the recorder with the correct fingering and technique. Play the bass accompaniment* on the xylophone. (*Only a maximum of 2 pupils per group can play the accompaniment)

3. ^ Demonstrate creativity. E.g. creative stage entrance and exit, changing of tempo/ dynamics, interesting bass accompaniment, etc.

4. Perform the piece for the class

For every lesson within the period of the inquiry, each group was given the peer evaluation handout for them to assess their peers’ group performances. Their responses were collected at group level. Every group

(except the performing group for that lesson) needed to discuss and decide what scores and feedback the performing group deserved. The above shows the top part of the handout.

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Rubrics for Group Recorder Playing & Bass Accompaniment

For every lesson within the period of the inquiry, each group was given the peer evaluation handout for them to assess their peers’ group performances. Their responses were collected at group level. Every group (except the performing group for that lesson) needed to discuss and decide what scores and feedback the performing group deserved. The above shows the top part of the handout.

Description MarksAwarded

Developing Competent Exceeding

Criteria 0-1 2-3 4

Fluency Beat is inconsistent.Some rhythms are accurate. Some pitches are accurate.

Beat is somewhat consistent. Rhythm is mostly accurate. Pitch is mostly accurate.

Beat is consistent. Rhythm is accurate. Pitch is accurate.

Tone Performed with correct fingerings and a clean tone occasionally. Squeaks may occur.

Performed with correct fingerings and a clean tone most of the time. A few squeaks may occur.

Correct fingerings, performed with a clean tone and tonguing.

Ensemble Playing

Members are mostly unable to keep together throughout the performance.

Members are able to keep together in most parts of the performance.

There is a good coordination between members to present a cohesive performance.

Criteria 1 2 3

^ Creativity Musical ideas are not developed and do not connect well.

There is some exploration and development of not more than two musical ideas.

There is exploration and development of at least two musical ideas.

Attitude Self-discipline and Teamwork values during the group rehearsals & performance are seldom displayed.

Self-discipline and Teamwork values are displayed most of the time during the group rehearsals & performance.

Self-discipline and Teamwork values are displayed throughout the group rehearsals & performance.

In the bottom section of the handout, each group was provided the rubric for their reference. After the performing group had performed, each group was to discuss and finalise their marks for the performing group. The marks collected through the above form the quantitative data for the inquiry.

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Peer Feedback

Strengths

After observing your friends’ group performance, pen down at least 1 strength and 1 area for improvement for them. Your feedback should address items from the rubrics.

Areas For Improvement (AFI)

Bass Accompaniment

Compose a bass accompaniment using notes G and D (or as otherwise instructed) and notate it on the score below.

On the next page of the handout, each group was required to write down their feedback for the performing group. As shown above, each group was to write at least one strength and one area for improvement (AFI). They should also use the terms from the rubric to express their feedback clearly for their peers. The feedback collected through the above were the qualitative data for the inquiry.

And finally, the score of the relevant part of the piece with blank bars for bass composition was provided at the bottom of the second page.

Ode To JoyMusic by Ludwig van Beethoven

3There were altogether six groups in the class, but only five lessons were used for the inquiry. Hence, one group performed every lesson, except for lesson 4, where two groups (Gold and Green) performed. This explains why in subsequent slides, there are references to ‘L4 (Gold)’ and ‘L4 (Green)’.

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The inquiry was essentially quantitative in nature. However, qualitative data collection was included as well since the assessment task was meant to be formative, where peer feedback played a part in developing the students’ understanding.

DATA TOOLS:

• Quantitative data: Students’ peer evaluations, i.e. scorings of their peers’ group performances, alongside the teacher’s

ME THODOLOGY• Qualitative data: Students’

written comments (strengths and AFIs) for their peers

• Footage of group rehearsals, performances and teaching process (as reference materials)

TIME FRAME:

• Term 3 Week 8 to Term 4 Week 5

• Five lessons in total (five hours)3

• During curriculum time

PARTICIPANTS:

• One Primary 4 class (38 students)

• Six groups named after colours (Blue, Turquoise, Silver, Gold, Green, Red)

• Mid to High Progress and boisterous

GROUP PERFORMANCESBY LESSONS:

1. Lesson 1 – Blue Group2. Lesson 2 – Turquoise Group3. Lesson 3 – Silver Group4. Lesson 4 – Gold &

Green Groups5. Lesson 5 – Red Group

LessonSTART END1

Lesson

2Lesson

3Lesson

5Lesson

4

Lesson

4

Blue GroupTerm 3 Week 8 Term 4 Week 5Silver GroupTurquoise Group Gold &Green Group

Red Group

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LessonSTART END1

Lesson

2Lesson

3Lesson

5Lesson

4

Lesson

4

Blue GroupTerm 3 Week 8 Term 4 Week 5Silver GroupTurquoise Group Gold &Green Group

Red Group

Students’ Evaluation Versus the Teacher’s - BLUE Group’s Performance

Date:11 Aug

Session 1

Mr. Tan Red Diff. Green Diff. Turquoise Diff. Silver Diff. Gold Diff.

Total Disparaity

Across Groups

Fluency 4 3 1 4 0 2 2 4 0 4 0 3

Tone 3 4 -1 4 -1 4 -1 4 -1 3 0 4

Ensemble Playing

4 3 1 4 0 3 1 3 1 3 1 4

Creativity 3 2 1 2 1 2 1 3 2 1 4

Attitude 3 3 0 3 0 3 0 3 3 0 0

Total 17 15 2 17 0 14 3 17 0 15 2 15

# Read horizontally, the numbers show the marks awarded by criteria, as well as total disparity of marks by criteria in the rightmost column.

• An analysis of the teacher’s evaluation and students’ peer evaluations was conducted every lesson and shared with students.

• The study compared the disparity in the scores awarded by students versus those awarded by the teacher for each criterion of the rubric, and investigated if there was any convergence after co-reviewing the rubrics with the students.

# Read vertically, the numbers show the marks awarded by me and the groups. The differences between each group’s marks and my marks were computed

in the ‘Diff.’ column.

• Co-review of rubrics was done to build shared understanding between teacher and students, and it took place after the second lesson when specific criteria with issues were identified.

An Excel spreadsheet was used for comparing the students’ and teacher’s scorings.

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DATA FINDINGS

Lesson 1: Evaluating Blue Group’s Performance

SCORING OF BLUE GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

STUDENT FEEDBACK ON BLUE GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

Comments From

Strengths AFIs

Red Group Is mostly accurate, correct fingerings, able to keep together most of the time, some exploration for accompaniment & teamwork values were displayed at all times.

Should have been more consistent, more coordination & more exploration.

Green Group

Fluency, Good timing. More creativity needed

Silver Group

Creativity (Change of tempo and interesting bass accompaniment).

Some parts of the melody did not have good coordination.

Gold Group Teamwork is fair.No arguements.

Pitch. When to breathe.

Turquoise Group

Confident The pitching is too high and squeky. The pauses are too long.

From the disparities in lesson 1 (the starting point of the inquiry), it was evident that the students did not quite understand the rubric in the same way as I did. Total disparity was 15, which was the highest across lessons 1 through 5.

Total Disparity Across Groups - Lesson 1 (Blue Group)

Fluency Tone Ensemble Playing

Creativity Attitude

3

4 4 4

Total:15

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REVIEW OF SCORING AND FEEDBACK:

Watch performance

again (footage)

Show data and identify criteria

where most disparities occurred

Revisit rubric

Students explain and give

reasons whythey awardedthose scores

Teacher’s scoring and feedback on the performance

The above outlines the process of assessment benchmarking and feedback by my students and me, towards bridging gaps in understanding the rubric. This was done after each group’s performance and peer scorings either within the lesson itself or in the following lesson, depending on the available time left.

Lesson 2: Evaluating Turquoise Group’s Performance

Peer feedback from each group is quoted verbatim, with the salient ones in bold. It was interesting to observe how elaborate Red group was compared to the other groups when giving peer feedback. It was evident that Red group used terms from the rubric to give

good coverage in their feedback. Silver group also used terms from the rubric, but was not as elaborate as Red group.

Gold group was quite brief, and Turquoise group wrote ‘Confident’, which was not in the rubric.

In lesson 2, total disparity came down to 11 (from 15 in lesson 1). After discussing the disparities with the class, ‘Tone’ and ‘Creativity’ were identified for subsequent co-review by my students and me in lesson 3. ‘Creativity’ was selected over ‘Ensemble Playing’, as the former usually presented more challenges and issues for assessment.

Total Disparity Across Groups - Lesson 2(Turquoise Group)

Fluency Tone Ensemble Playing

Creativity Attitude

5Total:11

3 3

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CO-REVIEW OF RUBRICS

STUDENT FEEDBACK ON TURQUOISE GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

Comments From Strengths AFIs

Blue Group Their coordination and rhythm is good. The melody is not bad.

At the last bar, the tone does not match.

Green Group Creativity, energy (1) Last part doesn’t fit (last 3 notes) for bass(2) Bass accompaniment, doesn’t match

Gold Group Good coordination Not fluent, some have wrong fingering

Red Group Is mostly consistent, tone is okay, mostly able to keep together, with some musical exploration & teamwork value is displayed throughout the performance.

Could have had a better consistency, better fingerings, musical exploration could have been more.

Silver Group Creativity Fluency (Some mistakes)

It was encouraging to note that students across groups were able to notice the tonal mismatch between the melody and bass in the last bar of the performance. Also, Green group wrote ‘energy’, which was not from the rubric.

Red group continued to provide elaborate feedback, and Silver group maintained their brevity in giving comments, which could have been more detailed.

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Lesson 3: Evaluating Silver Group’s Performance

SCORING OF SILVER GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

In lesson 3, total disparity remained at 11 (same as lesson 2), and disparities occurred in all criteria. While the post-performance scoring review and feedback sessions should ideally have reduced the disparities further, it is noteworthy to highlight that:

1) Some students in the Silver group forgot to bring their recorders that day, leading to possible double penalisation across related criteria during peer scoring.

2) Between lessons 2 and 3, there was a gap of about four weeks due to holidays, exams and school events. This might have affected students’ consistency in scoring.

Having identified ‘Tone’ and ‘Creativity’ as the criteria to be addressed and co-reviewed with the students, I facilitated the co-review session in the third lesson. Students were given the original rubric with blanks to fill in the amendments as the class discussion went on. Upon reaching a consensus with the class, I made the amendments on the spot and showed them on the screen for students to take down. The discussion took about 20 minutes. After the co-review was completed, every group used the revised rubric to assess their peers’ group performances for lessons 3 through 5.

Through reviewing the identified criteria with the class, it became clear that ‘Tone’

was ambiguous to students. Since the band descriptors relate to recorder playing, the class agreed to amend ‘Tone’ to ‘Recorder Technique’. For ‘Creativity’, I challenged the class to come up with alternative words with similar meanings. Suggestions included ‘Innovation’ and ‘Ideas’. Then, after I posed a series of questions aimed at zeroing in on what could represent creativity in the context of the assessment task, the notion of ‘doing things differently’ surfaced. Eventually, the word ‘Variation’ was suggested, and used. Furthermore, the class agreed that the band descriptors needed more clarity, hence the above tweaks were made to simplify the sentences and enhance common understanding of the rubric.

