Week Four

3/21/2019

Working with Orff specialist Belinda Smith this week affirmed what we learned about building a rapport with individual students, and how to do this in a group setting. We started by learning a simple song which allowed each student (going around the circle) to have a small ‘solo’ moment as they were required to sing their own name in response to the song. Furthermore, we learned the importance of letting students make their own music, not only by playing, but by composing and improvising. To facilitate this we learned to ‘play the room’, by using non-musical items like chairs, shoes, walls and boards as instruments which we used to create rhythmic ostinati.

Week Three

03/14/2019

The positive impacts of short term music tuition on the fine motor skills of children in this weeks reading demonstrates the significance of music education to children and its ability to improve skills in multiple areas of their life, indicating that a more extensive music education could continue and further develop these benefits for children.

I think that music education and tuition is also beneficial to students through its focus on the individual, as I’ve learned that it requires students to build a rapport with their students, and understand them as individuals in order to use the most appropriate teaching methods. This is further emphasised in Pam Burnard’s Teaching Music Creatively (2017), which also highlights the importance of ‘real world practice’, in the form of experiential learning, performance opportunity and formalised learning. Both these readings emphasised the importance of knowing and understanding individual students and their needs, and catering to them by using teaching methods that are appropriate and tailored to each student (otherwise called differentiation).

Burnard, P. (2017). Teaching music creatively. [Book chapter]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.13166

Martins, M., Neves, L., Rodrigues, P., Vasconcelos, O., & Castro, S. (2018). Orff-Based Music Training Enhances Children’s Manual Dexterity and Bimanual Coordination. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02616\

Week Two

3/7/2019

The Richard Gill video was a good introduction to Orff Schulwerk and a good opportunity to see it in action and see its impact on the children in the class in real time. It was interesting to see Richard using Orff techniques even when simply interacting with the class. This included using simple and very straight forward instructions (“Watch”. “Listen”. “Please sit”.) He also kept their attention by whispering, and by giving the students individual roles. I thought it was also interesting to see the reactions of the teachers afterwards. I really agreed with Richard’s statement, that the way to learn and understand music, is by making it, and composing it yourself, which I’ve learned is typical of Orff Schulwerk from the following articles and sources (http://www.ancos.org.au/pages/about-us/what-is-orff-schulwerk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmaq06mT6ts) ANCOS. (2019). What is Orf Schulwerk. Retrieved from http://www.ancos.org.au/pages/about-us/what-is-orff-schulwerk Gill, Richard. (Richard James) (2000). The creative music classroom with Richard Gill. MLC School, [Burwood, NSW]. What is Orff Schulwerk? (2014, March 29) [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmaq06mT6ts.