Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Using Music and Media
I'm finally able to blog again. One of the neat things that Erin and Dee and Mark (our fearless leaders) talked about was using music in the classroom. There are actually some "math" songs out there... Math Sucks by Jimmy Buffett, and That's Mathematics by Tom Lehrer. I was able to find these on YouTube along with video. I know we can't access YouTube at school but my husband, who is computer savvy, found a program that let's you save the file on your hard drive. One of the first days, I played Math Sucks and had the students write a couple of sentences about their feelings about math. Not surprisingly, those who said "math sucked" said it was because they didn't do well in math.
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I am playing Math Sucks for my students next week, and I am anxious to see how it works in the various levels of my classes. I have been trying to use one song per week and have my students do a free write about whatever they are thinking. I have used "Settlin'" by Sugarland and an instrumental piece by a group called Pendulum. There are those who say they are thinking that they hate whatever kind of music you are playing, but in many cases I have really learned a lot about my students from these free writes. I am also offering extra credit to students who bring in an appropriate song. It saves me time and helps their grade. So far one student has taken me up on it.
I want to start using songs as well, especially to introduce a new unit. Next week we start the integumentary system. That is our skin for anyone that did not know. Any ideas on a song? I love your idea about asking students to bring in apporpriate songs.
Thanks for sharing this song with all of us. I will definitely be getting on you tube to listen and watch the video. I really think that some of my classes would like to hear this song. It sounds like they could really relate to it...they say that math sucks all the time.
I haven't ever played a song for my students, but I have several "made up" songs that I use with my students to help them remember different equations and strategies.
I also incorporated music and media into my Spanish class last semester. We watched "Evita" which is a musical about the rise of Eva Peron in Argentina. We read various articles about the life of Eva Peron, including a few biased ones, and then viewed the movie.
I used this viewing in two different ways. We talked about how media presents one view of society, and in the case of this movie the upper classes that didn't like Eva Peron. Then, we discussed how the songs in the movie used both English and Spanish. We formulated ideas on why they still used some Spanish and didn't write the entire song in English. It was fun and amazing that the students were so excited each day about watching a musical!
I played Math Sucks for my students. My lower level students thought I had lost my mind since I was a math teacher playing that song. My college prep students saw the humor in the situation and most of them appreciated. All of my students then shared their feelings about math, and, amazingly, only a few truly agreed that math sucks.
Carol-
I really tried to come up with a song about skin for you, but the only thing I could think of was the song about the flying purple people eater. I am sorry I couldn't be more helpful.
Carol-
While I couldn't come up with a song, I did think of this activity that you could use at the beginning of the unit on skin. You could have your students brainstorm sayings that have the word skin in them. Things like "you get under my skin" or "by the skin of my teeth" are what I was thinking about. Then you could have them illustrate what they sound like and what they actually mean. You could talk about the scientific correctness of the statements also. Just a thought.
What a ripple effect of using music and the media--I guess it is now my turn to check out "You Tube". I use to say I have gone from the chalkboard to the SmartBoard--now this "veteran" teacher is going to actually go to check out "YouTube"---thanks!. I have said that I was going to try something new each month when I turned 58 and now that am approaching the next birthday I will have a lot more to try thanks to this group! pwr
I’ve been using music in my classroom as well. I know that lots of students are resistant to poetry study, so I found a way to make it apply to their lives and interests; even better, it provides snippets of poetry study throughout the whole semester. The project is called Music as Poetry. Each student is responsible for selecting and providing a single (clean and appropriate) song with lyrics. On his or her day of presentation (always on Fridays), the student leads the class in a study of poetic devices found within the lyrics of the song. We also listen to the song so that we can recognize how voice and instrumentation can make a poem bloom in the senses as well as the imagination. I still have a poetry unit of study, but I have found that this project keeps poetry exercised and fit on a weekly basis. Students don’t seem quite so hesitant to discuss alliteration, metaphor, and personification when the “poem” under scrutiny is of their own choosing.
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