Total Disparity Across Groups - Lesson 3 (Silver Group)(Revised Rubrics)

Fluency Rec. Technique

Ensemble Playing

Variation Attitude

2

1

Total:11

2

3 3

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In lesson 4, total disparity was reduced to three and two for Gold and Green groups’ performances respectively, indicating notable consistency in students’ peer scorings for

STUDENT FEEDBACK ON SILVER GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

Comments From

Strengths AFIs

Blue Group They tried very hard and did not quarrel. The bass does not suit and they messed up a little. There was a little of squeaking from the recorder.

Gold Group Recorder was good Bass must improve

It was interesting to note that Blue group commended Silver group for trying very hard, as effort was not part of the rubric. Providing brief

Lesson 4: Evaluating Gold & Green Groups’ Performances

SCORING OF GOLD & GREEN GROUPS’ PERFORMANCES

Total Disparity Across Groups - Lesson 4 (Gold Group)(Revised Rubrics)

Fluency Rec. Technique

Ensemble Playing

Variation Attitude

2

1

Total:3

Total Disparity Across Groups - Lesson 4 (Green Group)(Revised Rubrics)

Fluency Rec. Technique

Ensemble Playing

Variation Attitude

1

Total:2

1

feedback was Gold group, who highlighted room for improvement in the bass accompaniment, without giving suggestions or details.

the two performing groups within the same lesson. This could be attributed to the very short gap between the two performances.

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Lesson 5: Evaluating Red Group’s Performance

SCORING OF RED GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

Total Disparity Across Groups - Lesson 5 (Red Group)(Revised Rubrics)

Fluency Rec. Technique

Ensemble Playing

Variation Attitude

2 2

1 1

Total:6

In the final lesson, total disparity showed a slight rebound, to six (up from two previously), rendering lesson 5 as somewhat of an outlier. Attributable reasons for the rebound include:

1) Red group consisted of boys who had a history of teamwork issues and conflicts. One of them had anger management issues as well. During the rehearsals (the process), the group had various difficulties working together and coming to an agreement. The boy with anger management issues even went to a corner in the music room on several occasions to sit by himself, citing that his group members would not listen to his ideas. All of these were observed and taken note of by the rest

of the class. However, during the actual performance itself, the group worked quite well together. So, when it came to assessing the Red group’s performance, some students awarded higher scores than I did for ‘Attitude’, as I awarded my score based on the groups’ working attitude during the whole process (i.e. including the rehearsals), rather than on the performance alone. In addressing the disparity in ‘Attitude’ with my students, I directed their attention to the rubric again, highlighting that ‘Attitude’ emphasises process over product, while ‘Ensemble Playing’ emphasises the reverse.

2) Upon watching the Red group’s performance footage again, some students realised they did not pick up the squeaks and odd playing in parts of the recorder performance, and awarded higher scores for ‘Recorder Technique’ than I did.

3) Between lessons 4 and 5, there was a gap of two weeks due to Children’s Day.

4) As a note of interest, there was unanimous agreement among the students and me that the group did very well in ‘Variation’, due to the interesting bass intro and patterns.

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STUDENT FEEDBACK ON RED GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

SUMMARY

Comparing the scores across Lessons 1 to 5, the total disparities by lessons and criteria are summarised in the graph and the table below.

Red group’s wonderful bass performance was well-appreciated by students across the groups, as evidenced in their feedback. At the

Comments From

Strengths AFIs

Blue Group The bass was interesting and the tempo was good.

Notes can be more smoothly played, they can improve on their attitude. It was kind of squeaky.

Gold Group The bass accompaniment was good. They quarreled and went their separate ways.

Silver Group

Variation. Attitude. Ensemble Playing

same time, all groups that gave feedback took note of the teamwork issues the Red group displayed during rehearsals.

L1 (Blue) L2 (Turquoise) L3 (Silver) L4 (Gold) L4 (Green) L5 (Red)

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Fluency Tone/Rec. Tech. Ensemble Playing

Creativity/Variation Attitude

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Criteria L1 (Blue) L2 (Turquoise) L3 (Silver) L4 (Gold) L4 (Green) L5 (Red)

Fluency 3 0 2 0 1 1

Tone /Rec. Tech. 4 5 3 0 0 2

Ensemble Playing 4 3 3 1 0 1

Creativity / Variation 4 3 1 2 1 0

Attitude 0 0 2 0 0 2

Total 15 11 11 3 2 6

Total Disparity By Lessons

L1 (Blue) L2 (Turquoise) L3 (Silver) L4 (Gold) L4 (Green) L5 (Red)

11 11

32

6

15

• Trend analysis of total disparity by lessons shows a downward trend. This indicates overall reduction of disparities over the lessons and a convergence between my students and me in understanding the rubric, especially after the rubric co-review in lesson 3 (L3).

• In terms of their qualitative feedback, the groups were able to use the relevant

musical terms from the rubric, although there is no outstanding trend observed in the usage of musical terms.

• Overall, the findings affirm that there is positive value in involving students in the assessment process, hence supporting the literature and hypothesis.

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CONCLUSION

• Using rubrics in assessment does not necessarily mean there is shared language or common understanding between teacher and students.

• Co-review of rubrics with students increased student understanding of the assessment process and criteria.

• Ambiguity in scoring could be reduced with specific score levels, e.g. under the ‘Competent’ band, the score could have been a specific number (3) instead of a range (2-3).

As the findings of my critical inquiry reveal, there were actually significant disparities between my understanding of the rubric and my students’ understanding. Considerable effort and time then went into building common musical understanding represented by the rubric involved, as well as bridging the gaps between our evaluations.

Through the inquiry, I have realised that using rubrics in assessment does not equate with instant common understanding by students. Involving them in the assessment process through co-reviewing the rubric is an excellent way of increasing students’ ownership of their learning and establishing common understanding between teachers and students.

Rubrics for Group Recorder Playing & Bass Accompaniment

Description MarksAwarded

Developing Competent Exceeding

Criteria 0-1 2-3 4

Fluency Beat is inconsistent.Some rhythms are accurate. Some pitches are accurate.

Beat is somewhat consistent. Rhythm is mostly accurate. Pitch is mostly accurate.

Beat is consistent. Rhythm is accurate. Pitch is accurate.

Recorder Technique

Performed with correct fingerings and a clean tone occasionally. Squeaks may occur

Performed with correct fingerings and a clean tone most of the time. A few squeaks may occur

Correct fingerings, performed with a clean tone and tonguing

Ensemble Playing

Members are mostly unable to keep together throughout the performance.

Members are able to keep together in most parts of the performance.

There is a good coordination between members to present a cohesive performance.

Criteria 1 2 3

Variation No additional musical ideas are explored and developed.

There is some exploration and development of less than two musical ideas.

There is exploration and development of at least two musical ideas.

Attitude Self-discipline and Teamwork values during the group rehearsals & performance are seldom displayed.

Self-discipline and Teamwork values are displayed most of the time during the group rehearsals & performance.

Self-discipline and Teamwork values are displayed throughout the group rehearsals & performance.

Revised rubrics:

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ImprovingStudent-Student Feedback

by Lim Hui Wen JwenWoodgrove Secondary School

Using Socratic Questioning, Accountable Talk and Co-construction of Rubrics

Feedback is an important process in student learning. However, my past experiences have shown that students face difficulties in providing quality feedback that goes beyond “this was a good/bad performance”. Are students able to be more musically specific in their feedback? I am keen to find out how student-student feedback in the music classroom can be improved through different facilitation strategies, with focus on questioning techniques.

RESEARCH PURPOSE

To examine how different facilitation strategies improve quality of student-student feedback in a music classroom.

QUESTION

1. How do facilitation strategies improve feedback among students in a music classroom?

2. How do students respond to different facilitation strategies (e.g. Socratic questioning, Accountable Talk,

Co-construction of rubrics)?

FACILITATION STRATEGIES

1. Socratic Questioning is an inquiry approach that is used to explore ideas in depth by guiding or probing students to make meanings clear, question assumptions, consider various viewpoints and to monitor discussions and their own thinking (Paul & Elder, 2007).

Examples:

a. Questions for clarification – What do you mean by…?b. Questions that probe assumptions – How did you

know that…? Where did you get this information from?c. Questions that probe reasoning and evidence – Why

do you think that…? What makes you say that?d. Questions about viewpoints and perspectives

– What else? Could you give us an example…? What are the strengths and weaknesses…?

e. Questions that probe implications and consequences – What will happen if you…? How does this connect to what we learnt last week?

f. Questions about the question – Why do you think I asked this question?

742. Accountable Talk requires teachers to guide

student participation by promoting learning that is accountable to the learning community, to accurate and appropriate knowledge, and to rigorous thinking (Michaels, O’Connor, Hall, & Resnick, 2013).

Examples:

a. Marking – drawing attention to a student’s comment and pointing out what is important.

b. Challenging – “What do you think?” / Paraphrasing “It seems to me you are saying that…”

c. Modelling - “Here’s what good performers do…”d. Recapping - “What have we discovered?”

3. Co-construction of rubrics involves students constructing rubrics to give them ownership of both their learning and their achievement or accomplishment on specific assignments (Brookhart, 2013).

ME THODOLOGY

This project is a qualitative observational study. Data was collected through:

1. Video recordings

2. Field notes

3. Video transcriptions

4. Annotations and reflections of field notes, video transcriptions and student written feedback forms

METHODS OF ANALYSIS

• Content analysis of students’ written feedback to check for patterns of the students’ understanding

• Discourse analysis (Gee, 1999) of students’ conversations to understand why students are saying what they are saying, and how they think, learn and respond

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Overview of lessons

Note

• Lesson 1 began after students were taught the basics of how to play the ukulele (e.g. tuning, chords, chord changes) for about four weeks.

Lesson 1 (a) Co-construction of criteria (b) Peer written feedback for Performance Task 1

Lesson 2 (a) Class discussion of compiled written feedback for Task 1

(b) Small group facilitations for Performance Task 2

Lesson 3 (a) Co-construction of rubrics (b) Small group facilitations for Performance Task 2

Lesson 4 Peer written feedback for Performance Task 2

• There was time set aside for students to engage in other musical activities/tasks for every lesson.

CONTEXT

• The study took place in Woodgrove Secondary School.

• The duration of the General Music lesson is 1.5 hours per week.

• There were 40 Secondary 2 participants from the Normal (Academic) stream.

• Students learnt how to play the ukulele for 12 weeks.

• This project was conducted in a formal teaching and learning environment over four lessons.

The class was selected because there was a good mix of students in terms of behaviour, learning styles, attitudes, as well as musical and language abilities.

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STUDENT FEEDBACK

Feedback Form A

Question Feedback

Group Number

1. What were the strengths of the group’s performance? Explain what the group did well in.

2. What were the weaknesses of the group’s performance? Explain what the groups needs to improve on.

3. Other comments: Suggest any new ideas on how the group could improve.

Feedback Form B

Question Feedback

Group Number 1

SCORE(Refer to your rubric sheet)

Criteria 1 Criteria 2 Criteria 3 Criteria 4 Criteria 5 Total

1. Why did you give that score?What were the strengths of the group’s performance? Explain what the group did well in.

2. Why did you give that score?What were the weaknesses of the group’s performance?Explain or suggest ways for the group to improve.

