STAR-Post Music #02/2015 - Making Thinking Visible in Music
STAR-POST (MUSIC)
MAKING THINKING VISIBLE IN MUSIC
Modelling the Way:
Thinking Made
Visible in the Music Teacher PAGE 2
Thinking Routines to Make Thinking Visible PAGE 7
Reflective Teachers Groom
Reflective Students PAGE 4
Thinking Routines in the Music Classroom PAGE 13 Visible
Thinking in Our Everyday PAGE 16 References PAGE 19
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
– Socrates (469 – 399 B. C.)
Have you ever experienced stepping out from a music lesson and having a strong sense that powerful learning has taken place for the students? The lesson enjoyed a seamless flow and the students’ music learning is clearly visible. At times, these arise from teachable moments that we had managed to capitalise upon; but more likely, they are the result of thoughtful planning and a carefully-scaffolded lesson designed to make our students’ learning visible.
A student-centric teacher necessarily capitalises on teachable moments to respond to students and develop their thinking and learning. But we cannot merely wait for such incidental moments to occur. Teachers should conscientiously scaffold such learning opportunities.
Students’ thinking can be planned for in the music classroom. Teachers need to give thought to lesson design that facilitates such purposeful learning, bringing students intentionally towards understanding of music concepts
Modelling the Way: Thinking Made Visible in the Music Teacher
I can carry out the visible thinking strategies with the pupils. I feel that it is necessary as we want pupils to be able to express themselves in musical terms and musically.
- Wong Peck San Lianhua Primary School
… motivation and inclination toward thinking, even more than ability and awareness, seem a necessary precondition for optimal success.
A teacher’s disposition towards thinking counts!
More than just creating opportunities for meaningful thinking and thoughtful reflection in music activities, a teacher models the way for students. As Ritchhart (2002, p.161) describes,
In thoughtful classrooms, a disposition toward thinking is always on display. Teachers show their curiosity and interest. They display open-mindedness and the willingness to consider alternative perspectives. Teachers model their own process of seeking truth and understanding. They show a healthy scepticism and demonstrate what it looks like to be strategic in one’s thinking. They frequently put their own thinking on display and model what it means to be reflective. This demonstration of thinking sets the tone for the classroom, establishing both the expectations for thought and fostering students’ inclination towards thinking.
- Ritchhart, 2002, p.217
Reflective Teachers Groom Reflective Students
In Visible Learners (2013), researchers from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education discussed how teachers’ and students’ learning can be made visible in the work that they produce, in the form of such artefacts like drawings, reflections, videos and photographs. In the music classroom, there are additional artefacts that present clues as to what students have learnt. For example, students’ compositions, performances, recordings, graphic notations, journals of their creative process, and self and peer evaluations can make visible students’ learning. Their thinking made visible, valuable information can be gleaned by teachers to facilitate further learning. In turn, reflective students who take their teachers’ formative feedback can develop additional insights and grow new learning. This cycle of reflection makes for powerful reflection and learning in teachers and students alike.
Reflective Teachers
Groom
Reflective Students
In the same vein, teachers’ reflections at PD programmes can provide points of metacognition. This allows them to develop deeper understandings and make visible how they could transfer learning into their specific school context.
The products and processes of the students’ and teachers’ learning become visible through quotes, drawings, videos, reflections, and photographs. Sharing these artifacts of learning with other students, teachers, and family members often provokes new understandings, curiosity, surprise, and delight.
- Krechevsky, M., Mardell, B., Rivard, M. and Wilson, D., 2013, p.51
The making thinking visible routines are powerful tools. For shy pupils, that is a good way to get them to voice their opinions.
- Lim Hwee Sian Cedar Girls’ Secondary School
AT STAR’s PD programmes, regular reflection is facilitated to guide teachers to make meaning of their learning. Equipped with the tools of metacognition, teachers’ application back in their school context is more likely to be dynamic and last beyond the initial period of excitement.
