Mark+Poole

=Washington School District = = Chorus Director, 4th - 12th Grade = = Band Director, 7th - 8th Grade =

= = My name is Mark Poole and I am a music educator in the Washington School District. As part of the M and D (Motivation and Determination) we created a line of inquiry that might help determine what strategies migtht promote increased motivation with our students, along with creating better practice habits.

We developed our inquiry question, "How can inquiry strategies be incorporated into music and arts classes to improve motivation and effort toward students' practice habits?" Our goal was to determine what motivates our students to practice their chosen art form and how we could motivate them further. We decided to gather information through the use of a pre-test survey. On this survey we asked students what they wanted to learn in our classrooms, what kinds of things motivated them, and how often they practiced. Our survey totaled 13 questions.

I administered the pre-test to the following students; 7th / 8th grade band, 7th / 8th grade chorus, and my high school "Choralaires". This encompassed approximately 120 students. After checking the results of the student surveys to find out what would motivate the students more, one of the things that was a consistent answer was "doing songs that they liked".....so, when we came back to school after the Christmas holiday, I got out a bunch of Hal Leonard's sample CD's and catalogs, and the students and I listened to sample recordings of new music that was available to order for various ensembles. At the end of each sample, I would ask the students whether they liked that arrangement or not, and those that did raised their hands. We would go through many different sample recordings to make sure that we covered a wide variety of music samples and styles. I then would go through the results of the students voting on music that they liked, and ordered music according to the ones that were their "favorites" (I also made sure I picked songs that I felt were musically sound for these ensembles, as well!!!!) So now, all of my choirs are doing music //THAT THEY HAVE CHOSEN// and it seems to be working. The students work harder on pieces of music that they like, and it's much more enjoyable in class - FOR ALL OF US!!!!

Another one of the things that the students seemed to be interested in was some sort of "rewards system". Now this idea I collaborated with Mr. David Dayton, who is the 5th and 6th grade band director in Washington (he is also the high school band director as well). In discussing this rewards system, he thought it would be easiest to experiment with how this works with the younger, 5th and 6th grade band students. So, Mr. Dayton started using just a simple "gold star" on charts with all of the 5th and 6th grade band students names on them. The students would get the opportunity EVERY DAY in class to play any line that they are working on in band class for a possible "gold star". Now, the student doesn't have to play any of the lines perfectly, they just have to show that they have worked on it and that they have improved their playing on that particular line. It seems to be working, because now these 5th and 6th grade band students are seeing how many gold stars they have accumulated, and are also counting their stars in comparison to how many stars their peers have accumulated. The competitiveness seems to be catching on! Students are asking to play lines for gold stars every day in class, and are anxious to come to class for the chance to accumulate more of them!!! I have interviewed a few 7th and 8th grade band students and most of them are in favor of a rewards system as a motivator as well. I may be trying this with the 7th and 8th grade band students next year if it continues to work well with 5th and 6th grade band students!

A final item that Mr. Dayton and I plan to try to incorporate into curriculum in the future is a computer program called "smart music". This is a computer program in which the students can play lines from a band book (just like Mr. Dayton does with his 5th andf 6th graders) into a computer microphone and the computer grades the student on how well they played the line(s). The students can do this on computers at school that have the "smart music" software loaded on them, OR they can do this at home (if they have a student subscription for their home computer). However, Mr. Dayton and I have held off on this until the rennovations at the high school are complete, and after the 7th and 8th grade band students have been moved up to the high school.

Audio student interviews:

media type="file" key="Sara McCartney, 4th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Lillian Christy, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Kaylee Blansett, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Kara Dubina, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Jocelyn Villers, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Jazmine Haynesworth, 4th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Jalayah Brown, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Holly Wright, 4th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Haylea Ellis, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Haylea Dupain, 4th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Emily Hart, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Chance Cohen, 4th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Alex Marinski, 4th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20" media type="file" key="Skyler Shideler, 5th grade.mp3" width="240" height="20"