20

Form A

• Open-ended “opinion-type” questions were used to probe students to identify and explain the elements they felt were strengths and weaknesses,

and provide suggestions for improvement.

Form B

• Rubrics (constructed in earlier lessons) for students’ self and peer assessment of the group’s performance.

• Open-ended guiding questions (e.g. “why did you give that score?”) that demanded students to identify and explain the elements they felt were strengths and weaknesses, and provide suggestions for improvement.

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CONTENT ANALYSIS OF WRITTEN FEEDBACK

To examine how different facilitation strategies improve quality of student-student feedback in a music classroom.

A. MUSICAL ELEMENTS Examples from students Lesson 1Form A*

Accurateusage

Lesson 4 Form B*

Accurateusage

Structure Instrumental break / First part / Beginning / Ending 25 92% 17 100%

Notation / Chords Accuracy in chords / Chord transitions / Progressions 31 64.5% 52 100%

Melody / Intonation In tune / Out of tune 18 100% 13 92.3%

Rhythm / Beats / Pulse Correct Rhythm / Strumming pattern 36 32% 45 93.3%

Tempo Tempo / Rhythm / Pacing / Slow down / Rushing / Beat 42 25% 67 92.5%

Articulation Played smoothly 0 - 1 100%

Dynamics Voice projection / Audible / Loud / Sound balance 56 91% 83 95%

Timbre Dry sound / Sounds vibrant 0 - 3 33.3%

Instrumentation Ukulele / Vocal parts / Singing 19 100% 28 100%

Total: 227 309

B.NON-MUSICAL ELEMENTS

Teamwork Synchronisation / In unison / Played together / Coordination / Cooperative 72 62.5% 63 85.7%

Confidence Confidence / Stuttering when singing 24 91.6% 9 100%

Emotions / Mood / Attitudes / Values

Sincere / Passionate / Resilient / Confusion / “Feel” / Over-exaggerated / Lost / Awareness

59 83% 18 72.2%

Expression / Appearance

Posture / Smiling / Looking at audience / Try not to laugh / Showmanship / Monotonous

37 81% 12 100%

Listening / Preparedness

Listening to others / Well-rehearsed / Practiced well / Recovered from mistakes

28 100% 17 100%

Total: 220 119

With reference to

* Frequency of usage of terms

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Note

• Accuracy in usage of terms was based on teacher’s judgment.

• Words to describe quality, such as ‘good’, ‘correct’, ‘bad’, ‘lousy’ and ‘excellent’, were omitted to focus on terms. However, these words were taken into consideration when analysing the accuracy in students’ usage of terms.

Observations of students’ written feedback:

• More students commented on non-musical elements in Form A (e.g. teamwork, emotions, values, and appearance), although a number of students also used musical terms (e.g. chords, rhythm, tempo, and

dynamics). Possibly, these students referred to the previously co-constructed criteria discussed in class.

• When analysing a performance, students’ attention were geared towards musical elements discussed in the co-constructed rubrics, as seen in Form B. The criteria found in the rubrics comprised ‘accurate chords and chord transitions’, ‘accurate rhythms and strumming’, ‘teamwork’, ‘tempo’, and ‘dynamics’.

• There was a significant increase in the number of times musical terms were used in Form B. In addition, musical understanding of these terms seemed to have improved, as evident in the higher

percentage of accurate responses found in Form B as compared to Form A. There was also less emphasis on non-musical outcomes in Form B.

• It was also observed that students were able to give feedback on other elements of music that were not discussed extensively in class. For instance, in ‘articulation’ and ‘timbre’.

Reasons that may have brought about the improvement in Feedback Form B:

• The whole-class discussion of feedback in Lesson 2 helped students understand good examples of feedback from their peers. They also learnt the correct usage of these terms through various strategies used in that session.

• Students referred to and borrowed words found in the co-constructed rubrics when commenting on a performance.

• Musical experiences through class and group practices allowed students to learn to apply different musical concepts accurately.

SAMPLES OF WEAKER STUDENT RESPONSES FOUND IN WRITTEN FEEDBACK FORMS

Example 2“The ukuleles were very synchronised.

I like how they played, very good!”

Example 1“The singing sounds

over-exaggerated. Work on it!”

Lesson 1 – Feedback Form A

Example 3“Everything was good. The

performance was great!”

Example 4“It needs to be more accurate.

Strumming was quite out of tune.”

Lesson 4 – Feedback Form B 79

Example 1: Students may bring in emotions when giving feedback, which

makes them reluctant to critique the work of others or a student they don’t like.

Examples 3 & 4: Students might have been inclined to believe that one opinion was as good as another, regardless of whether it was accurate or justified. Many gave short answers without further elaboration. This might be due to time constraints. (Students were given only two to three minutes after each performance to write).

Example 2: Inaccurate usage of musical terms “Synchronisation”, because the group’s performance

had clearly gone out of sync.

SAMPLES OF STRONGER STUDENT RESPONSES FOUND IN WRITTEN FEEDBACK FORMS

Example 6“Ukuleles were not synchronised in the chorus and some played wrong chords.

If they go faster and faster, it will be difficult for everyone to play together.”

Example 7“The ukuleles were quite accurate in chord transitions. Maybe they can be

more audible by projecting their voices and maybe look more confident.”

Example 5“They were not very good in tempo.

Practise more on strumming and maybe focus on one person or

leader to follow the same tempo.”

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Students accurately identified the exact musical elements that were problematic.

Example 6: The student was not only able to diagnose the problem, but also what caused the problem. He was also able to make musical predictions (cause and effect).

Examples 5 and 7: Students provided alternative solutions and useful suggestions for improvement.

Lesson 1 – Feedback Form A Lesson 4 – Feedback Form B

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DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF CONVERSATIONS

The purpose of analysing teacher-student(s) conversations is to understand how students think, learn and respond to different questioning techniques.

Conversations were selected based on how interesting, unexpected, excellent or weak the responses were, as well as the type of questions that brought about such responses.

Using Gee’s (1999) framework, the conversations were analysed in terms of their significance, activities, identities, relationships, politics, connections and sign systems. Implications were then deduced through the analysis.

ACTIVITIES

What activities are produced through particular

pieces of language inthe conversation?

SIGNIFICANCE

How does thelanguage in the

conversation make certain things

significant?

SIGN SYSTEMS

What preferences for particular

ways of knowing or thinking are

revealed?

IDENTITIES

What kinds ofidentities is the

conversation revealing?

RELATIONSHIPS

How does the way people address each

other construct a particular kind of

relationship?

CONNECTIONS

What things are being connected in the language and conversation? How are they made?

POLITICS

What perspectives are expressed?

GEE’S FRAMEWORK FOR DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (1999)

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Socratic Questioning

&Accountable

Talk

Written feedback for Performance Task 1

Lesson 1 (b)

Lesson 1 (a) Co-construction of criteria

After watching a video of a past year’s work, a series of guiding questions by the teacher was used to help students identify the features of a good music performance.

Students were required to comment on other group performances through written feedback. The feedback form included guiding questions that probed students to identify and explain the group’s strengths and weaknesses, and provide suggestions for improvement.

Class discussion on compiled written feedback

Lesson 2 (a)

Students’ written feedback for Performance Task 1 were compiled by the teacher and discussed with the entire class. After the discussion, students added on to the previous list of co-constructed criteria.

Co-construction of rubrics

Socratic Questioning &

Co-construction

Small group facilitations

Lesson 2 (b) &Lesson 3 (b)

Using questions and Accountable Talk, the teacher arranged them into groups to prepare for Performance Task 2. Students were guided to provide accurate knowledge by supporting their claims with logical explanations and examples.

Co-constructing rubrics

Written feedback for Performance Task 2

Lesson 3 (a)

Lesson 4

Based on the previously constructed criteria (Lesson 1a), the class selected five areas to include in the rubrics. Students took ownership of their own learning by working collaboratively to determine the different levels of quality and descriptors for each criteria.

Students commented on other group performances through written feedback. Apart from guiding questions, students were encouraged to refer to the co-constructed rubrics and use musical terminologies in their feedback.

Three excerpts from teacher-students(s) conversations have been drawn from the lessons highlighted in blue

EXCERPT 1 - IN LESSON 1(A) CO-CONSTRUCTION OF CRITERIA

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Socratic Questioning Discourse Analysis

Ok what else do you think makes a good performance?

Can you explain further - what do you mean by sincerity?

You really mean it. So, attitude is very important? Is that what you mean?

Can you demonstrate how a sincere performance sounds like on the Ukulele?

Thanks (student). Does the rest of the class think that his playing was sincere?

He was serious.

You really mean it when you play it.

Sincerity

Yes

Student demonstrates on the Ukulele

Yes! Because he wasn’t laughing

Significance• Sincerity was an unexpected response. • Guiding questions such as “what

else”, “can you explain further” and “what do you mean”, and student demonstration on the instrument were useful to probe students’ thinking.

Activity• Because the questions were broad, a wide

range of comments could be elicited.

Sign System• The student’s demonstration

allowed a common understanding of the term among students.

Identity• Student S1 is inclined to think in terms

of emotions and positive values.

Politics• Social responsibility was evident.

Implications• Useful for students to make connections

with non-musical outcomes when listening to and analysing music for a more holistic experience.

• There are opportunities for ethical development in music lessons.

• Students may decline demonstrating. Thus, it is important to build good teacher-student rapport and establish a safe and conducive environment.

Teacher Student

EXCERPT 2 - IN LESSON 2(A) CLASS DISCUSSION

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Testing for Musical Understanding Discourse Analysis

Ok, maybe we will watch the video again, and you could identify by putting up your hands when you hear a partthat is not in sync?

(Teacher played the video and prompted students to raise their hands when they heard any part(s) not played in sync).

There was one part where some of you thought was not in sync. Where was that part?

The instrumental break was not in sync. Is that all?

Students listened, watched, and observed. About one-third of the class raised their hands when they heard a part that was not in sync.

Instrumental break

Just before theinstrumental break

Activity• Students were required to re-watch the video

and recognise errors, so that they could learn to identify the gaps in their knowledge.

• Involving whole-class participation enabled more (silent) voices to be heard and enabled the teacher to judge proficiency level of students more effectively.

Identities• Students took on the role of listeners and

observers, applying their existing theoretical knowledge to real-world context.

Significance / Connection• Students were able to make more accurate

judgments and feedback about music. • Only a few could relate to the musical

term ‘structure’, and one student was more precise with his answer of ‘just before’. It showed that students understood the term.

• It gave others an opportunity to learn a new musical concept from their peers.

Sign System• The teacher’s hint of “where” helped to

narrow the range of possible answers.• Students demonstrated their

understanding of the term through actions, i.e. by putting up their hands.

Implications• Whole-class participation by

raising hands allowed for higher student engagement levels.

• Teachers could adapt similar techniques when students are observed to be restless from doing the same task.

• Considerations to tap on the more vocal students or those with stronger musical abilities to demonstrate how synchronisation should sound like.

