Student Engagement

I'd like to propose a project and rubric I used as an end of the year assessment in my 11th grade chemistry class. I had students choose a topic, and write and record a song, instead of taking an exam. They seemed to have fun completing the project and I think it went well. I am seeking input on anything – but specifically a better rubric to grade students, and also music technology that is easy to use, high quality, and accessible to all. Thanks!

It has been a little over 4 years since 4SW was founded at Northwest High School in Germantown Maryland. Since then, the club has produced over 30 music videos, and more than 60 songs. At this point, club members are capable of consistently producing music videos in a single afternoon session. Their works have earned them invitations to the White House (the old one), the National Aquarium, the MAEOE Conference in Baltimore, and numerous film festivals. This workshop will delve briefly into the story of how 4SW was founded.

Throughout nearly a score of years teaching AP calculus and college calculus, I have composed a number of songs to introduce, summarize, and solidify concepts. Not only do songs help pedagogically, they create an atmosphere of joy and excitement in the classroom. I will not only share songs that cover major topics in calculus, we will also discuss the fill in the blank method along with ways you can have students compose songs "live." Be prepared to sing along!

This video poster shares a walk-through talk-aloud demo of an interactive song, starting with the pre-song prompts the user responds to that yield inserted words in the completed song, roughly in the style of the Mad Libs word template game. Some of the student inputs involve making conceptual connections while others involve providing context or examples.

Since ancient times songs have been used for teaching and learning. We often think of melody as providing a mnemonic device for recalling information, but songs have the ability to engage students in learning at a much more conceptual level. Dissertation research completed in 2011 shows that especially for middle school students, songs that are rich in content can be used to build conceptual understanding through prolonged engagement, vocabulary building, providing alternative explanations and stimulating the brain through multiple neural networks.

Since 2012 I have used music as a pedagogical method in fisheries/natural resource classes. I began by writing and performing songs based on class materials including concepts, habitats, and species' biology and posting these videos on the web. Questionnaire results indicated that the music videos significantly improved attitudes towards class and studying. I transformed this exercise into an active learning exercise by having students make their own karaoke video. Students had to write the lyrics and sing/rap them but could use video and music from the web for their videos.

In the 21st century classroom students don't just want to hear you talk for 20+ minutes. You may feel like you're being informative or that it's necessary, but for the learners not so much. Our society has created a generation of people with such short attention spans. People are more receptive to music, dance and videos. Combine those together and you get engagement and 21st century learning. Learn how to put your STEM lesson in an effective song format which will allow the song do the teaching. As the educator you will just have to facilitate, monitor and assess.

Songs can be effective in engaging children with science. Tweens (children aged 8 to 12) are in an important preadolescent phase where individual interests are thought to be established. This study aims to determine if songs can help teachers to engage their tween-aged students with science. A review of the songs currently available to help teachers in Australia engage tweens with science was conducted. Few songs were found that were directed at tweens and most were aimed at content knowledge rather than engagement.

The video poster will be a brief outline of a project funded by the Stephen Hawking Foundation to create five music videos about high school physics. Research was done prior to their creation to inform the best approach to the song writing, video production, and accompanying resources and evaluation was conducted on the efficacy of the videos and their appeal to students and teachers.

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Adding music to STEM instruction could provide the dual benefits of (1) making STEM content more accessible and (2) enhancing students' engagement in the learning process. Here we explore the extent to which music-oriented high school students achieve these two benefits when they participate in "Songwriting To Learn," a possible variation on the Writing To Learn (WTL) model of instruction. We analysed 81 artist statements, collected over 12 years at an annual science fair, in which students described their music compositions and the compositions' connections to science.