Transforming Successful Activities Into Projects

After reading Boss and Krauss’ book I am beginning to think that most of my “projects” are closer to activities as I didn’t leave time for reflection at the end, and I didn’t begin by asking questions and establishing relevance to my student’s lives. This past year I did a style unit with my fifth grade students where we did a T chart comparing blues, jazz, and country by listening to the music, performing a piece of music in each style, and they even composed a short blues piece. I ended the unit with a test where students looked at three pictures and chose a picture to represent each style and then explained how the picture represented the different styles to them. This activity could be turned into a project by asking students to investigate the different styles and present their findings on the style to teach the class, versus me telling them about the styles.


Another successful activity that I did this year was that I had my fifth grade students listen to Mozart’s “Lacrymosa” and then we listened to the rock group Evanescence’s version of “Lacrymosa” which uses the bass line from Mozart’s piece as the basis for their song. We listened and moved to the two pieces, and analyzed the uniting element of the two pieces (the bass line), and analyzed why a break up song written in 2000 would reference a song about death written hundreds of years before. It was a wonderful activity that got students analyzing music, and listening to classical music with excited and eager ears. Next year I could turn this activity into a project by asking students to break into group’s to investigate the piece “Lacrymosa” and the history behind the piece, another group could investigate Mozart, and another Evanesence. Then we could listen to the songs and compare and analyze the music. After we compare and analyze why a composer would use an existing song to create their own work, I could ask students to get into groups and use a “quote” from a classical song as their bass line and then create their own composition over it. Students would need to use 21st century skills of collaboration and working in teams utilizing technology to gain information, and they would work to develop empathy toward other composers that lived in different times and places from them.


I am excited to go back to my district this fall and work towards incorporating 21st century skills such as utilizing current technologies, and collaborative teamwork into my teaching. I believe that I have experienced the pitfalls that I have in the past is because I was blindly trying to figure out how to scaffold projects on my own using my limited experience and knowledge to design my projects. One aspect of why I experienced pitfalls is that I had issues with the management of collaborative groups, and wasn’t sure how to solve problems when I encountered them. I think that my projects will be more successful next year because I have ideas and strategies for how to set up collaboration groups successfully and how to handle teamwork issues as I encounter them. This course helped me to learn where to start, gave me strategies for how to design more meaningful projects and assessments from the design stage and has given me the confidence to loosen up and attempt to go back next year with the mindset of a planner and facilitator instead of a conductor and teacher.