Teacher Student

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EXCERPT 3 – IN LESSON 3(B) SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION

Accountable Talk Discourse Analysis

Ok, changing from C to G is a problem. So how do you think you could practise so that it can be done smoothly? Any suggestions?

Ok, that’s a very good suggestion – to repeat changing of chords until you are used to it. But that’s not the only way to improve. Anything else that can be done?

You mean to think beforehand? Yes, pre-empting the next chord is very important. There is another way and it has got to do with tempo.

Yup, and slowly speed up as you get more used to it. Practising slowly works, and you will be able to see more improvements in your playing rather than practising very fast 100 times. You could try all that we discussed when you practise to see what works for you!

Err….Practise slower?

So that we can have time to change chords properly first

Maybe like….think before you change or play the next chord?

T

Ok, slower tempo. Why do you think this might help?

Repetition?

Activity• The teacher tried to make sense of the

issues students faced by clarifying and getting students to be more specific.

• The teacher challenged thinking by exploring alternative solutions and modelling.

Identities• Students took on the role of

problem solvers, leveraging on prior knowledge or experiences to provide suggestions for improvement.

Sign System• The teacher marked the student’s

comment with affirmative words. As such, students were more willing to discover their own ways to solve difficulties.

• Students were more willing to share their thoughts when in a smaller group. It made it much easier for the teacher and students to respond to one another, and re-organise the responses to the task at hand.

Politics• Students were inclined to believe

that repetitive practice will help to improve musical skills.

• Positive values such as resilience were evident.

Implications• Teacher was the one leading with

questions using Accountable Talk. In doing so, students became more aware of their challenges and strengths in pursuit of musical knowledge.

• This questioning can also be brought to students’ attention so that they can engage in Accountable talk in their own small groups.

• Students may find a sense of security when discussing in small groups because there is no pressure in giving correct answers. Teacher Student

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KEY LEARNING

Student responses:

• Students’ previous musical knowledge and experience played a part in their thinking process and the way they responded to questions. For instance, students tended to believe that repetition was the only way as “practice makes perfect”, because it was what they had tried doing before.

• Even though students were encouraged to give musical responses, non-musical responses also proved useful in helping students make emotional connections with music.

• Students tended to restrict themselves to giving responses without justifications when faced with close-ended questions. On the other hand, with open-ended questions, students were more willing to express creative answers. However, they were also inclined to believe that one opinion was as good as another, regardless of whether it was accurate or justified.

Facilitation strategies:

• Employing a variety of approaches that empowered students to take ownership of their own learning worked better in sustaining musical interest and engagement.

• Open-ended questions, especially those beginning with why and how, were useful in helping students give constructive feedback. However, written feedback worked better when it was accompanied with a short discussion of the compiled feedback and with co-constructed criteria/rubrics. This strengthened students’ ability to articulate accurate feedback using proper musical terminology and encouraged them to focus more on musical outcomes.

• Differentiating questioning techniques according to students’ abilities and learning styles was beneficial – the teacher identified students who needed help using simpler guiding questions and challenged the more able students to engage in higher-level conversations.

• Sufficient wait time for written feedback (and during discussions) was necessary for students to formulate a quality reply to higher-order questions, as opposed to simple recall questions.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE WORK

• Because students learn best and gain the most when they enjoy learning, I strongly encourage music teachers to try out different techniques of facilitation that are fun and engaging. Apart from the facilitation strategies used in this study, teachers may wish to explore visible thinking routines to improve students’ thinking and feedback. Another way is to get students to ask the questions, instead of the teacher.

• Using the same questioning techniques for a long period of time may not be very beneficial in sustaining student interest and

attention. Hence, teachers need to be adaptable to change and be flexible to try out different strategies during the lesson, especially when students are observed to be disinterested or restless. The time allotted for whole-class discussion should be kept to less than half the lesson. Instead, more time given for conversations taking place during group work is more valuable and often more memorable for students. Another way is to break up more challenging tasks into smaller segments or into different lessons.

• We tend to associate students’ inaccurate answers with lack of musical understanding. Perhaps, to have a better understanding of why they respond in a certain way, teachers could find out the other factors influencing the way students think (e.g. previous knowledge, belief systems, values or eco-biological factors). This can be done by employing questioning techniques that probe students to provide logical explanations and reasons behind their answers (e.g. “why/what makes you say that?”, “where did you get this idea from?”, or “can you elaborate/tell me more?”).

• Since only one class participated in this study, it is not viable to generalise the findings from this discussion.

• Teachers who are interested

to explore further may wish to adapt the facilitation strategies in this study with a class that is comfortable with verbalising their thoughts and able to demonstrate higher-order reasoning and thinking skills.

CONCLUSION

I have gained much insight in this personal journey and witnessed the benefits of using different facilitation strategies to improve feedback among students. It has also given me an opportunity to revisit my own teaching practice and improve on my craft.

This project has made me more aware of how questioning techniques can be used to help students re-think the ways in which they approach music performing, and in the process, expand

their experiences and understanding of music. I also learnt that getting students to provide constructive feedback to their peers develops a deeper understanding of the content. More importantly, when students know how to give proper feedback, they are also equipped to use these skills to self-assess.

I hope to continue to explore and create meaningful learning experiences that promote critical thinking in the music classroom.

setting

meaningful assignments

In this section, setting meaningful assignments refers to tasks that take into account student learning needs, reinforce and consolidate their learning, and deepen their musical understanding.

Motivating Primary 6 Students through Differentiated Tasks

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Differentiated Tasks empower student voice and increase their motivation

• Being able to work with friends has the greatest impact on student motivation, especially intrinsic motivation

• Teacher motivation (as a result of mental/physical state) during lesson might impact student motivation

Questionnaire Survey

ME THODOLOGY

• To what extent do Differentiated Tasks change Primary 6 students’ motivation, if at all?

• Which aspect(s) of the Differentiated Tasks has/have the greatest impact on the students?

• How has their motivation changed?

QUESTION

setting

meaningful assignments

Harnessing E-Portfolio and E-Platform for Student Self-Assessment

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Students prefer to work with a class social learning wall

• Findings showed that the group social learning wall elicited greater depth of responses and engagement compared to a class social learning wall

Comparison of two classes’ responses to two different methods of online self-assessment

ME THODOLOGY

How can the use of an online platform/e-portfolio (harnessing social learning wall) facilitate student self-assessment and improve performance?

QUESTION

Facilitating a Song-Writing Task

WHAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• The activities that students enjoyed most had them actively involved with music (listening, playing and recording) through music they knew

• Students found teacher feedback to be the most useful part of the facilitation approach for their song-writing task, but not necessarily the most enjoyable

Mixed-methods study

ME THODOLOGY

• What facilitation approaches to the song-writing task are most useful for students?

• How do students experience these approaches?

QUESTION

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by Eng Yan Chen Alvyn Ngee Ann Primary School

Motivating Primary 6 Students through Differentiated Tasks

RATIONALE AND CONTEXT

WHY DIFFERENTIATION? WHY PRIMARY 6 STUDENTS?

• Differentiation is important because we teach students, not just the syllabus.

• Differentiation intends to increase learner engagement by recognising differences in students, so that they feel included in the learning process and their potential is maximised.

• Differentiation is guided by three characteristics of students: readiness, interests and learning profile (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 8).

• Differentiation provides multiple approaches to content, process and product (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 4). Hence, differentiated assessment could be a way to address issues associated with primary school students’ motivation. Differentiated assessment tasks could empower students by providing a safe platform for them to think critically, work collaboratively and make meaningful decisions.

Research seems to suggest that primary school students’ motivation in music lessons decreases as they grow older:

• Students’ appraisals of themselves as good musicians deteriorate as they grow older (Randles, 2011; McPherson & O’Neill, 2010)

• Close link between self-appraisal as musician and motivation in doing well in music lessons (Shouldice, 2014)

• In addition, physical, emotional and environmental changes brought on by puberty increase the challenges faced by Upper Primary (Giebelhausen, 2015)

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DIFFERENTIATED TASKS

Task 1 Task 2 Task 3

Song Di Tanjung Katong Di Tanjung KatongFree choice (must be approved by teacher)

Musical Roles Singer, Guitarist, Keyboardist, Percussionist and Resonator Bars Player

ResourcesPrinted ResourcesVideo Tutorials Backing Tracks

Same as Task 1 Plus Video Tutorial on “Improvising / Composing”

Two Lab Lessons only*

TaskGroup Performance(Imitate Video Tutorials)

Group Performance (Imitate Video Tutorials with improvised section)

Group Performance(Original adaption of chosen song)

Students worked in friendship groups (i.e. they were allowed to choose which groups to join) and had to fulfil the requirements of at least one out of three Differentiated Tasks.

# The common objective of all three tasks was to put up a performance of a song. However, students had a choice of the different challenges and the kind of performance they wished to work on.

QUESTION

• To what extent do Differentiated Tasks change Primary 6 students’ motivation, if at all?

• Which aspect(s) of the Differentiated Tasks has/have the greatest impact on the students?

• How has their motivation changed?

*Students are given time to look for resources on the internet during two lessons in the computer lab.

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ME THODOLOGY

QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY PARTICIPANTS

• The Academic Motivation Scale is used. It was designed to measure motivation in academic settings, based on Ryan and Deci’s (2000) Self Determination Theory

• Three classes of Primary 6 students taking General Music (N=118)

• An even mix of middle to high academic ability

• Compare the means of pre-module and post-module motivation scores (based on 5-point Likert Scale) using ANalysis Of VAriance test (ANOVA).

Pre-Module Survey

Module with Differenciated Assessment Tasks

Post-Module Survey

These students did a similar set of lessons in Semester 1 previously, except that there were no options for choosing Differentiated Assessment Tasks.

ANALYSE DATA

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RESULTS

There was a statistically significant (F=6.169, p = .014) increase in motivation scores in Semester 2 with a small effect size (Eta Squared = 0.026).

Findings: Question 1

Pre-Module Survey Question Post-Module Survey Question

“Think about all the Music lessons we have had for Sem. 1 this year. How motivated* do you think you were, on average, for Sem. 1’s Music Lessons?”

*means how strongly you feel about wanting to do well

“Think about all the Music lessons we have had for Sem. 2 this year. How motivated* do you think you were, on average, for Sem. 2’s Music Lessons?” *means how strongly you feel about wanting to do well

Analysis 1: The mean difference between pre and post scores usingANOVA (with factor being “Semester”)

N Mean Minimum Maximum

Sem. 1 118 3.31 1 5

Sem. 2 118 3.67 1 5

Total 236 3.49 1 5

# Scoring on a 5-point Likert Scale

(Very motivated)

1 5

2 4

3

(Very un-motivated)

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Descriptive

N Mean

S1 MOTV SCORE Class 1 39 3.18

Class 2 38 3.34

Class 3 41 3.41

Total 118 3.31

S2 MOTV SCORE Class 1 43 3.56

Class 2 38 3.29

Class 3 37 4.19

Total 118 3.67

Sum of Squares

dfMean

SquareF Sig.

