Samplings

Maximizing Minimalism

The arts provide an excellent arena for exploring how repetition and contrast prompt pattern recognition. Eric Smigel and Nan McDonald find that minimalism, a modern art movement from the 1960s, is particularly ripe with patterns, and minimalist works often feature the recurrence, reorganization, or gradual transformation of a limited collection of materials. Smigel and McDonald advocate interdisciplinary, activity-based lessons that compare the structural features of music to those in other art forms. These interactive activities help students gain more valuable and memorable perspectives of the music as well as formulate meaning, establish memory of newly acquired information, and move from knowledge to understanding. Because many minimalist composers drew from musical practices of West Africa, Bali, and India, studying minimalist principles across the arts is also a great opportunity to include multicultural activities.

Smigel and McDonald provide a model lesson script for grades 4 to 8 that compares modern music, visual art, and poetry. They used the lesson in a Title I, inner-city, grade 5 classroom with a majority of English language learners. The students had little or no previous experience with music and the arts. The model lesson includes teaching procedures and sequences, a description of creative projects, ideas for assessment, materials and resource lists, and reflections by the participating classroom teacher and young students. The lesson, which addresses several National Standards for Music Education, was designed for a one-hour class.

Learn more in “Lessons that Bear Repeating and Repeating that Bears Lessons: An Interdisciplinary Unit on Principles of Minimalism in Modern Music, Art, and Poetry (Grades 4–8)” by Eric Smigel and Nan L. McDonald in the April 2012 issue of General Music Today, now online.

Help Wanted in Midcareer

Professional development studies are often general in nature or focused on beginning teachers. What about second-stage music teachers—those with four to ten years of experience? Are their needs different? Many believe that high-quality professional development is essential to the profession. The attrition rate for second-stage teachers is alarmingly high.

John Eros conducted a study of second-stage music teachers to discover how they describe their professional development experiences and needs. Study participants were interested in a variety of professional development activities, both formal (workshops, certification, graduate degrees) and informal (discussions with colleagues, reflection, and writing). It was clear that needs for professional development changed over the course of the teachers’ careers. Newer teachers often focus on classroom management, while more experienced teachers often have heightened interest in growing as teachers and moving beyond their classrooms. For example, study participants took on leadership roles in their schools or districts.

The study found obstacles to pursuing graduate education. Job loss was one concern, as was the prospect of losing a program a teacher had been building for many years: “I put way too much time into this program to leave and risk not getting it back.”

Eros identifies second-stage teachers as a valuable resource in music education; however, he emphasizes that they need consistent professional development to thrive throughout an entire career of teaching music.

Read more details of the teachers’ stories in “Second-Stage Music Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Professional Development,” by John Eros, available now in the Online First section of the Journal of Music Teacher Education.

Using Solfège to Sight-Sing

James L. Reifinger Jr. wanted to know if it made more sense to teach students to sight-read using a syllable like loo versus solfège and whether using related songs (songs beginning with the tonal patterns being studied) would make any difference to the learning. He designed a study using 193 second-grade general music students to explore these questions. Reifinger’s research was published in the April 2012 Journal of Research in Music Education (JRME).

The students had sixteen sight-singing lessons of twenty-five minutes. In each lesson, a new four-note pattern and song were introduced, and previously learned patterns were reviewed. Sight-singing skills were found to transfer to new patterns, but relating patterns to songs had no effect on achievement.

Pitch and contour accuracy of familiar and unfamiliar patterns were examined as dependent variables. Reifinger found that either learning solfège with familiar patterns or using the neutral syllable (e.g., loo) with unfamiliar patterns resulted in significantly greater contour accuracy.

“The Acquisition of Sight-Singing Skills in Second-Grade General Music: Effects of Using Solfège and Related Tonal Patterns” is found in the April 2012 JRME (vol. 60, pp. 26–42). (NAfME members can purchase a JRME subscription by contacting Member Services at 800-828-0229 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. ET or by e-mailing memberservices@nafme2.org.)

Special Education Supports Preservice Teachers’ Views

“Historically, music educators have expressed concerns about inadequate preparation to work with students with special needs,” say Jennifer Whipple and Kimberly VanWeelden in a study in the May 2012 issue of Update: Applications of Research in Music Education. These teachers have expressed the desire to learn skills related to instruction adaptation.

According to researchers, educational supports such as written words, color-coding, icons, and other visual aids, as well as echoing and using a buddy system, can be especially successful for teaching students with special needs. Whipple and VanWeelden had forty-seven preservice music teachers complete a five-week field experience in which they “taught general music concepts to secondary students with special needs incorporating educational supports.”

The preservice educators “rated the educational supports of echoing and icons most important when leading various activities to teach concepts in general music,” said Whipple and VanWeelden. The music teachers in training “predicted that the educational supports of echoing and other visual aids would be most important when teaching in various ensemble settings.” Icons and small groups or stations were rated most important.

May 2012 Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, now available online. The article described here was published online (before print) on February 16, 2012. (NAfME members can read this and other Update articles at no charge by logging in to www.nafme.org and clicking “Resources” on the top banner, then “Periodicals” on the left-hand banner.)