Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Burgess Actionresearch
Burgess Actionresearch
Introduction
As a fledgling music educator, I have had many chances to observe and reflect on
the practices and habits of many other more experienced music teachers and their
students. I, Kennedy Burgess, am a senior Music Education and Performance double
major at The Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. Being a music student at Crane
has afforded me many unique and exciting opportunities, whether it is in performance or
in education. I have had experience in teaching general music to second and third graders,
as well as teaching beginning band. Since my junior year of high school, I have taught
private flute lessons to students ranging from age five to age sixty-five. While my
experiences may seem limited, I am looking forward to having my own music program in
the future.
Through observations of public school teachers, and through five years of private
flute teaching experience, I have found similar problems coming up within music
programs and with many individual music students. This problem is the issue of students
not keeping up with their practice habits over the summer, thus leading to a loss of
musical and technical skill in the beginning of the next school year. This causes teachers
to go over old concepts, and to have to spend precious rehearsal time on things that
should already be in the students mind.
It is my belief that students either do not form the proper practice habits during
the year to know how to practice effectively over the summer, and/or many students feel
like practicing is a chore, rather than something they find interesting. It has been my
experience that most students do not have private instruction over the summer, which for
those who do is their main source of motivation for summer practicing. Through my
research, I hope to devise a way to make practicing fun and interesting for students
during the summer, while still making sure they are learning and retaining important
musical concepts. Some guiding research questions I have for my study are:
Methodology
The problem at hand deals with how students practice less over the summer, leading
to setbacks when the school year starts in September. Students dont practice as much in
the summer months because they havent learned the importance of practicing and
retaining musical skills and concepts, and they often dont have the motivation that they
had to practice or play during the school year. Another reason that students might not
practice is because they might think that practicing is more of a chore, rather than
something that is fun and enjoyable. To help guide my research, I have formulated these
questions:
To research this, I connected with several people of many different ages. I connected
with music educators, colleagues, peers, and former private students. I learned about their
own practicing habits, and ways that they inspire their own students to stay motivated and
inspired over the summer. In total, twelve music educators with different ranges of
experience from different school districts participated in my Facebook post. They ranged
from general music teachers, to band or orchestra teachers, all with students of different
ages. This was my most diverse group of people in my data collection, due to the large
amount of people that can freely comment on a Facebook post. I interviewed ten of my
colleagues. All of these people were either in college or just recently graduated. The last
group of people I interviewed was three of my former students. These students were in
the band program while they were in elementary and early middle school, but dropped
out of the program by eighth grade.
I used be using three separate data collection methods to ensure that my data
collection process was valid and comprehensive. By using investigative triangulation, I
approached my problem from several different facets, and this helped me to come to a
more accurate conclusion.
My first method of data collection was through the Music Teachers Facebook Group.
Music Teachers Facebook group is an online gathering of music teachers from all over. I
asked music teachers how they help students to stay motivated and inspired during the
summer (see Appendix A). My question elicited many different responses from many
different teachers. Because every classroom is different, every music teacher has a
slightly unique experience, even if the concept of the problem is the same. I hope to have
gathered many different answers from many different music educators. By asking this, I
answered my third research question, How can practicing be a fun and interesting
activity for a student?
My second method of data collection was through interviews of several of my
colleagues. Both my first and second research questionsWhat are ways students can
build up a regular routine of daily practicing, and Why do students practice less over
the summer?were answered by the responses in the interviews. Since my colleagues
are all my age, I asked them questions about how they felt about practicing in grade
school, and things they found that worked and did not work to stay motivated to practice
over the summer (See Appendix B). Many musicians remember when they were young
before they turned practicing into a habit.
Results
To reiterate, the guiding questions posed in this study were:
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The group that participated in research was several of my former students. Some
of these students did not continue on in the band program, but still play their instrument
for fun. From them, I was able to learn about what made them stop participating in the
band program, and if they had felt any different about practicing, maybe they would have
continued in the program. There were three students who completed an interview.
Overall, all of the people I interviewed, except for one, stated that they practiced
less over the summer. Everybody said something about having less structure and/or
deadlines and requirements to meet, which made it harder for them to develop a
practicing schedule. Everybody agreed that it was important to not completely stop
practicing over the summer, because there is always something to work on. Everybody
also stated that they did not like practicing for the first few years of playing because they
found it to be a boring or tedious task. One even stated that they hated practicing until
college because they were never taught the proper way to practice.
Clearly, my colleagues all felt similar about practicing when they were
younger. They all wanted more focus on practicing as a creative outlet, and they wanted
to have better tools to practice from the start.
In analyzing my results from posting on Facebook, I found that many
music teachers had so many different and creative ways to get their students to practice
over the summer. Most of these methods centered around more creative and
nontraditional methods of practicing, such as playing and arranging pop songs, getting
together to practice or perform with friends, and doing composition projects. It was very
interesting and enlightening to hear all different music teachers and musicians answers.
Table 1: Facebook results broken down into NAFME National Standards
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BINGO Practice
Card
Mini Recital for
Friends and Family
Performing
*
*
Showing
Recordings of them
from beginning to
now
*
Packet of Pop
Songs- Challenge
them to learn some
with no music
Fun composition
projects
Creating
*
Reflecting
*
*
*
Practice with
Friends
Routine to Start
every practice
session that they
can do themselves
Reflective Practice
Logs
Arrange Songs for
Students
Responding
*
*
*
*
*
Clearly, established teachers found creative ways to keep their students excited
and motivated to practice over the summer. They have created many games to make sure
students stay engaged with their instrument.
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Action Plan
I emerged from my research with clear results, and a bold conclusion. The guiding
research questions answered in some way by my research, and the several facets of my
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subjects helped to generate a wholesome view of my study. The issue of not practicing
over the summer is actually an issue of not knowing how to practice during the school
year. The tools need to be learned under the guidance of a music teacher so the students
can build good habits and practice techniques that they can implement on their own time.
My first question, Why do students practice less over the summer? was
answered in my colleague interviews. The overwhelming majority of people that I
interviewed said that they practiced less over the summer because there was less structure
and less to strive for, and because practicing on their own was a daunting task, or they
just were never taught how to practice. Most said they never even settled into a practicing
routine until their first or second year of college!
My second question, What are ways that students can build up a regular routine
of practicing? was also answered by my colleague interviews as well as by my former
students interviews. These answers reflected experiences that they wish they had done,
or wish had happened to aid them during the summer. The most common answers were
examples like: setting goals for the day, playing fun and popular music, set a deadline to
learn passages and songs, and practice with friends.
My last question was answered with the help of teachers via Facebook. I received
many helpful answers to my question, How can practicing become a fun and interesting
activity for a student? Some answers I received were: play a mini recital over the
summer for family and friends, get together to practice with friends, form a routine before
the summer that the students can start off every practice session with, and have them do
fun composition projects. It was clear that many of these teachers have already been
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thinking about how to lessen this problem in their own classroom, and they have
formulated successful ways to keep their students engaged year round.
From all of this information, it seems to me that shifting the focus of practicing
from something that is done alone with no distractions or other people aroundto
something that is more social would benefit students and their practicing habits,
especially over the summer. Making practicing something fun and exciting, adding games
and elements of composition to tap into creativity, would inspire students and make them
happy to practice.
The way to solve this problem is to engage the actions of teachers and their
students. By teaching my students how to practice effectively on their own during the
school year, and by giving them creative assignments, they will be able to practice more
successfully on their own during the summer. I can give my students a practice packet
full of tips and challenges they can complete over the summer to bring back during the
next school year. The practice packet could include several different activities, such as
guidelines to compose their own piece, or a challenge to transcribe their favorite pop
song. It could also include instructions on how to put on a small recital for their friends
and family. They could bring the practice packet back during the first week of school to
share some of what they practiced, and could play short musical examples from the
packet. Turning practicing into an approachable, interesting task is the first step to
developing good habits.
Because my research mostly only involved teachers, or colleagues looking back at
their time before college, I would like to have involved younger children in my study. I
can infer that their answers would be similar, but it would be nice to hear from students in
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fifth of sixth grade to get their opinion on this. I would like to ask for assistance from
teachers in my old school district in the future to be able to give interviews and surveys to
the students in their program. I would be able to conduct a more in depth study, and could
monitor the students over the course of several months rather than several weeks.
Overall, I have found success with my research. I was enlightened and surprised
by some of the answers I received, but I was able to gain important information on how
to better my class and to best benefit my students. My guiding questions were answered
clearly and fully, and I was able to draw clear conclusions from that information.
References
Smeltz, H. (2012). Reframing Student Practice to Facilitate Lifelong, Joyful
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Appendix A
Data Collection Method 1: Music Teachers Facebook Group
Appendix B
Data Collection Method 2: Interviews with Colleagues and Peers
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Appendix C
Data Collection Method 3: Student Interviews
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