SEM1 MOTV SCORE

Between Groups 1.151 2 0.575 0.500 0.608

SEM2 MOTV SCORE

Between Groups 16.014 2 8.007 6.867 0.002

Analysis 2: The mean difference between pre and post scores using ANOVA (with factor being “Class”)

ANOVA

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RESULTS

• There was a statistically significant (F=6.867, p = .002) difference in motivation scores amongst the classes in Semester 2 but not in Semester 1.

• Although the total motivation scores increased from 3.31 (Semester 1) to 3.67 (Semester 2), the motivation score in Class 2 actually decreased slightly from 3.34 (Semester 1) to 3.29 (Semester 2).

Possible reasons for decrease in motivation score in Class 2:

1. Lesson disruption? – No, as Class 2 and Class 3 had the same number of lessons disrupted upon examination of time-table.

2. Students’ comments (from the Post-Module survey) relating to music time seemed to suggest that Class 3’s music lessons were more productive.

3. Based on reflections from the teacher’s teaching journal, Class 2’s lessons tended to be more emotionally draining and stressful for the teacher. This could have affected the students’ motivation. (The teacher enjoyed the luxury of a free period before meeting class 1 and 3. However, Class 2’s music lesson happened to be at the end of a long day, with the teacher handling a challenging class immediately before that.)

# Students’ motivation could be affected by teachers’ motivation (mental/physical state) during lesson time – further research necessary!

Student Comments in Post-Module Survey

Negative (e.g. Too Little time) Positive (e.g. Enough time)

Class 1

“But my group refused to cooperate so we could not rehearse and also we had very little time”

“Too little time, can’t get anything done”

NIL

Class 2“We have not done many music lessons”

“As we had very little time to focus on it [the tasks]”NIL

Class 3“Too less lessons (sic) and group isn’t cooperating”

“We did not have many music lessons this semester”

“We had more time to practice on our instruments”

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Findings: Question 2

The Differentiated Tasks allowed the students to choose their group mates and musical instruments, as well as give and receive feedback from other groups. The second research question sought to find out which of these aspects had the greatest or least impact on the students’ motivation. It also scores on a five-point Likert Scale.

RESULTS

• Of the four aspects listed, working with friends (Mean=4.08) seemed to have the most impact on the students’ motivation, followed by getting to choose musical instruments (Mean=3.99), getting a chance to critique others (Mean=3.29) and being critiqued by others (Mean=3.28).

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean

“Getting to work with my friends” 118 4.08

“Getting a choice of musical instruments” 118 3.99

“Getting a chance to critique others” 118 3.29

“Being critiqued by others” 118 3.28

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Findings: Question 3

According to the Academic Motivation Scale, students’ motivation is multi-faceted and can be categorised into various aspects. The third research question sought to measure the changes in the different aspects of motivation.

Amotivation

WHAT IS ACADEMIC MOTIVATION?

To Know External RegulationTo Accomplish

Introjected RegulationTo Experience Stimulation

Identification

MOTIVATION

Intrinsic Extrinsic

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The Academic Motivation comprises items representing three types of intrinsic motivation (IM), three types of extrinsic motivation (EM) and amotivation (Vallerand et al., 1992, p. 1003).

IM refers to one’s sense of enjoyment and achievement just by participating in an activity (p.1004). IM can be further broken into three types (p.1005):

i. IM To Know can be described as one’s sense of enjoyment and achievement just by trying to understand something new (p.1005)

ii. IM To Accomplish can be described as one’s sense of satisfaction when one attempts to achieve or create something (p.1005)

iii. IM To Experience Stimulation can be described as sensory or experiential pleasure that could be derived from participating in an activity (p.1006)

Intrinsic Motivation

EM refers to one’s desire to take action as “a means to an end”. EM can be further broken into three types:

i. External Regulation can be described as a desire to behave in a certain way because of rewards and penalties (p.1006)

ii. Introjected Regulation can be described as a desire to behave in a certain way because of past experiences with some external forces. It can also be described as the beginning of internalisation of reasons for a person’s actions (p.1006)

iii. Identification is associated with a deeper form of internalisation, such that the person behaved in a certain way because the person truly believed in the significance and value of the reasons behind his/her behaviour (p.1007)

Extrinsic Motivation

Amotivation refers to a sense of disinterest when one does not see any links between their own behaviours and outcomes.

Amotivation

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Types of Intrinsic Motivation (IM)

Questionnaire ItemsVery Little

Impact Little

ImpactModerate

ImpactStrong Impact

Very Strong Impact

IM(To Know)

The process of learning new music knowledge and skills.

IM(To Accomplish)

Being able to perform new songs.

IM(To experience stimulation)

The feelings I get just from singing or playing musical instruments.

Learning music from watching YouTube Video Tutorials on the iPad instead of listening to teacher.

Types of Extrinsic Motivation (EM)

Questionnaire ItemsVery Little

Impact Little

ImpactModerate

ImpactStrong Impact

Very Strong Impact

EM(External Regulation)

Getting a good grade / positive comment from my music teacher.

EM(Introjected Regulation)

My classmates do well for music so I should also do well for music.

EM(Identification)

Doing well in music is important for my future.

Amotivation Questionnaire Item No Control Some Control A Lot of Control

Amotivation How much control do you have in ensuring your group works and performs well?

To understand how students’ motivation changed, the researcher created a set of statements reflecting each of the seven sub-aspects of motivation. Participants were asked to rate the amount of impact associated with each statement.

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• The results indicated that all the increases in ‘impact’ scores were statistically significant (p<0.05), except for ‘Identification’ and ‘Amotivation’.

• The effect sizes are generally small. The largest came from IM To Accomplish (Eta Squared = 0.068) and the smallest effect size came from IM To Experience Stimulation (from using the iPad during Music lessons) (Eta Squared = 0.021).

Note: Effect sizes are considered small (Eta Squared = 0.02), medium (Eta Squared>0.13) and large (Eta Squared>0.26).

Summary of Change of Mean Impact Score of the Different Types of Motivation

SEM

IM-

TO

KNOW

IM-TO

ACCOMPLISH

IM- STIMULATION(Musical Instr/

Singing)

IM-STIMULATION

(IPAD)

EM-EXTERNAL

REGULATION

EM-INTROJECTEDREGULATION

EM-IDENTITY AMOTIVATION

1

Mean

Impact

Score

3.39 3.29 3.22 3.25 3.78 3.29 2.89 3.03

2

Mean

Impact

Score

3.62 3.63 3.50 3.45 3.96 3.51 3.00 3.11

Significance

(p) of

increase

.004 .000 .001 .025 .019 .009 .228 .242

Effect Size

(Eta Square).035 .068 .043 .021 .023 .029

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Summary of Key Findings

There was a statistically significant increase in the Primary 6 students’ self-reported motivation scores. Hence, empowering the student voice through Differentiated Tasks can increase students’ motivation.

Being able to work with friends had the greatest impact on the students’ motivation (Mean=4.08 out of 5), followed by:

i. Getting a choice of instruments (Mean=3.99 out of 5) ii. Critiquing others (Mean=3.29)iii. Getting critiqued by others (Mean=3.28)

Students’ intrinsic motivation increased more significantly compared to their extrinsic motivation

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by Lee Yue ZhiYuhua Secondary School

HarnessingE-Portfolio and E-Platform for Student Self-Assessment

CONTEXT

RESEARCH AIMS

• Yuhua Secondary School has a Learning for Life programme (LLP) in Aesthetics (Music). Students go through multiple music workshops in addition to music lessons, and have frequent performance opportunities internally and externally. The school is interested in building a compiled portfolio of all student performances throughout their secondary levels.

• It is my personal observation that students in general do not work towards the various achievement levels in the rubrics given to them. While benchmarking and the use of examples would strengthen their understanding of the criteria, rarely do they refer to the rubrics while rehearsing. This project aims to increase awareness and utilisation of the rubric in aiding and improving performance.

• A wide range of apps and online learning tools are readily available for teachers to tap on to enhance learning, as well as to access and grade content more easily. I wanted to find out how an e-platform, together with rubrics to help evaluate/track student progress, can help students assess themselves, and whether it would then increase their final performance result.

• Another observation is that students do not seem to engage in self-reflection during group rehearsal, and they do not seem to able to objectively evaluate their performance. This project aims to give students a platform for reflection activities and to improve on their performance.

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• Use of McOnline as e-platform. Social learning wall was used, as videos and pictures can be uploaded. One can post comments. Access can be restricted to selected students/classes.

• Comparison of two classes’ responses to two different methods of online self-assessment given on the right. These are full Secondary 2 classes of 36-39 students.

• Comparison of scores of first and second recordings of students’ performances for both classes

• Analysis of questionnaire survey results

Class social learning wall with all videos posted. Students

comment on other groups’ videos

Group social learning wall with access and comments restricted to the group only

CLASS A (CLASS WALL)

CLASS B (CLASS WALL)

ME THODOLOGY

Note: There is no control group in this inquiry as I only have two compatible classes and my purpose was to find out which was the best means of utilising the platform: class wall or group wall

QUESTION

How can the use of an online platform/ e-portfolio (harnessing social learning wall) facilitate student self-assessment and improve performance?

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CURRICULUM DETAILS

The following is the structure of what the students completed in Semester 2. Students have already learnt basic guitar and keyboard skills in preparation for this semester, which focused on composition and performing skills.

Musical Elements Exploration

Composition Task Performance Task

• Theme and variations

• Interaction with different musical elements

• Deeper understanding

Students understood more about the musical elements and how they have been used in the composition of theme and variations.

• Theme and variations composition on GarageBand

• Basic compositional techniques

• Instrument exploration

In pairs, students composed their own theme and variations using GarageBand.

• Performance of a student composition

• Changes can be made as needed

Students formed groups of six (three pairs) and listened to all compositions before deciding on one to perform. Students were allowed to make further changes to the composition in order to best suit the instrumental and technical abilities of the students in the group.

(This research drew on students’ self-assessment and performance in this component.)

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TIMELINE

TEACHER INSTRUCTION AND RUBRICS

See teacher’s instruction below

Two lessons for group formation and rehearsal

Recording of performance in groups

One lesson for students to review their videos and comment on their friends’ videos (Class A) or their own videos (Class B)

One lesson for rehearsal. Students worked on improving their performance from comments given

Final performance and recording

1 2 3 4 5

Guiding questions posted by teacher

View your group’s video and comment.

