Starting the Smart Jams Project

Crystal and I started the Smart Jams music video project with the fifth graders this week.  With so many other things going in the district and so much riding on this project I was more nervous that morning than I have been in years.  The first sessions have gone very well, though.

The Smart Jams project requires students to make original, simple songs and videos about classroom content.  In our case, we are focusing on math.  I have been using a process to make the songs and videos in a reasonable amount of time.  The work here was funded by a MACUL grant and it is my first attempt to do this with so many students at once.

Explaining the problem (students with low math scores) and showing them the sample videos we will make to address it, I introduced the project to the four different classes.  I told them we have three goals:

• Practice math during music
• Practice creativity
• Learn new technology

There was a lot of enthusiasm from the students when they realized the will be writing their own songs and recording them.  They liked the examples we made and Crystal received a round of applause in a couple classes for her performance in our sample Perimeter and Area song.

I told them we'll put the final products on YouTube.  It is so clear that students are inspired into action and ideas flow when they know their work will reach a larger audience.  

Each of the classes progressed at a different rate, but the general flow of the lesson so far has been:

• Introduce the project - I let them know I need their help.  I have to present about this at the MACUL conference in March, so I'm hoping for good things!
• Talk about to write songs - We brainstormed some things that should be in a song about our school.  In some classes we had students work in pairs to practice writing two or more lines for the song.
• Take pre-tests - Two of the four classes were given a pre-test so we can determine if the extra time spent on math helped them.
• Demonstrate the recording process - I wrote a version of a song using the ideas we gained in brainstorming.  Crystal also wrote her version.  We recorded her performing as a rap.  I uploaded it to UJam.com so students could hear the music it generates and the different styles we can choose from.  I then exported it as an mp3 and pulled it into the Video Star app on my iPad.  We used that to make a video of the students dancing or generally having a great time to the music.  We were done with that process within 20 minutes.
• Group Warm-Up - Crystal and I assigned students to groups based on their math skills and other factors that she felt would make a good mix.  To help students relate well to each other, I had them fill out a half-sheet paper as warm-up activity.  It asked them questions about their musical interests and abilities.

It has been great seeing some students get so excited about performing.  I look forward to starting the songwriting about math next week and we will record some groups singing or rapping by the end of the week.

Crystal and I both agreed the hardest part of them will be writing lyrics that rhyme and explain how to do the math.  Most likely we will have them write drafts and we'll be putting a lot of time into polishing them up.

For now, here's a short clip of us playing the Area and Perimeter Song live as Crystal taught them the motions.

6+ Lists of Tips and Insights for Creativity and Technology in Education

My numbered lists have grabbed a lot of attention, so I thought I'd make a list of lists. These are classroom tech tips or insights for becoming a more effective teacher. (I originally only had five, but now I've been adding all my other lists here.  It will be 6+ from here out.)

• 10 Tips for Recording Video in the Classroom - I repeat these things constantly to students during video projects. 
• 8 Things I Emphasize When Teaching about Game Design - These are not specific to a class or resource. They are general thoughts I picked up as a designer or from hanging out with them. 
• My favorite things to assign that students enjoy too - Here are some quick thoughts and links about my favorite types of assignments over the years. The focus is on deeper thinking and creativity.
• 6 Game Apps I Recommend for School - Being a gamer, I suggest these lesser known games are worth a look. They might only be good in a narrow range of uses in school. 
• 6 Ways to Teach Like an Artist - The post that captured what I've been feeling the last five years 
• 8 Books that Changed My Work in Education - The books that changed or super-charged my thinking about myself, ed-tech and creativity
• 5 Benefits of Teaching Like an Artist - Some thoughts after putting my theory into practice

Five Benefits of Teaching Like an Artist

New for 2014: Follow the continuing Teaching Like an Artist series on TeachingLikeanArtist.com.

“All things have been given to us for a purpose,

and an artist must feel this more intensely.” - J. L. Borges

I wrote a post at the end of summer about teaching like an artist. It is what I have learned after about seven years working in education at jobs that let me express creativity and passion in school. Contrasted with about 12 years of a largely dull approach to teaching high school math, it has been an invigorating experience. I’m still living and learning it daily, but I want to share what I’ve found so far.

I’m taking the broad perspective of what it means to be an artist and what counts as art. To me, the artist is someone who sees, works to make and then shares something that didn’t exist before. It might be physical or it might be an idea. But in any case, the artist is driven to bring the dream to reality.

And what drives the process? Certainly many things, but primarily it is because the artist is meant to create. I have to believe people are here to make a contribution, to make their piece of the world somehow different than when they first came. To do otherwise is to slowly squeeze the life out of their existence.

Instead of squeezing it out, artists are those who know how to let life shine through. Emotions, especially love for something, personality and talent, come through like light through a prism. What emerges, the art that didn’t exist before, grabs the attention of anyone who can see it.

Defined this way, we can all be artists to some extent. Any sphere of society where we might find ourselves will benefit when we become aware of ourselves in this way, but this is so true of schools. There adults impact the younger generation daily. There it feels like too often the goal is to just find some answer everyone else already knew. Schools desperately need more artists!

