technology Connecting With the Unwilling


Bridging the Gap With Music Students Who Didn’t Enroll for Your Class Mike Fedyszyn, WMEA State Chair, Technology


I consider myself lucky that I knew I wanted to become a band director by the time I was 14 years old. At that early age, I already saw myself teaching classes of students who had a true pas-


sion for music and wanted to be in the classroom to learn more.


I didn’t realize at the time, however, that not every class I teach would contain students intrinsically motivated to study music.


Ever since I was encouraged to get my general music license as an undergradu- ate student in addition to my instrumental license, I have taught secondary general classes as part of my class load as a band director. Often times, these classes have been required of students. In my current position, all students in middle school must take a music class through eighth grade. However, it means that students not enrolled in band, chorus or orchestra are placed into general music classes. While it means that all students in my middle school receive music education (which is a great thing), there are students who are being forced to take this class.


In many instances, students in required music classes can appear to be unmotivat- ed and unwilling to learn our curriculum. But students in required music classes love music too! It is our duty as music teachers to bridge the gap between their interest in music and what we are presenting them in our class.


Relevance is the Key


One of my primary goals as an educator is to make my teaching relevant to my students. I strongly feel that relevance is


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the best way to make a concept come alive with students. It makes them feel like what they are doing is important.


This is definitely true in my general music classes. One of my first activities I do with these students is to complete a survey of their favorite and least favorite types of music and musicians. This is accompanied with a short writing activity where they have to explain why they feel the way they do. From that point, I am able to examine their interests and, more importantly, evaluate their ability to articulate their opinions of music.


From the interest survey, I am able to tailor my lessons in order to engage students. One of the first units for students in sixth grade is to examine various elements of a melody, including motif and contour. When presenting examples of these ele- ments, it is quite easy to utilize music that interests students to demonstrate these concepts. This makes the concept much more real to students. There are redeeming qualities to be found in all types of music, even if a particular music selection that students love might not be particularly well-crafted overall. There is usually some sort of concept that can still be demonstrated and modeled from less- than-stellar compositions.


Of course, it is still important to use great music as examples as well. These types of examples can also be made directly applicable and relevant to a student’s life. Recently, while teaching sixth grade students about the concept of motif, I showed a video performance of an excerpt of Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5” – argu- ably one of the best examples of motif in music history. While students definitely would recognize the music, I knew that I needed to do a bit more. At the time, there was a commercial for Intel microproces-


“One of the best ways to bridge the gap with students in a required music class is to incorporate technology into the course.”


sors that had just aired during the Super Bowl the week before. In the commercial, portions of this symphony were played (along with the familiar, four-note jingle for Intel). After playing this commercial for students, they seemed to further under- stand the power of motif in a melody. If that wasn’t enough, I also played for them the Walter Murphy “Fifth of Beethoven” disco version. One student even said that he thought the Beethoven motif was a part of the theme music from the TV show, Judge Judy. (I had to check this one out – but he was right!) These students didn’t realize that great examples of music were all around them. It became much easier at that point to relate my curricular goals to their own interests in music.


Relevance Through Technology


One of the best ways to bridge the gap with students in a required music class is to incorporate technology into the course. It would be an understatement to say that students of today are connected better than ever before. Since so many of our students are already so knowledgeable in using digital tools, it only makes sense that technology integration can better allow our students to make meaningful connections.


April 2016


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