Songs in their Heads – Roles and Functions of Music/ Design Musical Excursions/Learning Plan

Ryan Shevlin
From your case study: The individual as a locus for thinking about and enacting responsive
learning plans.

Part 1: Describe:

Name your student

- James

Describe your student’s musicality briefly, i.e., skills, practices, contexts, aesthetics, repertoire.
- He loves music, sings, doesn’t play instruments, finds music in his everyday life.

Describe the kind of learning contexts that might suit them best when it comes to exploring and
digging deeply into new musical ideas (independent, with others, at home, online, etc.)
- Talking about how music is always around them, on tv, movies, videos, etc. You can
teach using videos of events using music.

Part 2: Design:

Now that you have taken into consideration “who,” “how,” and “where” this person exhibits
themselves and their musicality, design—that is describe in narrative terms-- a set of music
learning excursions that would strengthen and enhance your student’s musicality. Think like a
teacher.

Include pathways for exploring areas and arenas of musicality not specifically described in the
case study. Recall the four artistic processes (creating, responding, performing, and
connecting). Recall that content is a vehicle for learning not the actual of learning. Think
about the culturally, developmental, and social relevancy of the content you choose to include
in your design.

Use action oriented words to articulate what you think would be powerful learning activities for
your students. (Recall that action-oriented words include vocabulary like: “generate, analyze,
select, reflect, make, create, build, explore, investigate, organize, design, integrate, arrange,
adapt, etc.

Lastly, think sequentially in terms of deepening students’ engagement. Consider: How would
you set a context— or create “a need to know” for your students as regards the activities you
have planned? What would you ask them to do or think about initially so as to engage them
right from the beginning? Then, what would you do to deepen their engagement and musical
understanding?
Songs in their Heads – Roles and Functions of Music/ Design Musical Excursions/Learning Plan

Sounds in every-day life.

1.
Creating: Have the students create a sound that they consider music. (Humming, singing,
tapping, etc.)

Performing: Have the students perform the music they just created.

Responding: Have the class respond to the music the student just made by copying.

Connecting: Ask the students how all these examples are similar. What makes it music?

2.
Creating: Show the class a video of different things (Ex: Hockey games)

Performing: Have the students respond with sounds to what they heard in the video that they
thought were musical

Responding: They are responding with their performance.

Connecting: Ask the students how the sound they made and the sounds they heard are similar.