Final Reflection

 

Final Reflection

    When I started this inquiry project, I had a very vague idea of combining music and history, but the more I looked into the idea, the more ideas I started to have on how I could accomplish it.  I realized that it was not such a crazy idea after all. 

    The biggest realization that I had was the different kind of media that I could use, as well as the different kinds of primary sources that I could use and have my students analyze.  I went from only looking to use the actual songs to seeing that I could use the lyrics, interviews, live performances, and even photographs of the artists themselves.  This expanded the types of lessons that I will be able to create while still being able to incorporate musicians. 

    Not only did I start having more ideas, but I found more lessons that other educators have used and other topics that they have covered.  I think that this is only the beginning for me finding new ways to incorporate music into my history classroom and hopefully a few years from now I at least have one musically influenced lesson for each unit that I teach.  I am hopeful that I will be able to expand this idea into World History as most of my current ideas are for a US History classroom.  If I plan on using this in a World History or New Mexico History class, I will have to do more research in the music of those eras and locations, but that will only give me greater insights into music and history. 

    

This project led me to many helpful resources that I will surely be using during my first years teaching, and I hope that I am able to continue building upon my list of resources.  I really enjoyed this whole project from start to finish as it allowed me to see that it is possible to combine two of my passions and hopefully I will be able to show my students that older music can still be cool if you give it a chance.

 

Inquiry Project Presentation

 I chose to do a Prezi presentation of my Inquiry Project.

Here is the link:

Matthew's Inquiry Project Presentation 

Additional Resources

I found more resources that are more general and can help with the lesson planning.  Other resources showed me ways to help students actually use the music to help them gain a deeper understanding of historical events.  One resource provides different types of musical analysis questions, while another provides worksheets with analytical questions.

https://primarysourcenexus.org/2012/05/analyzing-primary-sources-learning-from-music/

·         This resource provides ways to analyze a piece of music as a primary source.  It gave me new ways to have students listen to music and different types of questions to ask them.  These questions show students how to observe, reflect, and then question after they listen to a piece of music.

https://folkways.si.edu/

·         This resource is a vast collection of music that can be streamed, as well as news stories about artists from all genres and all time periods.

http://www.pbs.org/americanrootsmusic/pbs_arm_into_the_classroom.html

·         This page prides a sample set of lesson plans that cover American Roots Music.  Even if I do not use these exact lessons, it provides an example of how to incorporate music into history lessons.

https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets

·         This resource is a collection of various primary source analysis worksheets that can be used when asking students to look at or listen to musical texts.  These can be modified to fit many different types of lessons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMIn9Y9hF9U

·         This YouTube video is titled “5 Ways to Use Music in Your Class”.  A couple of them are not applicable, but the others are good ways to integrate music into the history, as well as ideas for assignments, and ways to let music help students that are otherwise shy in the classroom.

Visualizing Understanding

 

I felt that this info-graphic would make a good poster in my classroom.  It gives the students a quick overview of what different types of "texts" they could use when completing a primary source analysis assignment.  It simplifies the information and provides pictures so they can easily see which type of source they want to use and how to use it.  Piktochart is a great website that allows anyone to make info-graphics very easily.  I think a site like this could also be utilized in assignment for my students as well.

 

When I was making this info-graphic, I started with how to use a musical primary source, but I kept finding different types of "texts" that students could use, so I changed the graphic to just include all of the different sources they could use and how they would be beneficial.  This assignment not only helped me organize these different types of sources, but it also showed me different sources that I can help my students find and use in assignments.