Music-ITE

Andy: I have to do a lesson where everyone’s [peer-] assessed. It’s not a situation where I can go round and see one group at a time. So everyone’s going to be sat there. What I’ve tended to do in the past is the usual thing of, everybody listen, think of something which is really good about the performance, think of something which can be improved. But, if you’ve got 30 children in the lesson, once you get before half way, most people are not listening any more and they’re starting to think more about who they like and who they don’t like, not the quality of the work. So I find it very difficult to keep them motivated. I think this is a unique situation because usually pupils can be doing something else. This is unique because everybody’s focused on the one person doing the performance. And tomorrow I’ve got to do an assessment and everybody’s playing the same tune. It’s just a melody; it’s not going to be that interesting.

Jemma: Are they only unmotivated when they’re watching the performance or is it happening across other lessons?

Andy: I think it depends on the group. I haven’t done this before; this week is my main assessment week. In my previous school I think it happened across the board with this type of assessment.

Alex: Does the time of day determine how much attention span they’ve got? Is it easier at the beginning of the day than after lunch?

Andy: I’m sure it is, but I’m guessing. It probably is. Friday afternoon’s not going to be good.

Steph: Do you find that it’s linked to certain groups?

Andy: It’s across the board, but more with some groups than with others.

Lyndsey: Have you tried getting them to do the peer assessment so they’ve got a sheet [of paper], and they’re assessing all the performances, so therefore they’re having to do something whilst they’re listening to the performances, rather than just doing nothing?

Andy: I have got that in mind to do, but again, they’re all watching the same thing and doing the same thing. So that might work, I’m going to give that a try.

Natalie: you said that, while they’re listening to performances they have to think what’s good about the performance, and what they can improve on. How do you make sure that the people who don’t answer, and choose not to speak at all, remain involved in the lesson?

Andy: When I start, I always say “hands up” and I tend to go for those people who put their hands up first because it gets the ball rolling. Once the ball is rolling, I’ll then say “How about you? What do you think?” But I also find that, if I do ask the wrong person and they decide not to answer, that prolongs things even more. It really drags it out. So I do it very carefully.

Jonathan: Do you find it less of a problem when there are fewer performances to hear? When they’re working in large groups rather than in pairs or on their own?

Andy: Definitely.

Stuart: Have you tried, instead of hands up, “put your finger on your nose if you think it’s something” or “put your finger on your ear if it’s something else”? It’s a good way of getting everybody involved.

Andy: I haven’t actually, but that’s a good idea.

Tom: Is there an incentive for them to do well? For their performance and for listening to other people? Do they get stuff?

Andy: I haven’t tried that. You mean a physical incentive?

Tom: It depends on what the school policy is. Do they give out certificates?

Andy: Yeah, they do merits at the school I’m at. But that depends on the year group. If they’re a Year 7 group they’re very keen to get merits whereas, if they’re Year 9 they’re very keen to be seen not to get merits.

Carla: Is there a reason why you can’t go round and see them while they’re working?

Andy: Mainly because my mentor said that’s the way they want it done, really. But I guess I could press her more. I’ll try asking.

Nina: Have you considered taping their work as they play, so they know they’re being recorded?

Andy: That’s a good point actually. I have done that in the past. Sometimes just the fact that you say they’re being recorded focuses them. But then again, once they’re on number 28 [pause] as long as I keep reminding them, I suppose.

Kelly: You said you get half way through the assessments and then they start messing about. Have you thought about doing half the assessments at the beginning of the lesson then doing something else and doing the rest at the end?

Andy: I think that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to try splitting it up. Which is possible quite a lot of the times but it depends on the day. But yeah, that’s a good idea.

Hanna: Have you thought about doing it so that, if they’re playing the same piece on the piano it would be continuing to the end. There’s no stops between them. So basically the students are like, “my turn is coming” so it’s like [gestures – one after another after another] In the school where I was, they played Groovy kind of love 30 times, but it happened so as soon as one stops, the other one starts; they’re kind of waiting for their turn more intensively. So after that you could do the appraising like, “who was the best? Who could improve?” It would happen at a much quicker pace.

Andy: Yeah.

Richard: When you’re doing your assessment and you’ve got just before half way through and you get members of the class not on-task or not engaging with the activity, do you then just continue with the class or do you actively do something that’s going to engage them? Do you veer away from your lesson plan or do you stick rigidly to it?

Andy: It depends on whether or not I’m going to run out of time. But I think I do need some strategies of what to do as a quick change of activity, then going back in again.

Emma: Do the pupils understand how important it is to listen? Do they understand how useful it can be to listen to other people’s performances?

Andy: I do try to stress that to them. I also say if they get it wrong it’s not a bad thing. But that’s also very important because they need to know where they are. But whether or not they take it on board, that depends on if it’s a Year 7 group or if it’s a Year 9 group who are about to pack music in altogether because they’re not taking it as an option.

Richard: I really like Stuart’s idea of doing things like that (demonstrates putting his finger on his nose) but I kind of wonder if they might get bored of doing the same things. So maybe it’s a case of doing sort of four performances and saying, right, for the next four let’s do something different. So keep the tasks really novel. I think I’d get bored if there were 30 performers doing exactly the same thing. I’d be bored by the end of it, and we’re considerably older than them. So doing it in shorter kind of blocks – that’s what you’ve got to think about.

