Motivation in the Music Classroom

In his book Helping Students Motivate Themselves, Larry Ferlazzo reviews and recommends strategies to encourage intrinsic motivation in students. Ferlazzo warns teachers of the damaging nature of incentives and rewards, citing that they discourage student autonomy and therefore damage students’ ability to be self-motivated. While he does acknowledge that rewards have proven to be effective to get people to do simple routine work, he feels strongly that they don’t promote growth in anything that requires a higher level of thinking in the long run. Ferlazzo also acknowledges that everyone expects and needs “baseline rewards” for good work, but he says to use these as surprise bonuses—not as motivation to complete a task.

Instead Ferlazzo suggests that teachers should regularly reinforce student self-motivation in the following ways:

Singing A Story: The Magic of Musical Books

Part II: Choosing a Book to Sing

Brigid Finucane here from Merit School of Music in Chicago, where I teach early childhood music and movement classes.

In my first post, I wrote about benefits of adding singing books to your classroom. Past issues of Activate! have great ideas for literacy connections...in fact, the February/March 2014 issue is devoted to children’s literature. Featured stories include Eric Carle’s The Very Lonely Firefly, Deborah A. Imiolo’s The Squeaky Door, Lucinda McQueen’s (illus.) Little Red Hen, Pete Seeger’s Abiyoyo, the beloved adaptation of a Bantu folktale and many more!

How were these books first chosen, though, and what makes them successful in the classroom? The short answer is that each teacher has to decide for his or herself what will work in their classroom, for their students and the concepts they want to support. That being said, here are some considerations!

"The Star-Spangled Banner" Quiz Show, developed by Nicole LeGrand

Looking for a creative way to honor and celebrate the 200th anniversary of "The Star-Spangled Banner" with your students this month? If so, look no further! Nicole LeGrand has created a fun and interactive game to help your students connect with and learn more about our national anthem!

Here are the instructions for the game:

Print each of the category posters and five sets of the point cards (laminate these for durability). 

Affix sticky tack or magnets to the back of each of the posters and cards. Arrange them in a traditional style Jeopardy game board.

Divide the students into small groups or teams, giving each group a small dry erase board and marker.

This is Your Brain on Music

Over the years, there has been plenty of circumstantial evidence about the connection between music and academic success, but, if you are middle aged (or even more “mature”), much of what we learned was based on speculation. With newer brain imagining tools, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), scientists can actually see neurons firing. With more rigorous scientific studies, researchers can dig deeper than the chicken-and-egg theories that were the best we had twenty or thirty years ago (remember the one about music and SAT scores? Did music cause higher SAT scores or did kids with higher IQs gravitate toward music?).

The current research is exciting because the correlations are being drawn and they are strongly supporting the theory that music participation creates better brains. As music teachers, it is important that we keep up on what current research is saying about how participation in music improves our thinking. Share these morsels with your administrators, students, and their parents to remind them that music is not just an activity, but an integral part of academic development.

Percussion How To: Woodblock Tone

Check out these great tips and techniques for proper woodblock tone in Mark Shelton's Percussion How To video!

Save Your Voice!: Tips for Maintaining Vocal Health in the Elementary Music Classroom

Every teacher knows that the most essential tool in our teaching is our voice. Our voices are overused and often tired. We strain them on a regular basis. And if we are hit with an unfortunate case of laryngitis, it can take weeks if not months for our voice to be back at 100%. It is in times like these that managing the classroom becomes more of a challenge. 

As music teachers, our voices also have an additional strain: singing…all day, every day. After my first bout of laryngitis (which happened three weeks into my first year of teaching), I made a promise to myself: I would never again speak over children talking or playing instruments in order to gain their attention. I needed nonverbal cues to communicate with the students, not only for classroom management, but also for my vocal health.I introduced a rhythm to the students (ta ta ti ti ta) and had them echo clap it to me. I told them that anytime they heard me clap that rhythm, they should echo me followed by all of their eyes and ears on me. I immediately practiced this with the students until it became a solid routine in each of my classes. I must admit that it has really been nice to not have to work all that hard to get my students’ attention over the years. And it is especially rewarding to be able to quiet an entire gymnasium full of children. However, I must stress the importance that if students have never before echo clapped a rhythm that was used to get their attention, the step of teaching and practicing the procedure is imperative. In order to be effective, a solid routine must be established. 

Singing A Story: The Magic of Musical Books - Part 1

Singing A Story: The Magic of Musical Books

Part I: Why Sing a Book?

Brigid Finucane here from Merit School of Music in Chicago, where I teach early childhood music and movement classes.

A passion of mine is music and literacy, and one of my favorite ways to share this with students and families is by presenting musical books at the end of classtime. When a book is sung, it goes beyond the simple and everyday – it’s elevated into a new and special experience! A musical book engages, invites positive communal participation, opens teaching opportunities and provides non-stressful (group) pronunciation practice, especially important for the many families and students I work with whose first language is not English.