Reflective Teachers
Groom
Reflective Students
Reflective Students
Groom
Reflective Teachers
The effort being made is to develop a habit of constant reflection and a practice of thinking about thinking, to nurture generations of reflective practitioners who constantly think about their practices in the music classroom. This prepares music teachers beyond merely re-enacting a pedagogical move learnt at STAR; it prepares them to re-contextualise and apply their learning to suit their evolving classroom contexts. At the heart of it all, it prepares teachers to be student-centric in being ready to customise to their students’ specific learning needs.
A video presenting an overview to Thinking Routines produced by Project Zero:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKV_S5NpDdc
Reflective Teachers Groom Reflective Students
Reflective Teachers Groom Reflective Students
With the learner at the center of the educational enterprise, rather than at the end, our role as teachers shifts from the delivery of information to fostering students’ engagement with ideas. Instead of covering the curriculum and judging our success by how much content we get through, we must learn to identify the key ideas and concepts with which we want our students to engage, struggle, question, explore, and ultimately build understanding. Our goal must be to make the big ideas of the curriculum accessible and engaging while honouring their complexity, beauty, and power in the process. When there is something important and worthwhile to think about and a reason to think deeply, our students experience the kind of learning that has a lasting impact and powerful influence not only in the short term but also in the long haul. They not only learn; they learn how to learn.
- Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K., 2011, p.26
The steps of the routine act as natural scaffolds that can lead students’ thinking to higher and more sophisticated levels.
- Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K., 2011, p.47
Thinking Routines to Make Thinking Visible
Thinking routines are useful aids to facilitate reflection and build understanding. They help build learners’ understanding of themselves and extends their thinking to construction of new thoughts and ideas.
Designed by researchers in the Visible Thinking and Cultures of Thinking teams at Harvard’s Project Zero, thinking routines serve as tools to promote thinking, to structure and scaffold thinking, and to build a culture of thinking through habitual use. (Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K., 2011).
Want to know more about Thinking Routines? Here are some useful references:
• Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K. (2011) Making Thinking Visible. San Francisco: JosseyBass. (Read@Academy 370.152RIT)
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Thinking Routines to Make Thinking Visible
The 3-2-1 Thinking Routine was adapted by STAR to facilitate teachers‘ reflection and consolidation of learning in the Engaging with Songs programme.
Teachers were given a journal article discussing the value of singing. They were tasked to identify 3 sentences that resonated with them, 2 reasons to explain their choice of sentences, and 1 way in which the sentences could apply to their teaching of singing in the music classroom.
The routine allowed teachers to apply ideas to their own context, and led them to reconsider their approach and see new possibilities for the teaching of singing in their schools.
As music teachers, it is important for us to know and understand the importance of music in a child’s development. Singing is a powerful tool and we need to raise the quality of our singing in the classroom. How are we going to do that? We need to seriously think of our approaches in teaching singing. We need to make singing fun, engaging and meaningful. This can be done through singing games, engaging warm-up activities, etc. Once students love singing, they would strive to improve the quality of their voices.
Engaging with Songs (EWS) programme deepens primary music teachers’ pedagogical understanding in leading singing in the music classroom.
More information on EWS is available at http://www.star.moe.edu.sg/star-professionaldevelopment-programmes/music-programmes/ engaging-with-songs
- Mrs Josephine Ng Bukit View Primary School
Chalk Talk
The Chalk Talk Thinking Routine was used in STAR’s Teaching Living Legends (TLL) programme.
It allowed teacher participants to share their preexisting knowledge of Xinyao music, and through the workshop session activities, extend and build new understandings with fellow learners.
Conducted in the form of ‘conversations on paper’, Chalk Talk provides room and space for all learners to be heard and to share their perspectives at the same time. It also encourages diversity of views, as different conversational threads can be presented simultaneously.
More information on Chalk Talk Thinking Routine can be found at
• http://www.rcsthinkfromthemiddle.com/chalk-talk. html
Teaching Living Legends (TLL) develops primary and secondary music teachers in their music practice, pedagogy and perspectives for the teaching of Singapore music.