Teacher14 Sep 2017 08:32AM

Answer these questions in your comment:

1. How much would you give to the group? Give a range of marks (eg.12-14) out of 20

2. General thoughts or suggestions on the performance video

3. What did the group do well in? Refer to rubric assessment

4. What can be improved? Refer to rubric assessment

5. What do I learn from watching this video?

Reply to @Teacher

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Rubrics posted by teacher to guide peer evaluation

Needs Work 1 Satisfactory 2 Good 3 Excellent 4

Clarity of Musical Elements

No change in any of the musical elements can be heard

Musical elements selected to be altered in variations are executed with some hesitation or inaccuracy

Musical elements selected to be altered in variations are fairly well executed

Musical elements selected to be altered in variations are clear and excellently performed

Instrument Technique

Only basic instrumental techniques were used and performers were clearly struggling with the instruments

Basic instrumental techniques were used. All members where fairly well-practised on their instruments

Some members of the team used varied techniques and all were well-practised on their instruments

All members of the team used varied techniques and were very well-practised on their instruments

Musicality and Balance

Performers are unclear of their musical role and performance sounds confused

Some attempt at managing the different layers but the musical balance is only moderately adequate

Musical layers could be clearly heard but with some occasions of musical imbalance

All musical layers were clear and in perfect musical balance

Performance

Performance could barely continue due to performers’ confusion

Performance was fairly smooth in flow and well-rehearsed with quite a few mistakes or hesitation

Performance was generally smooth in flow and well-rehearsed

Performance was extremely smooth in flow and well-rehearsed with no mistakes or hesitation

Teamwork

Barely any teamwork was evident throughout the planning process and performance. Teacher always required to mediate group disagreements

Some teamwork was evident throughout the planning process and performance. Group may have needed moderate intervention from the teacher

Good teamwork was evident throughout the planning process and performance. Generally good communication throughout

Excellent teamwork was clearly evident throughout the planning process and performance. Excellent communication throughout

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FINDINGS

Comparison of Students’ Questionnaire Responses on their Final Performance

23 7

327

Class A

Class B

Satisfied

Dissatisfied

Students were mostly satisfied with their final performance. One class was significantly more satisfied. Students gave their reasons for satisfaction/dissatisfaction in a survey and the responses were captured and compiled below.

To aid compilation, student responses were categorised into teamwork, performance, instruments (use and choice), instrument technique, musical variety and balance as shown below:

TEAMWORK

Im satisfied with our final performance. Our strengths is that we are able to work

together as a team very well.

The performance was going well. The teamwork is not so good as some parts are not

cooperating.

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PERFORMANCE

I think the melody and the bass blended well

together, but i felt that we rushed a bit.

The performance was going well. The teamwork is not so good as some parts are not

cooperating.

INSTRUMENTS (USE AND CHOICE)

Our final performance was okay but we messed up a bit. We used different instruments/elements

and were able to combine them. We were confused at the second part and weren’t able to sync together.

Another version. However, we did use a variety of

instruments and I feel that is the good part.

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INSTRUMENT TECHNIQUE

Good. I manage to play the notes. I

played a wrong note.

“It could have been better. We could have practiced more and tried to learn more than just the basics. We could

have made it more interesting by playing the song on the piano with the chords.”

MUSICAL BALANCE

Weakness: It was messy and needed a little work and the

other instruments overpowered the keyboard.

Is abit messy and not all instruments can be heard properly.

MUSICAL VARIETY

We did good in terms of our beat. The beat matched the song well and we tried our best to mash up 2 songs of

different beat.

I think we did really well.Our musical arrangement was great. But we forgot

to play some things.

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59

Students’ Self-Assessed Strengths and Weaknesses (Class A and Class B)

Self-assessed strengths

Class A

Class A

Class B

Class B

Musical Variety

Instruments - Use and technique

Musical Balance

Performance Issues

Teamwork or CoordinationSelf-assessed weaknesses

3

3

2 1

66

4

4

4 4

5

5

5

12

14

11

13

32

26

31

27

ANALYSIS

• Students were generally accurate in their self-assessment of their final performance. Overall, the groups did well, but had specific areas of improvement that were picked out by the group’s individual members.

• Students could self-identify strengths and weaknesses in open-ended responses that correspond to musical terminology. Responses also had clear reference to the rubrics that were given to them.

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performance (remember, they only had one lesson in between to refine!). Some interesting trends emerged, which could be explored further – Class B (group wall) actually improved generally more than Class A (class wall).

• Students showed evidence in their responses that they referred to the rubrics. We were able to glean further details from their responses on the e-portfolio.

CLASS A CLASS B

Grp No. Initial Final +/- Grp No. Initial Final +/-

1 11 15 +4 1 12 16 +4

2 14 16 +2 2 13 17 +4

3 9 12 +3 3 10 12 +2

4 11 14 +3 4 14 17 +3

5 11 12 +1 5 12 16 +4

6 13 14 +1 6 11 12 +1

7 9 13 +4

Comparison of Performance Results

ANALYSIS

• Distinct improvement in student performance from initial recording to final performance.

• Large majority of the students made thoughtful and critical changes.

• Increased creation of variations (one of the rubric criteria).

• Students could have realised what to work on by viewing their video (and others’ videos) to improve within a short amount of time.

THOUGHTS UP TILL THIS POINT

• It was good that the students managed to improve from their initial to their final

Some things to note:

Both classes have generally good class culture. They are supportive of each other and bonded.

1 2 Both classes are of similar profiles and musical backgrounds and underwent very similar lessons.

Before starting this journey, I had some expectations and assumptions. I expected that with more access to one another’s videos and comments, students would be able to improve more as they could learn from one another. However, as the final results above show, that was not the case and my expectations were debunked. We will now take a look into the factors that led to this surprising (for me!) result.

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Comparison of Students’ Comments on Social Learning Wall

Large range of marks (10-17), brief comments with less technical details, little/no link to rubrics.

Student K18 Sep 2017 10:13PM

Student L19 Sep 2017 06:07AM

Student M21 Sep 2017 12:14PM

Student J21 Sep 2017 12:48PM

I would give this group a 14/20 as they manage to play the piano without much error and the rhythm is right.

I would give them 13/20 as they all know their parts, but it would be better if it was more interesting

I give this group a 10/20 because I can hear the melody quite well but the low notes, high notes and the singing do not go well together

I really like Oscar’s singing. Good job

Class A

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Narrow range of marks given (13-15), longer comments that are structured as requested. Clear link to rubrics and technical details.

ANALYSIS

• Students in Class A did not show as much understanding in the comments or improvement as Class B for the final performance.

• More students in Class B were able to use technical terms in their comments, as compared to Class A which tended to give more general comments.

• Students in Class B had more accurate rubric grading, showing that they really read through the rubrics and thought through their responses.

• Although more opinions (Class A) should theoretically be better for improvement, quality and consistency of comments were not as good as Class B.

Student Y17 Sep 2017 12:10PM

Student I18 Sep 2017 5:23PM

1. 13-15 out of 20 2. I think that our performance is quite good but we didn’t finish up the performance 3. Our teamwork are good and the instrument can be heard. We had used different instrument like clapping of hands.4. We can improve on the performance5. I learnt that we need to have teamwork

1. 13-15 out of 20 2. i think that our teamwork and clarity of music is great 3. we did well in terms of teamwork and clarity of musical instruments.4. We can improve more on our performance and instrument technique5. I learnt that everyone needs to play their part in the performance and we must help each other to get better so we can give our best effort in the performance.

Class B

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Class A

Class B

NoYes

Pre-recording:

Pre-recording:

Pre-performance:

Pre-performance:

5

29

8

26

6

29

7

28

Comparison of the Number of Students who Refer to Rubrics When Preparing for Performance as Declared in Questionnaire

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Class A Class B

Group Access

Public Platform

School Platform

Class Platform

5

4 2

23

9

2 4

20

Comparison of Number of Students in their Preference of Online Platform for Recorded Performances and Peer Feedback as Declared in Questionnaire

ANALYSIS

• It is interesting to note that for both classes, the change in the number of students who referred to the rubrics from the initial to the final performance is minimal.

• However, there was clearly an improvement in the performance of the students. One reason could be that by reading the comments (especially from those who actually utilised the rubrics), the remaining students assimilated the knowledge and understanding of the rubrics.

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Choice No Reason

Public Site (e.g. YouTube) 2 Current prevalence of YouTube, wanting to learn from others

School wall 4 Sharing and learning from schoolmates

Class wall 20 1. Concerns about opinions from non-classmates (3)2. Desire to learn from others’ opinions (12)3. Trust and comfort around classmates (10)4. More improvement from more comments (9)

Group wall 9 1. Concern about others’ judgment (3)2. Wanting to present the best work to the class, after having

made improvements (2)3. Uncomfortable with others viewing their video (4)

Class B

Choice No Reason

Public Site (e.g. YouTube) 4 Current prevalence of YouTube, wanting to learn from others

School wall 2 Comments from other schoolmates

Class wall 23 1. Feedback from classmates helped the group improve (7)2. Trust and comfort around classmates (16)3. Keeping within a group did not allow for much

improvement or opinions (3)4. Concern about opinions from non-classmates (3)

Group wall 5 Due to privacy concerns (3), comfort level of students (2)

Class A

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ANALYSIS

• Students from both classes preferred having a class wall as they wished to read comments from other people.

# This is very interesting as from the earlier data, the students working on group social learning wall showed much more improvement. So, what the students would prefer is not optimum for their own improvement.

• Students expressed a desire to learn from others in a relatively safe environment.

Most students were more comfortable to stick with their classmates whom they

know and trust.

• Class B had more students that preferred a group wall (perhaps it is a known environment).

# One student also suggested that the performance could be worked on in a group wall and only the final performance is revealed to others.

• A few students were interested in utilising a public platform to share and get opinions from other people online.

CONCLUSION

An online platform/e-portfolio (class wall/group wall) facilitates self-assessment and peer assessment, which generally leads to an improvement in student performances.

Students gain practice in utilising and referencing the rubrics through typing comments for their video or their classmates’ videos. The rubrics also provides them with essential vocabulary for verbalising strengths and weaknesses in their performance.

Students, by watching or reading comments on the recorded video, are able to gain perspective which will help to improve future performances.

Some thought and consideration to the class profile would determine whether a class or group setting is best for student reflection and improvement.

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by Liu Jia Yuen ClaireCatholic High School

Facilitating a Song-Writing Task

RESEARCH PURPOSE

To discover how the song-writing task is experienced by the students.

QUESTION ME THODOLOGY

Mixed-methods study with the following data collection:

• Weekly video-recorded lessons and student submissions

• Post-module questionnaire

• Interview with students

Participants:

• 18 Secondary 2 students from a very boisterous class, which had been split into two for music lessons

• Divided into six friendship groups of three

What facilitation approaches in the song writing task are most useful for students?

How do students experience these approaches?

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THE CURRICULUM

LEARNERS’ BACKGROUND CURRICULUM CONTEXT

• Students were from an all-boys school and most of them had no formal music lessons outside of school

• Prior to the start of the project, students had gone through lyric writing and were required to write lyrics to the theme of “Identity”

# Lyrics used as examples for lyric-writing were from Scarborough Fair (which the students had learnt to play earlier in the year on the guitar) and Do You Hear the People Sing.

[Note: On hindsight, these songs were not relevant to this particular class even though they had learnt to play it.]

# “Identity” was chosen as it was broad (personal identity, class identity, CCA, school, national, global) and could be taken in different directions (searching for identity, loss of identity, multiple identities, secure identity, etc).

• 45-minute period every Friday

• Since the song had to be sung in the final performance, singing had to be incorporated into the lesson activities. Not much singing had been done previously, so the introduction of singing started with vocal games like passing sounds, then notes, then phrases. When the four-chord song was played for the first time, they instinctively sang along with the video and demonstrated their familiarity with many of the songs in the medley.