I’ve been trying to consciously live this out and here’s my current list of benefits of teaching like an artist:

Teaching like an artist has restored my sense of purpose on the job. I feel connected to why I am here. When I talk to a group of students about the projects I will be involved with, I am amazed at the memories across forty years that flood my mind and add up to what I need to say to inspire learning. I can share stories to encourage, model skills for their success and relate to their dreams and frustrations. It feels like the moment is a gift, not something that just happened.

It is refreshing to see the fruits of our contributions, whether large or small. In a largely consumer culture that requires a lot of input for fleeting moments of enjoyment (TGIF?), the artist can draw energy from regularly creating. When people and parts of the system in your school are different in real ways because of work you have done, you’ll experience something money can’t buy.

Artists enjoy sharing their work. This is related to the above point, but by this I mean sharing beyond the day to day job. Technology allows us to easily share our best work with other teachers around the world. Listen to artists talk about the reward. They often say it is in seeing others enjoy what they created. That’s the reward we can experience when we find other teachers used our lessons or got ideas from seeing what we did.

Students will be inspired when you create. They will thank you for what you taught them or, perhaps more accurately, what you awakened in them. They will begin to create and discover their own ideas and they’ll be excited to tell you about them.

There is excitement and anticipation when you live between your vision of what can be and what your vision becomes. This sure beats the boring approach I hear so often from tired colleagues (though I love them all) who already know the result of their hard work. Within minutes of seeing their class lists they can tell me how the grades will turn out, who the trouble students will be and which projects will fail.

Of course life reflects their low expectations and their reward for being right is as uninteresting as their classes. Isn’t it more exciting to dream and see if the dream could come true? What would school be like if everyone came in wondering how things might turn out?

Artists can live in the face of the negative emotions. Yes, ideas will fail, teaching will be exhausting and students will disappoint. I have struggled with deep frustration and depression throughout my career and many times I have seriously questioned if any of what I say here is worth it. It has helped greatly, however, to recognize all of that as part of living in the space between vision and reality and that I was made for that.

Rest assured that in doing it right we will at times appear crazy, to others and to ourselves, as we work toward our visions. It’s not about living a life void of the negative emotions and moments of insanity. It is living in spite of them. If we won’t push through, who will? And what are we really choosing if we choose to do otherwise?

In short, the teacher who lives like an artist is more alive. To be fully alive a person must recognize the blessings of life and fulfill his or her responsibilities. Artists train their eyes to see both parts. They possess the talent and have developed the skills necessary for the part they are meant to play.

Teachers living like artists get to do this surrounded by young people who are starving for such an example.

Perimeter and Area Song - Teacher sample for math music video project

Here is the current version of The Perimeter and Area Song that Crystal Owen and I created as a sample.  We will show this to students next week, then begin working on their original songs and videos.

Our project is funded by a grant from MACUL and you can read about the process and other examples on my Music Creation in the Classroom page.

 

The value of reflection in learning

I did well in almost every class throughout my formal education and I attribute that largely to the fact that I paid attention to my own learning.  Now in my 20th year as an educator, I can see most students do not naturally focus on that.

It is very easy for learners to see school as a series of disconnected tasks that need to be completed.  Little attention is given to big picture concepts and the ongoing learning that should be taking place.

When I taught for years at the high school level I always imagined that shift of focus from learning to getting credit happened somewhere around the middle school years.  I work K - 12 now and from talking to teachers and observing classes I know it can happen much earlier.  Kindergarten teachers relate when I talk about these things.

So I always look for an opportunity to get students thinking about what they are learning and how it relates to their lives now or in the very near future.  Such reflection and introspection is probably the biggest gift I can bring to the learning activity, whether for young learners or the adults I coach.

In no particular order, here are a few thoughts I can share about helping students reflect on their learning:

• It doesn't have to take long.  I usually put the questions on warm-ups or as a few questions on a final worksheet after a large project.
• Reflection can take place before the learning.  Thoughts on where the learner is at in the process and what he or she hopes to learn right then are vital.
• I learned a lot from James Paul Gee about how the learners needs to see themselves playing a role in the domain of what they are learning about (and I wrote about it a lot in the first project highlighted here).  I like to ask students about which part of the project we just completed they could see themselves doing in a career or hobby.  See the reflection assignment at the end of my list of video production assignments in this post.
• Discussion that allows some students to share reflections in class or in small groups has value, but I almost always require the reflection to be in writing.  I used to have students keep a journal.  Online reflection in a blog is also a great option.  The point is every student needs to do the self-reflection.
• I believe true, inspiring learning cannot happen apart from a sense of purpose.  I don't shy away from talking about having a purpose that we were created for.  I don't get terribly spiritual in class, but I open the door for students to talk about their faith or lack of it.  Those matters are part of life.  They shape us in ways we might not always consider.  I want them to know they can express those thoughts.
• Here is the ultimate goal of such reflection on the learner related to the content:  Students should reach a point where they consider their own learning objectives and later evaluate how well they achieved those objectives.
• You, the teacher, are learning too so reflect on it.  I strongly encourage educators to reflect on what they are learning.  Keep a journal.  Track the professional and personal things (good and bad) that can shape you and your impact on the world.

I will be glad to hear the experience of others.  What advice would you add to the list?  I plan on digging into the research on the topic more too, so if you have suggestions on starting points please pass them along.