More information on TLL is available at http://www.star.moe.edu.sg/starprofessional-development-programmes/ music-programmes/milestone-programmes/ teaching-living-legends
Thinking
Routines to Make Thinking Visible
ConnectExtendChallenge
The Connect-Extend-Challenge Thinking Routine was used after an EWS open class demonstration by Outstanding Educator in Residence Ms Kate Woolveridge from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
It helped the teachers to make focused observation during the lesson demonstration - forming connections with what they were already doing in their own classroom, extending their thinking to new possibilities for their teaching, and identifying potential challenges they might face.
The critical self-reflection helped teachers to reconsider their own practices and to move forward, seeing beyond the potential challenges they might face in applying new learning in the music classroom.
Connect: I often stress on the importance of having a good posture for singing.
Extend: It’s important for me to not be the information provider all the time. I should try to illicit pupils’ responses more frequently.
Challenge: I have to plan my lesson well, learn the songs well, and know the learning objectives of what I’m covering. Yet, I have to be flexible to change and modify my lessons if the need arises.
Thinking Routines to Make Thinking Visible
- Mrs Allen Losey Tampines Primary School
I Used to Think
I Used to Think
The I Used to Think… Now I Think… Thinking Routine is frequently adopted at the conclusion of workshop segments to help teachers understand how their understanding has transformed. It helps to make teachers’ learning visible and allows them to see their shifts in thinking.
Now
Now
I Think
I Think
Thinking
Routines to Make Thinking Visible
In TLL, teachers deepened their understanding of our national anthem Majulah Singapura through a series of workshop activities, including singing and analysis of the original City Council song, discussion of the possible music arrangements that could be made to suit different contexts and function, and discussed whether changes should be made to the anthem.
The thinking routine helped them to reflect on their deepened understanding of the national anthem and see new possibilities in teaching it to their students. I used to think that the National Anthem was all about teaching the song – tune and lyrics and getting the kids to remember them by heart, and encouraging them to sing in the mornings by revising what the words meant. Now I think the reason they don’t sing the national Anthem is because they do not appreciate the reasons and process of its creation and thus how valuable it is. So I can bring the kids through the process and also get the kids more involved in short debates.
- Ms Gracelyn Ong Stamford Primary School
I Used to Think
Now
I Think
Thinking Routines to Make Thinking Visible
In EWS, I Used to Think… Now I Think… helped teachers to better discern their selection of teaching materials and pedagogical approaches.
At the conclusion of a workshop session, teachers reflected on their shift in pedagogical thinking. This time for reflection allowed them to make visible their deepened understanding of the critical role that pedagogical design plays in the classroom.
I used to think that when we teach songs to pupils in different levels, we select songs based on the difficulty of the song lyrics or the length of the song. I typically selected songs based on the content, for example what is relevant or popular to the pupils’ age groups.
Now I think that it is not just about the song content but rather, the musical concepts that you want to teach and also, the pedagogies one can adapt to different levels. A simple song can be used at upper primary levels, depending on what and how we teach.
- Ms Yong Lee Min Westwood Primary School
Thinking Routines in the Music Classroom
Thinking routines have their place in the music classroom as well. Just as thinking routines can provide teachers space for introspection and deeper understanding in workshops, they can also build students’ learning and develop them in the 21st century competencies.
Here, we share some ideas for incorporating thinking routines into music lessons.
When thinking routines are used regularly in classrooms and become part of the pattern of the classroom, students internalize messages about what learning is and how it happens.
- Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K., 2011, p.49
Lesson Idea for Teaching of Singapore Songs
Thinking Routines in the Music Classroom
Apply the Thinking Routine Step Inside in the teaching of Singapore Songs. This lesson idea can be applied in upper primary as well as lower secondary music lessons:
• Students select a Singapore Song which they would like to listen to in detail, e.g. Bunga Sayang, Home, Munnaeru Vaalibaa
• They take turns to step inside the shoes of different persons (e.g. the composer, the lyricist, a teenager, an elderly, a foreigner living in Singapore, a Singaporean living in another country) to describe the music features. Thus, they perceive the music from different perspectives. They then discuss how the music features serve to bring out the meaning of the lyrics
Details and additional lesson ideas can be found at http://library.opal.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/library/ reslib&uid=&ptid=84&func=prop2&id=256181
Lesson Idea for Teaching of Indian Orchestra Music
Apply the Thinking Routine See/Hear, Think, Wonder in the teaching of music of the Indian Orchestra. This lesson idea can be applied in primary as well as secondary music lessons:
• Students listen to a recording of Panjaka Mukha for full orchestra and voice
• Teacher guides students to consider
• What do you hear?
