Imaginative Bridges between Music and Teaching part 2

In this module's theme, we are looking at the importance of maintaining the interest of the listener with a song. I guess the same idea of interest maintenance could apply to books and movies as well, but it also applies to the art of teaching. Not every lesson will be interesting to every single student, but as a teacher it is important to remember that there are multiple ways to maintain students' interest or at least their attention by using different methods of presenting information. These methods will depend on the types of learners that teachers have in the classroom (kinethetic, auditory, visual). Whenever I teach a lesson I try to incorporate many different methods as possible. These things may include video clips, lecture, notes, group work, presentations with programs like Prezi, PowerPoint, Glogster, etc. The incorporation of many Web 2.0 technologies has allowed for presentation of information to become much more creative.

While analyzing "Ain't No Other Man" by Christina Aguilera the past two weeks I had noticed different tricks that the song creators used to keep the song going and interesting the whole way through. It seemed to be a combination of the instrumentals, background vocals, tempo, rhythm, and lyrics that came together to make an altogether interesting song, in my opinion. The same thing rings true for lesson presentation. Incorporating multiple methods of presentation for students will help accomodate the different learners in the classroom as well as keep the lesson presentation from becoming boring.

Imaginative Bridges between Music and Teaching

The biggest thing that resonated with me when comparing music creation and teaching is how designing a song and designing a lesson are similar. When developing a song one of the most important, if not the most important, things to do is create a hook. The hook is meants to catch the attention of the listener and inspire them through the rest of the song. According to Wikipedia, the hook is "what you're selling." That is exactly true when is comes to designing a lesson. As teachers, it is important to develop lesson plans that are interesting to students. Even if the lesson plan is not all that interesting, it's important to try to grab their attention in the beginning in some way. The anticipatory set as it is called is the "mind capture" to the lesson plan and is supposed to draw the student in. It is attention grabbing and memorable. It really is like the "hook" of the lesson plan.