• As most of the students had no formal music training, they were taught how to use chords in GarageBand. To get the chords ingrained into the students, the progression C G Am F was chosen and used as the basis of each lesson. Hence, the songs were also chosen with this progression in mind, and the singing activities centred around the progression.

This included singing “do-so-la-fa” (the bass notes of the progression) and improvising over the progression.

• As this was a very boisterous class, activities were needed to attract and keep their attention, otherwise they would go off-task.

SONG-WRITING TASK

• To compose a song that consists of three layers

# Vocal layer (must be sung by at least one group member)

# Harmony or Chords layer

# Drums or Percussion layer

• To record the song

• Final performance, choice of:

# fully recorded performance,

# partially-recorded with live elements, or a

# live performance

Recall what they had done the week before

1 Ensure that they had some work done each week

2 Have their work saved on the iPad in case members of the group were unable to present

3

The week to week recording allowed students to:

FINAL SONG

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ASSESSMENT RUBRICS

0 1 2 – 3 4 – 5

Lyrics (at least two verses & one

chorus, or three verses)

No lyrics written

Song lyrics are not always coherent. The theme is not clear.

Song lyrics are generally respectful, memorable and relate well to the theme. There is some coherence between the verses which reflect different perspectives of the theme.

Song lyrics are consistently respectful, memorable and relate well to the theme. There is coherence between the verses which reflect different perspectives of the theme.

Word Stress No submission

Significant errors in word stresses.

Some alignment of music and word stresses.

Word stresses are consistently well-aligned.

Melody No submission

Strong reference to other music.

Original composition, with some nice melodic moments.

Original, tuneful melody, well-aligned with the text.

Performance No submission

Inconsistent performance, with many hesitations.

Some lapses in confidence (fluency and consistency) in the group performance, and there is ambiguity in the musical layers.

Performers are confident (performed fluently and consistently throughout), and the song is clear in each musical layer - singing, rhythm accompaniment and harmony.

The rubrics were agreed upon before the start of the project by all the teachers teaching this module. As one of my objectives was to get them to explore creating melodies freely, I deliberately withheld the rubrics from the students during the exploratory lessons. The rubrics were only shown after they had completed their improvised melodies.

SCAFFOLDING

CHORDS(C G Am F as used inthe Four-Chord Song)

Activities:• Listening • Playing along • Singing along

MELODYActivities:• Call and response • Singing in parts • Improvising • Singing with words

PERCUSSIONActivities:• Discussion and analysis• Session drums • Improvising

In each layer, the activities were chosen with the students’ prior knowledge (or lack of it) in mind.

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• To facilitate their familiarity with chords, the same chord progression (C G Am F) was chosen for every lesson. This progression was chosen as it was the primary progression used in the four-chord song.

• Each lesson began with a song that contained mostly that progression (e.g. Four-Chord Song by Axis of Awesome, Flashlight by Jessie J., I’m Yours by Jason Mraz). Students sang the bass notes “do-so-la-fa” along with the songs.

• Teacher demonstrated how the chords are played on the keyboard. Students played the chords on GarageBand as they listened to the songs.

During the activities, the teacher would also have to assess if students were in time and in pitch, and adapt the activity to meet their level of progress. For example, if students were taking a while to sing back melodies in pitch, the teacher would use a simpler melody with a smaller range and/or repetitive notes.

TEACHER FEEDBACK

1

2

Assessing song-in-progress using the rubrics

Assessment of improvised melodies

To the entire class

1

2

3

4

5

During the playing of chords with the song

During the improvising process

After each submission of song-in-progress

After the firstpresentation

After the second presentation

To individual groups

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COMPOSING AND FEEDBACK PROCESS

Receivingfeedback

Recordingmelodies

using audiorecorder

Listening back/

Presenting

Feedback from teacher and peer

Teacher demonstration:

Recording melodies into GarageBand overa set progression

Assessing without the rubrics

- Improvised melodies

Assessing with the rubrics

- Improvised melodies- Songs-in-process- First and second

presentations

QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS

A questionnaire was administered to students to find out their perceived usefulness and enjoyment of the activities. The questionnaire was found to be reliable (N =16, α = 0.93).

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Each item was scored on a 5-point Likert scale (1 being the least useful or enjoyable; 5 being the most useful or enjoyable).

USEFULNESS

Questionnaire items(in chronological order of activities)** Percentage of responses for each rating Mean Mode

Following the chord progression in the four-chord song

1 (5.6%) 2

(11.1%)3

(16.7%)4

(38.9%)5

(22.2%) 3.44* 4

Singing the bass note of the chord together 1 (5.6%)

2 (11.1%)

3 (27.8%)

4 (33.3%)

5 (22.2%) 3.56 4

Singing in second parts within the class 1 (5.6%)

2 (16.7%)

3 (44.4%)

4 (22.2%)

5 (11.1%) 3.17 3

Demonstration of how to improvise a melody by singing

1 (0.0%)

2 (16.7%)

3 (44.4%)

4 (22.2%)

5 (16.7%) 3.39 3

Demonstration of how to improvise a melody

1 (0.0%)

2 (11.1%)

3 (33.3%)

4 (38.9%)

5 (16.7%) 3.61 4

Listening to examples of songs that follow the four chords

1 (11.1%)

2 (5.6%)

3 (38.9%)

4 (22.2%)

5 (22.2%) 3.39 3

Playing the chord progression (C G Am F) with the songs

1 (5.6%)

2 (16.7%)

3 (22.2%)

4 (33.3%)

5 (22.2%) 3.50 4

Using the pre-recorded chord progression (C G Am F)

1 (11.1%)

2 (5.6%)

3 (38.9%)

4 (27.8%)

5 (16.7%) 3.33 3

Activity on improvising a short tune over the chords

1 (0.0%)

2 (16.7%)

3 (38.9%)

4 (27.8%)

5 (16.7%) 3.44 3

Recording at least three different tunes on the iPad

1 (5.6%)

2 (11.1%)

3 (33.3%)

4 (33.3%)

5 (16.7%) 3.44 3a

Group presentations of the improvised tunes

1 (11.1%)

2 (11.1%)

3 (44.4%)

4 (22.2%)

5 (11.1%) 3.11 3

Group presentations of the songs in progress

1 (11.1%)

2 (5.6%)

3 (27.8%)

4 (44.4%)

5 (11.1%) 3.39 4

Individual group feedback given after group presentations (Round 1)

1 (5.6%)

2 (16.7%)

3 (22.2%)

4 (44.4%)

5 (11.1%) 3.39 4

Teacher feedback given after group presentations (Round 1)

1 (5.6%)

2 (5.6%)

3 (27.8%)

4 (38.9%)

5 (22.2%) 3.67 4

Discussion on why and when to use a drum track

1 (5.6%)

2 (0.0%)

3 (38.9%)

4 (27.8%)

5 (27.8%) 3.72 3

Teacher feedback given to individual groups after group presentations (Round 2)

1 (0.0%)

2 (5.6%)

3 (33.3%)

4 (33.3%)

5 (27.8%) 3.83 3a

a Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown.*One student left this item blank** Essentially a chronological progression of activities, though some activities overlap into later weeks

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From the questionnaire results, the following two items were perceived to be least useful in completing the song-writing task:

# Singing in two parts# Group presentations of improvised melodies+

The top three most enjoyable items involved students immersing themselves in the music. The songs chosen were also more familiar to them, which might have increased their enjoyment.

Recording at least three different tunes on the iPad was a surprising addition to the list as during the lesson, they were rather hesitant and had to be encouraged to record their

+Interestingly, when asked to rate the top five activities in terms of enjoyment, they enjoyed recording the improvised melodies on the iPad.

On the contrary, teacher feedback was deemed to be the most useful:

# Feedback after Round 2 of presentations# Discussion on drum track# Feedback after Round 1 of presentations

Items (listed according from most enjoyable to least enjoyable) Score^

Listening to examples of songs that follow the same four chords (Flashlight and I’m Yours) 127

Playing the chord progression (C G Am F) together with the songs 133

Recording at least three different tunes on the iPad 134

Following the chord progression in the four-chord song 166

Demonstration of how to improvise a melody (recorded on GarageBand) 182

Using the pre-recorded chord progression (C G Am F) 184

Singing the bass note of the chord together with the melody in the video 185

Group presentations of the improvised tunes 186

Singing in two parts within the class 187

Discussion on why and when to use a drum track 196

Demonstration of how to improvise a melody by singing 205

Activity on improvising a short tune over the chord progression 211

Group presentations of the songs in progress 212

Teacher feedback given after group presentations (Round 1) 241

Individual group feedback given after group presentations (Round 1) 252

Teacher feedback given to individual groups after group presentations (Round 2) 252

^The scores were tabulated by adding the rank numbers given by students. Items which were not ranked were given a value of 16 to make a clear differentiation in the aggregated value so the top items are clear.

tunes. Perhaps they found that they enjoyed the creative process, hearing each other record, or simply the novelty of recording on the app.

The fifth-ranked item, “Demonstration of how to improvise a melody”, might have made it to the list because it is the precursor to the third-ranked activity, “Recording at least three different tunes on the iPad”.

Students were asked to choose the five activities that they enjoyed the most, and then ranked them from 1 to 5.

ENJOYMENT

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Students also remembered the chords.

This revealed that students took time outside of class to discuss their song!

QUALITATIVE FINDINGS

OVERALL EXPERIENCE

Frequency of similar responses were indicated in brackets ( ).

What do you remember most clearly from the song-writing lessons in Semester 2?

# Collaborative: Discussions via Skype (4), group meetings and discussions (4)# Music concepts: Chords (5)# Songs (2)# Emotive: fun (1), creative (1)# Playing with the iPad (1)

All but one student indicated that what they remembered most clearly

was linked to a positive change in their composing process.

How did that affect your group’scomposing process?

# Improvement (3)# Composing start (9)# Lyrics (3)# Others: Effective group work (1), Nothing (1)

Most students identified a particular component of the song when deciding on the most successful part. However, two students credited the experience as the most successful part, which leads to the hope that these students will continue to create music after the module has ended.

In your opinion, what is the most successful part of your song? Why?

# Lyrics (4)# Chorus (3)# Tune (1)# Singing (1)

# Chords (3)# Backing track (2)# Experience (2)# Everything (2)

Did you feel like you had to be able to read music to complete this task? Why?

# No (18) # “Just had to be able to create a melody” /

“Just had to follow the melody…”# “Group mates were able to explain to me”# “I felt that as long as we are interested in

music, read [sic] music is not necessary”

# Background music (5)# Everything (1)# By section (2)

What was your part in thecreation of the song?

# Lyrics (9)# Tune (5)# Singing (5)

Most students were involved in two areas of the song-writing task.

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TECHNICAL MATTERS

Students seemed to regard the use of the autoplay function on GarageBand as something

of a “cheat” or a “hack”. It would be good to remind them that the choice of which autoplay function to use, the choice of instrument, where

to place that track and the choice of balance within the song, etc. are important musical decisions. In making these decisions, they

identified their personal bias (and one another’s, since they were working in a group) and

matched what they were hearing/composing against unspoken criteria which were implied

through the songs they listened to (and listened to again, or disregard in future listening).

Which feature(s) of the app did you use? Name the feature and describe how you used it in the process of coming up with your song.