Stuart: Moving on from that, I think the recording idea’s quite a good one. We’ve got a keyboard lab [in my school] and you could get the recording of one person while everyone else was still working with headphones, getting rid of the fact that everyone’s listening to every single performance, and then do the assessment on a one-to-one basis. Then the next lesson you could have each group or individual listening back to the recordings. That could be quite effective if you’ve got the equipment to do that.

Emma: I think that the pupils need to understand why it is important. And that there’s a lot of AfL in it because, if you implement peer assessment into the lesson, with clear, focused tasks, not necessarily the same tasks for all of them. They need to understand that they’re getting something out of listening to other people’s performances. They need to understand that it’s important to peer-assess. And once they understand that it’s important, that they’re not just listening to other peoples’ performances. I think that’s irrelevant. If you give them focused tasks, that might focus their attention a lot more.

Alex: It depends on the class how well that works, though. I’ve tried that; with some classes it works fine. But even when you articulate how important it is to listen, they still don’t care.

Richard: I guess it’s knowing your learners.

Alex: By the second half of the group they’re not doing anything at all, so it depends.

Emma: I think something like that, it takes a long time to implement.

Stuart: But going along with that, you’ve got to get them to respect to the performer who’s playing. Because a lot of kids don’t do that, they don’t perform in front of others, it’s hard for them to do. So if you can instil a respect, it gives people more confidence to perform in front of their peers. So make sure they make comments in a constructive way.

Nina: I think the pace is the main thing, whipping around quickly. And also, as you said, the students are being assessed for their ability to show respect to the performer and perhaps names could be put on the board if you hear anyone speaking during a performance. Sanctions, and rewards for those that aren’t on the board.

Richard: I wonder if there would be a way of, you know, if you’re assessing someone for their performance, I’ve no idea if it would work, but could you assess the class on their skills as an audience. Quite difficult to implement but if you’ve got a class of 30, and you’ve got 2 people playing, and you’ve got to assess those 2, you could also assess them on another kind of criteria, when they’re listening; to see how much they’ve been listening. Then they’ve actually got to listen. You know what it’s like. You have a short time, and you’ve got time to take two questions: one area that you like and one thing you’d improve. There’s always three members of the class who’ve got their hands up for every single question and there’s always twenty who never put their hand up at all. It’s a way of getting those twenty engaged, thinking about it instead of what they’re going to do at lunchtime or what have you.

Emma: What’s wrong with a written task for those others? Because that way, they have to do it, and you have key questions that they have to answer. So they have to maintain their focus. Something that maintains their focus and keeps them listening is probably, it solves behaviour management problems straight away, really.

Hanna: Because you assess their appraisals?

Emma: Yes.

Hanna: In this way, they know that they can’t just write blah blah [rubbish]

Emma: or not write. Yes.

Stuart: You know the thing about the same two or three people putting up their hands to answer questions – you can go through the register, one at a time: ‘you’re going to give me one good point’, ‘next person, something to improve’ and so on, so they know they’re going to answer at some stage. You may not want to do it in number order, through the register, you might want to jumble it up a bit, so they know they’re going to get picked some time. Most of them know where they come in the register, so they think ‘he’s before me, I’ll be next’ If you jumble them up, it keeps them on their toes.

Richard: It gives an element of surprise.

Stuart: Yeah, or you can make a game out of it if you like.

Hanna: I’ve bought this giant timer which, I can number the students and then I press it and it selects one of the students, with their number, and it never repeats the same one. [General brief chatter by group] So by that, I can get them to answer, yeah? And it’s really funny because it [makes the noise of the timer – it’s a funny noise] This way, they’re all excited.

Richard: I want one. [General laughter]

Hanna: It’s called Megatimer. You can get it online. It’s got timers, stopwatches, everything. I use that a lot, especially when they’re doing their assessments. You can do like, ‘who’s going to do the next assessment? Let’s press the button!’ And you can ask the kids like, ‘hey, do you want to press the button?’ So between performances, it always lifts the atmosphere for a moment. It’s that big [demonstrates]

Emma: If they’re all playing the same tune, couldn’t you get it so that they have to play theirs in time? So they’re all standing by the keyboards and one finishes, and the next one has to carry on. Do you know what I mean? So it’s a class performance, almost. They have to work together. So there’s a feeling of, you know, ‘come on, you can do it’.

Richard: If they’re all doing a melody I guess the other thing is perhaps depending on their ability, could you get them to do a really simple bass part to go with it? You could get the idea of the people who are doing the solo have to turn their keyboards on to play the melody and you’re listening to them and everyone else is playing something in the background. And obviously depending on how many you’ve got in the class and depending on their ability you could introduce just one part of the backing or have two or three. Your skills are being used to assessing the person who’s playing the tune, but everyone’s still having to contribute to the sense of a performance as opposed to, ‘well, we’re done now’.

Stuart: Or if the class hasn’t got much experience of performing you could have a pre-recorded backing track that they play along with. So they don’t get to listen to just the melody. They get to listen to the whole song and you can still assess their ability to play the melody with the backing track, and then you can get them to talk about if they stayed in time with the backing track.