My school is incredibly focused on saving the environment, which is good and noble. It means that we are always focused on whether we need to print, and if so can we use recycled paper? This is problematic when I want to do 5 minutes of theory drills at the beginning of every lesson. Our photocopier quota ticks by even when using recycled paper.  I started investigating online programs that could practice theory drills, assess students, be fun, and save my photocopy budget.  My first response was Nearpod, but it's not especially fun and it doesn't have enough capabilities. Then I stumbled upon Kahoot and I was hooked. Were the students hooked?

During the game, there were shouts of joy whenever they go the answer correct. There were exclamations whenever their names appeared on the leaderboard.  When the game was finished, they all started yelling and begging me to play it again.  Did they learn something? Absolutely! The first few questions about chromatic and diatonic semitones was awful, but by the third question, they were doing better, and by the last question they were complaining that the questions were too easy.  They definitely learned how to quickly and efficiently recognise the two types of semitones. Would they recommend it to anyone? Well, the other classes came in and said, "We heard you played a fun game... can we play it too?" Fun? The class was filled with laughter.  I asked why the were silly with the feedback and the answers were obvious -- they are in grade 6 -- they are inherently silly.  (LOL)

I've made three quizzes so far, mostly for my DP music students.  I have a quiz on alto and tenor clefs, one on identifying semitones and whole tones using a piano keyboard, and another one identifying chromatic and diatonic semitones.  For the younger students, I have favourited games made by other teachers, including naming notes and note values. The level of enthusiasm and engagement is equally high throughout the grades, with my grade 11s just as excited about the games as my grade 6s. I had initially worried that the games were more fun than learning (as often happens). However, by watching the achievement results growing throughout the game, I saw how they were learning and adapting as it continued. When I downloaded the results, I could see specifically how the students became better and better by throughout; by the end of the game, the students were getting perfect.  

I'm going to continue with Barbara Wharram, Fux, and my other 'proper' theory sheets because I need to know that my students' learning is progressing chronologically and systematically. However, I think I'm going to always start with a game whenever we learn a new concept... to use it as both immersion / hook and learning.  My grade 9s are currently drawing major scales, marking the tonic, subdominant, dominants, semitones, etc.  I'm going to experiment with this program and see how I can use it to teach the concepts before the kids have to sit down to their practice pages. In time, it'd be cool to get the kids to make their own game quizzes for their peers. 

Here's a screen capture I made of Kahoot. If you are in China, you'll need a VPN to access it (sorry about that). 

Have you had any success with Kahoot? Do you have any great quizzes that you could share? 

Today I had my first DP Music class ever. It was exciting. Basically, we just went through the exam and talked about how we would work towards it. It's really just UBD (Backwards by Design). I know we need to get ready for an exam, a musical investigations paper, a creation portfolio, and a performance portfolio, and I know that we have roughly 19 months to do it. As for the how? That's an exciting question. Through talking with my DP Mentors and trolling DP Music websites, I've come to see that every teacher does their programme completely different. Some teachers take the view that this is an inquiry-based programme that results in a compiled portfolio. They use a mixture of teacher-led instruction, listening journals, and creation/performance inquiry. Others are very teacher-driven, with very strict guidelines about what will happen when. During this week of grade 12, the students will study Palestrina.

My school is very inquiry-based and so my natural inclination is to go towards the first example. However, this isn't Montessori, right? There's definite structure needed if we are to meet the exam requirements. We need a balance of skills and inquiry. It reminds me of my masters. I was reading an article on critical thinking in the New Handbook of Music Research. Studies have found that students can't think critically if they don't have basic knowledge and understanding on which to think in the first place. So in the very beginning, we need to start with knowledge. Theory. Sure, they can read music when they are playing. On a basic level, they see a symbol and press the correct string down. They can make an effort and name the notes of the treble and bass clefs, with leger lines. They are very unhappy about alto and tenor clefs, though, which is a problem considering they'll probably have to write for string quartet during the stylistic-techniques component. So we are starting with theory drills.  I learned these from when I was teaching grade 3 math.

• 100 questions
  
• treble, alto, tenor & bass clefs
  
• 5 minutes to complete the task
• Each incorrect answer adds another 3 seconds
• The goal is to finish as fast and as accurately as possible.

I was pleasant surprised by the results. Their treble and bass notes, with leger lines, are very good! Some attempted the alto and tenor clefs, with good success. Their accuracy is excellent. So I guess it comes down to learning alto & tenor, and getting our speed up. Why speed? Because when they are in an exam, looking at an unfamiliar score, I don't want them wasting time counting lines and spaces.

This activity is also really easy to duplicate. All I did was highlight the entire score in Finale and then transpose it up by a 3rd. If any leger lines went crazy, I dropped them down an octave. Next time, I'll move it down by a 6th, or some other random number. Would you like to try it out for yourself? Here's the file I'm using: