A test of performance to ascertain whether elementary classroom teachers have the basic skills for carrying on a successful classroom music program

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Cultural identity in literary response:Studying a political poem in different territories

This paper presents research examining the cultural knowledge students draw on when they discuss literary texts. The data suggests the significance of literary study and literary classrooms as spaces where cultural identities are articulated and explored, and that manifestation of cultural knowledge is an essential part of collective literary study. The research project involves senior students (16-18) in schools in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The research used the poem ‘Easter, 1916’ by W.B.Yeats as a focus for classroom discussions. The poem is studied in each of the three territories, though each has its own curriculum and its own relationship with the Irish Easter Rising. The theoretical model that has dominated literary study in England for several decades is strongly influenced by I. A. Richards’ Practical Criticism [1]. In practice, this has led to teaching and assessment that diminish reference to the context of a text’s production or to the cultural context of the students considering it. A poem such as ‘Easter, 1916’ highlights the limitations of such a model. The transcripts in this study point to the fallacy of decontextualized literary response, showing where and how cultural knowledge informs students’ responses and when teachers choose to activate it. The paper introduces a project still in progress, presenting data from its first stage conducted in Northern Ireland. It presents transcripts arising from sixth-form (age range 16-18) classroom discussions of the poem drawn from two schools. The transcripts allow consideration of what students say but also how they build responses and interpretation collectively, and with their teacher. The poem’s detail is highly specific to Irish history. Questions relevant to the data include: What part, if any, does the tacit cultural knowledge of students play in their initial engagement with the poem? What do students already know and bring to the discussions? How do teachers guide and develop students’ responses, and when do they deem it necessary to supply contextualising detail? To what extent are national perspectives apparent and to what extent do they shape interpretation? The methods described in the paper continue the author’s innovative application of Conversation Analysis to classroom study of literature, which has focussed on the structure of students’ discussions and the ways in which they construct interpretations of texts collectively [2,3]. In particular, the transcripts afford examination of how the presentation of a poem influences students’ responses. A new area of interest arising from this study concerns the strategies teachers use to activate and organise the cultural knowledge of students relative to the text. What techniques do teachers use to elicit students’ cultural knowledge? Once that knowledge is articulated how do teachers use it to develop the responses of students across the whole class? The transcripts indicate that teachers’ deploy a mixture of strategies. These include direct questioning, overt presentation of contextual information, humour and parody, use of multimodal texts and management of remarks offered by different students. Conversation Analysis supports examination of how these strategies work in combination, and how they are tailored to the specific requirements of the immediate text for study – in this case ‘Easter, 1916’

Practical and Philosophical Reflections Regarding Aural Skills Assessment

Assessment in aural skills courses is a tricky intersection of instructors’ expectations, students’ skills in audiation, students’ perceptions and anxieties regarding assessment and performance, and the peculiarities of evaluative instruments. After several years in my teaching position at a large university, I became increasingly dissatisfied with assessment in the second-year aural skills program I coordinate. In short, I was displeased both with the nature of the student activities we evaluated and with the ways in which success on those activities was measured. Students’ and instructors’ frustrations convinced me of the need to make assessment more obviously relevant, less intimidating to students, and more reflective of students’ success in mastering the skills we hope to foster. My hope in sharing the problems I identified, and my responses to them, is to inspire introspection about what our aural skills assessment methods actually measure, the expertise we intend for students to gain from this part of their music studies, and the potentially dangerous distance between these two things. I must acknowledge in advance that, throughout this article, I presume an orthodox approach to collegiate aural skills instruction. Such an approach provides students with strategies for completing common audiation activities such as melodic and harmonic dictation and sightsinging, alongside in-class practice employing these strategies. Students’ mastery of audiation skills is tested periodically with dictation activities (i.e., quizzes and/or exams) and singing activities (i.e., “hearings” or “audits”), student performance on these activities is measured with an assessment tool, and the measurement becomes a basis for students’ grades in the class. It would be disingenuous to imply that this model is the only way in which an aural skills curriculum could work, or that it is without its faults. But rather than attacking this broad-stroked outline, which mirrors normative curricular practice at a great many American postsecondary schools that offer music degrees (including my own), in this essay I will consider closely the role and makeup of assessment activities in this model. Doing so can strengthen the student outcomes of such programs—and our measurements of those outcomes—without upsetting the entire curricular apple cart

An Instructional Manual for Implementation of Voice Recognition (VR) in Written Communication

This project investigated the use of voice recognition for written communication. The literature review revealed a lack of research in using voice recognition with individuals with disabilities. An instructional manual consisting of a step-by-step process to guide students through the general training process and teaching students the additional features of the program to promote independent use of Dragon Naturally Speaking Version 5 for written communication. Field tests were completed with 3 students, two with physical disabilities and one with a learning disability

Audiating and Vocalizing Voice-Leading in Seventh Chords: Harmonic Recognition in Freshman Ear-Training Courses

Harmonic dictation is one of the most challenging topics in the aural skills curriculum. Consequently, researchers have identified sub-skills associated with success in ear-training. Among these are development of audiation skills, understanding of functional harmonic progression, and scale degree resolution. The PASS Method teaches chord quality through a four-step process of playing, audiating, singing, and solving the voice-leading paths in common tonal resolutions. This method was examined in a quantitative study of 52 freshman ear-training students in which a control group studied seventh chords through the traditional, Arpeggiated Method and an experimental group used the PASS Method. The experimental group performed better than the control on the whole, and the PASS Method was particularly effective for chordal instrumentalists

A Suggested Integrated Course of Study For a Secretarial Studies Program at Bonneville High School

Speeches are given and articles are written about the changing dimensions of the world of work. As knowledge increases and improvements are made in the field of business, jobs vary accordingly. Since change is inevitable and desirable, business education courses need to prepare students for tomorrow. Rose states that: Business education subject matter is neither static nor parochial . Electronics have accelerated the world\u27s business and is creating a near revolution in our vocational business education classroom. This near revolution mentioned by Rowe has caused me to ask, Are my students going out into the business world knowing what is expected of them? Are my class projects meaningful? Am I doing all I can to bridge the gap between school and that first job? The answer to these questions can be found by evaluating and appraising vocational programs in terms of the needs of the students and the business community. In order to meet the changing needs of business education, teachers must plan. Rowe said, \u27The development and periodic revision of courses of study or syllabi is the first step toward improvement of instruction

Training the Dragon: Facilitating English Language Learner (ELL) Students\u27 Persuasive Writing through Dictation

Writing is working memory intensive for all students, including English language learners (ELLs). Cognitive processes in writing such as transcription compete for limited resources in working memory (Bourdin & Fayol, 1994; Hayes, 2012). Previous research has shown that, when compared to handwriting, students who dictated produced better quality compositions (De La Paz & Graham, 1997; Higgins & Raskind, 1995; MacArthur & Cavalier, 2004). The goal of the present study was to investigate whether dictation would also facilitate better compositions in elementary ELL students. Using a within-subjects design, the effects of handwriting, dictation to a scribe, and dictation to a speech-to-text software were investigated on the persuasive writing of 16 elementary ELL students. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) revealed that students had higher holistic text quality, better writing mechanics, more persuasive elements and lower cognitive load when in one or both of the dictation conditions when compared to the handwriting condition

A survey and evaluation of the music courses offered in Maine training schools for prospective classroom teachers.

Thesis (M.M.E.)--Boston Universit