Charanga is an online resource that can be utilised for teaching music in the primary setting. A positive of it being an online resource is that it can be altered without the need for reprinting costs. It is an outstanding resource for primary non-music specialists.
Within the resource there are many different tabs, one of which is called This Day In Music. This can be a good way of introducing music to the class and catching the pupils interest. After exploring Charanga within our music workshop today, I now feel I would be more confident in teaching music. I believe it is a resource that children will enjoy and engage well with, as it is regularly updated with new songs and it is a different way of learning about music whilst still achieving the experiences and outcomes.
There are programmes for each primary level and combines playing instruments such as the recorder and glockenspiel, along with vocals. Each song is broken down into 6 steps, which is essentially 6 weeks worth of music lessons. It builds upon the different layers of music, similar to what we have been learning in previous workshops in a way that is fun and engaging for pupils. Building up the layers from discovering the pulse and then adding rhythm.
The first part of the lessons involves the pupils listening to the song and being able to ask questions like, what instruments can you hear? and, do you like the song? By using questions like these enables pupils to use their thinking skills and reflect upon how they feel about the song.
Music helps cultivate thinking skills, such as abstract reasoning, that are an essential part of children’s learning and give them the capacity to be able to solve problems (Rauscher, 2000). This part of the resource provides evidence that music can help enhance thinking skills that Rauscher describes.
Higher order thinking skills were the focus of our visual arts workshop. Each emotional learning card had an image with a series of questions on the back of them.
These images were meant to deliberately test our tolerance of ambiguity, which is essential within the arts. I felt I was able to decipher the meaning of the image I was given, along with accepting the possibility that someone else may have had a differing opinion to me.
This task allowed us to prove that without prior knowledge of the resource and materials that we could develop our higher order thinking skills. Tasks like these could be effective in the classroom to promote the development of thinking skills, which can then be transferred into other curricular areas, for example, visible thinking within literacy. A successful outcome of the expressive arts is the attainment of rewards in other curricular areas (Scottish Executive, 2006).
Taylors model of assessment was the rubric that was used to analyse the pictures. Taking one or two questions from each category of process, form, content and mood, in pairs we were able to explore the range of possibilities of what the image was telling us.
Developing my own higher order thinking skills has been valuable to my own learning this week. It is a skill I had not really given much thought to, however the workshops have allowed me to realise how integral they are to be able to enhance other life skills, like problem solving.
A single image can evoke a rich conversation. With art needing a problem at the centre, having the skill set to be able to contribute to the rich conversation is crucial.
Reference List
Raucher (2000) cited in Arts Education Partnership (2011) Music Matters: How Music Education Helps Students Learn, Achieve, and Succeed [Online] Available: https://moodle.uws.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/36855/mod_folder/content/0/Music%20Matters%20Final.pdf?forcedownload=1 [Accessed: 29th October 2019].
Scottish Executive (2006) A Curriculum for Excellence- Building the Curriculum 1: The Contribution of Curricular Areas [Online] Available: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/btc1.pdf [Accessed: 29th October 2019].