• What instruments do you think are playing?
• After the class has built understanding of instruments used in the performance and the categories of the instruments, teacher closes this component with
• What does learning about the instruments of the Indian Orchestra make you wonder?
Details and additional lesson ideas can be found at http://library.opal.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/library/ reslib&uid=&ptid=84&func=prop2&id=255869
Thinking Routines in the Music Classroom
More lesson ideas incorporating the use of Thinking Routines to deepen music learning can be found in OPAL:
• National Anthem http://library.opal.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/library/ reslib&uid=&ptid=84&func=prop2&id=256182
• Music of Dr Kelly Tang http://library.opal.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/library/ reslib&uid=&ptid=84&func=prop2&id=256187 http://library.opal.moe.edu.sg/cos/o.x?c=/library/ reslib&uid=&ptid=84&func=prop2&id=256188
Visible Thinking in Our Everyday
One can think effectively only when one is willing to ensure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching.
– John Dewey (1859
– 1952)
When thinking routines are regularly practised, it can become second nature, allowing reflection to develop into a natural habit. This has the potential of extending students’ learning beyond the classroom. Similarly for us educators, making thinking routines a habit of mind could enrich our teaching practice in helping us to be more reflective and responsive.
Here are some quick ways in which you could adopt thinking routines:
Practise a thinking routine in designing the year’s curriculum plan (e.g. Step Inside to consider the curriculum from the perspective of different stakeholders)
Practise a thinking routine at the end of a lesson for self-reflection (e.g. Circle of Viewpoints to consider the learning effected for different students in the class)
Practise a thinking routine during team discussions with other music teachers (e.g. The Micro Lab Protocol to gain diverse perspectives and encourage equal participation by all in the team)
Practise a thinking routine in your music lesson to help make your students’ musical thinking visible (e.g. What Makes You Say That? to probe deeper thinking in students)
Practise a thinking routine after reading this issue of STAR-Post (e.g. I Used to Think that thinking in music lessons is… Now I Think that thinking in music lessons is…)
When we make thinking visible, we get not only a window into what students understand but also how they are understanding it. Uncovering students’ thinking gives us evidence of students’ insights as well as their misconceptions.
We need to make thinking visible because it provides us with the information we as teachers need to plan opportunities that will take students’ learning to the next level and enable continued engagement with the ideas being explored.
It is only when we understand what our students’ are thinking, feeling, and attending to that we can use that knowledge to further engage and support them in the process of understanding. Thus, making students’ thinking visible becomes an ongoing component of effective teaching.
- Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K., 2011, p.27
References
Forni, P. M. (2011) The Thinking Life. New York: St. Martin’s Press. (Read@Academy 153.42FOR)
Hattie, J. A. C. (2009) Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement. New York: Routledge. (Read@Academy 370.1523HAT)
Howe, R. (2003) The Quotable Teacher. United States of America: The Lyons Press.
(Read@Academy 370QUO)
Krechevsky, M., Mardell, B., Rivard, M. and Wilson, D. (2013) Visible Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Read@Academy 372.21KRE)
Lind, V. R. (2014) Into the Deep: Mindful Music Learning. General Music Today, 27(2), 18-21.
Ritchhart, R. (2002) Intellectual Character: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Get It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Read@Academy 371.102RIT)
Ritchhart, R., Church, M. and Morrison, K. (2011) Making Thinking Visible. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Read@Academy 370.152RIT)
Unrau, N. J. (2008) Thoughtful Teachers, Thoughtful Learners Ontario: Pippin Publishing Corporation. (Read@Academy 370.152UNR)