# Of the responses (18), the most frequent features used are Piano (9), Audio recorder (9), Drums (5)

# The feature least used is Guitar (1). # Of those responses who mentioned

Piano, they tend to use the autoplay function to play the chords. Audio recorder was used to record the singing.

Learning point: Get the students to come up with examples of songs that they

listen to, do some curation for content, and use the lyrics that they like.

LYRIC WRITING

Were the examples of lyrics(Scarborough Fair, Do You Hear the People Sing) sufficient to guide you in coming up with your own 2 verses and 1 chorus?

# Yes (12), No (6)

How could the sessions on lyrics have been structured so that your group could work effectively?# More focused time or space (5)# Teach specific lyric-writing skills (2)

e.g. “rhymes, length of lyrics, proper organisation”

# “Just 2 verses and 1 chorus” (1)# Seeking inspiration (3)# No change required (4)# No or nil response (3)

Of those that gave suggestions on how to improve the structure of the lyrics sessions,

most wanted more focused time and/or space to complete their lyrics. This could be done through classroom arrangement by creating

islands around the class with resources such as devices with browsers for them to seek inspiration. Other resources include lyric

templates for those who need more structure and thesauruses or rhyming books to help

with those tricky words and phrases.

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ASSESSMENT RUBRICS

Majority of the students indicated that they would

have preferred to have the rubrics before the group presentation.

Close to half suggested that it should have been given right at

the start or when the task was assigned.

At The Start

When TaskIs Assigned

Halfway Before GP Presentations

On The Day Itself

After We Submit Our

Work

3

2 2

1 1

5

Did you find it useful to go through the rubrics with an existing group’s work? Why?

# Yes (13) No (5) # The reasons given by those that mentioned ‘Yes’

are centred on the fact that the session helped students to focus on what is required of their song.

# Of those that said ‘No’, two said it caused stress, one said the rubrics were unclear, one said the session should have been done at the start, one response was unclear.

When the rubrics were introduced to the class, they were first used to evaluate one group’s work-in-progress song in order to

explain the terms and also to illustrate the differentiation between levels. As it was work-in-progress, care had to be taken

to ensure the class understood that the work was incomplete and not be overly

critical in their comments. Teacher led the discussion in assessing the group’s work.

What else could have helped your group to understand the rubrics and the expectations for each level better?

65% of the students felt that more explanation, examples

and demonstrations would have helped them to understand the

rubrics and expectations for each level better. In planning the module next year, we will

provide ready examples (from this year’s songs) for each level in the rubrics to help illustrate

the expectations, and hopefully that will improve the student

experience of the module.

11

5

5

6

Eg And Demos

Nothing

Make It In Chinese

Teacher Explanation

More Time To Read The Rubrics

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You were notified of the assessment dates around the same time the rubrics were shared with you. How did knowing when the assessment dates were affect your composing process?

# Stressed (2)# No effect (5)# Aided in planning (6)# Rushed or worked harder (5) session should have been done at the start, one response was unclear.

Knowing the assessment dates seemed to help many of the students by allowing them

to plan and decide what they needed to do by which date.

EXPECTATIONS

NoExpectations

0

2

4

6

Bad ToAverage

FinishThe Song

Good Originality DeeperMeaning

Makes Sense,But Not Catchy

Students did not seem to value their work. They thought they could not do a good job. During the interview with students, students felt that they had not done much

because the app had ‘done everything’. All they needed to do was ‘press buttons’, implying that they had some expectation of what they should have

been doing, which should have been a lot more than ‘pressing buttons’. Learning point: As a teacher, it is important to let students know that the ability to hear and decide what is ‘nice’ is an important musical skill. One

does not only require technical skills in order to be a good composer.

Did you feel that your group’s effort met your expectations? Why?

# Yes (15), No (3)# Of those that said ‘no’, two indicated it was due to no work done, while

one felt the song turned out much better than he expected.# Of those that said ‘yes’, one did not give any response. The other reasons:

• Collaborative effort and success (5)• Lyrics make sense (1)

Because 11 students already had zero to

average expectations of their song, it was not surprising that the majority of the

students responded “yes” to this item.

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CONCLUSION

Teacher Feedback

• Students found that regardless of when it was given, feedback was the most useful item in the assessment task.

• Teacher feedback to individual groups after the second round of group presentations were seen to be more useful than after the first, possibly because it was mostly fine-tuning to get the “best result”.

• Teacher feedback was quite specific and related directly to specific components of the song. For example, “Could you listen to the piano and keyboard at this point? What chords are they and are they the same in both instruments?” or “Can you hear the words clearly in this track/verse? Maybe you want to consider recording again in the next room/with better diction/with more singing voice than speaking voice?”

• However, not many students selected these activities as their most enjoyable activities.

Hence, despite them valuing the feedback, it was not something that was enjoyable to them. How can we make this feedback process something that students will enjoy?

Discussion and Demonstration

• Using the rubrics right at the start when the task is assigned.

• Having ready examples of the different levels from previous years’ work.

• Using language that is simple and understood by both students and teacher. Ideally, the examples will be clear illustrations of the meaning of the rubrics.

• Students find discussions useful as they clarify the direction and allow them to see what success in the task would look like. It also explains why most students preferred to have the rubrics at the start.

WHAT FACILITATION APPROACHES OF THE SONG-WRITING TASK ARE MOST USEFUL TO STUDENTS?

HOW DO STUDENTS EXPERIENCE THESE APPROACHES?

• The activites that students enjoyed most had them actively involved with music (listening, playind and recording) through music they knew.

• Enjoyable experiences could be created through:

# Knowing class preferences (ask them to bring their favourites, or to play something from their playlist on their phones).

# Curating resources (choosing songs that are familiar to the students and have the same chord progressions, and are easy to follow and free of expletives).

# Assessing the readiness of the groups and their progress before deciding what activities to use in scaffolding the assessment task, or when to move on to the next activity.

# Allowing students to access their playlists or Youtube for inspiration, then demonstrating to the how to use ideas from the songs to create their own (repetition, effects on GarageBand).

• A safe environment where the students are free to try without the fear of being assessed can be created through these activities.

CODA

133

reflections

136

REFLECTIONS

Sometimes, when we do not deliberately think about or explore deeper into something, we make assumptions that may prove to be wrong. This journey made me realise that our students really are so diverse and talented, but also that we as teachers need to support their learning with appropriate and thought-out assessments. These will nurture our students, leading to truly discovering and expressing their abilities.

Lee Yue Zhi

Through this journey, I have realised that using rubrics in assessment does not naturally mean that students understand them in the same way as their teachers. Involving students in the assessment process through co-reviewing the rubric is an excellent way of establishing common understanding between the teacher and his/her students. In doing so, we would also provide a means for our students to take better ownership of their learning

Tan Keng Hong

Liu Jia Yuen Claire

Evidencing learning for me used to be a very practical thing, something that I did in order to find out where my students were, and to some extent, how to move them forward. … has made me more aware of the deeper implications of assessment: the assumptions and biases … and also the choice of processes when planning assessment.

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I firmly believe that students learn best when they find joy in learning. … I definitely plan to continue exploring other facilitation approaches that will bring about meaningful learning experiences in my music lessons.

Lim Hui Wen Jwen

This journey has been an eye-opener and the approaches which I have tried have enabled me to gain a better understanding of the ways students think, so we can help them better understand and adapt to their environment through musical activities.

Sharon Ng Wai Yee

As Music teachers, we are constantly finding new ways to engage students in the learning process and what better way than to let the students discover the joy of learning themselves with their peers! The process of critical inquiry has enabled me to think deeper in my teaching processes, in terms of questioning and scaffolding so that learning becomes more meaningful for my students.

Katherine Faroek

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The entire learning process has taught me that … there is a need for educators to constantly re-examine our teaching philosophies and assess our teaching methodologies so as to better cater to the ever-changing and diverse needs of our students. Changes and challenges are hard and often unwelcomed. However, there is something beautiful about the journey filled with changes and challenges. The journey may be tough, but it made me rise up to the challenge and become more than what I thought I could be. We can’t spell challenge without change. If we are going to rise to the challenge, we have to be prepared to change. Nothing changes if nothing challenges.

Chan Hui Juan, Celine

This journey has been extremely meaningful in many ways. My passion to make music lessons interesting and meaningful for students has been re-ignited by thein-depth discussions with like-minded colleagues. The different perspectives opened my mind to new ideas and possibilities. The Critical Inquiry project pushed me to also learn more about how data can help teachers better understand how their students really feel or think.

Eng Yan Chen Alvyn

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Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B., and Wiliam, D. (2003). Assessment for Learning - Putting it into practice. Oxford University Press: Berkshire, England.

Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable Assessment: Rethinking Assessment for the Learning Society, Studies in Continuing Education, 22(2), 151-167.

Brookhard, S.M. (2013). How to create and use rubrics for formative assessment and grading. ASCD publishing. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1HG45hn

Education Services Australia (n.d.). Strategies to enhance student self-assessment. Retrieved from http://www.assessmentforlearning.edu.au/professional_learning/student_self-assessment/student_strategies_enhance.html

Fautley, M. (2010). Assessment in Music Education. Oxford University Press.

Falchikov, N. (2003). Involving students in assessment. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 3(2), 102-108.

Gee, J.P. (1999). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. Psychology Press.

Gibbons, M. (2002). The self-directed learning handbook:Challenging adolescent students to excel. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Giebelhausen, R. (2015). In the Beginning of the Middle: Curriculum Considerations for Middle School General Music. General Music Today, 29(1), 41-45.

McPherson, G. E., & O’Neill, S. A. (2010). Students’ motivation to study music as compared to other school subjects: A comparison of eight countries. Research Studies in Music Education, 32(2), 101-137.

Michaels, O’Connor, Hall, & Resnick (2013). Accountable Talk Sourcebook: For Classroom Conversation that works. University of Pittsburgh.

REFERENCES

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Mogane, K.L. (2017, April). Establishing International Principles for Assessment in Music Education. Keynote Address presented at the 6th International Symposium on Assessment in Music Education, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Otto Petersen Elementary (n.d.). My Musical Progress at Otto Petersen Elementary.Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2F7rKQx

Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2007). The thinker’s guide to the art of Socratic questioning:Based on critical thinking concepts & tools. CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking Press.

Randles, C. (2011). “What is a Good Musician?”: An Analysis of Student Beliefs. Arts Education Policy Review, 112(1), 1-8.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.

Scott, S.J. (2012). Rethinking the Roles of Assessment in Music Education. Music Educators Journal, 98(3), 31-35.

Shouldice, H. N. (2014). Elementary students’ definitions and self-perceptions of being a ‘good musician’. Music Education Research, 16(3), 330-345.

Stanford University. (n.d.) Student Self-Assessment. Retrieved from https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/resources/teaching/evaluating-students/assessing-student-learning/student-self-assessment

Tomlinson, C. A. (2001). How to differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms.ASCD. Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., Blais, M. R., Briere, N. M., Senecal, C., & Vallieres, E. F. (1992). The Academic Motivation Scale: A Measure of Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Amotivation in Education. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52(4), 1003-1017. doi:10.1177/0013164492052004025

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