Share your story as an Lskm 221 student by comparing your knowledge, skills, experience, abilities and attitude towards music education.

As an Lskm 221 student i have gained a lot of knowledge in this whole semester with regard to music education. I learned about the music elements which are the duration, pitch, intensity, quality and texture, i even know how to differentiate between them. However, i learned about different music education approaches that explains or teach a song and music concept. In those different music education approaches is how music is taught and i know how it is taught for example, music can be taught by using steady beat, rhythm, pitch, timbre, and dynamics. Therefore, music taught me how to identify a beat and different music elements in a song whether it is pitching or beat with movement. I also love music wholeheartedly because it makes learning more easier and  music motivate me to learn.

What did you learn from individual reflection?

I learned about the music concepts and the purpose and value of art integration in foundation phase.

What did you find challenging?

I find art integration challenging, reason being that it becomes difficult for me to integrate it with other subjects as well as the music being integrated with arts.

Did you find the individual reflections meaningful? please motivate your answer

Yes, i did find the individual reflection meaning phase because it allow or enable us as students  to make informed decisions with regard to our learning and we are able to answer questions that were outlined in the learning outcomes or objectives that were set, it also include the personal experience, feelings and events of an individual or things that happened in my life for instance, what do i what to be in future, who is my role model or what the best thing that ever happened in my life.

What would you change if you had the opportunity in future?

I won't change anything because i chose teaching profession because of the love and passion i have for it, teaching will also lead me to being lectures and professors so i am pleased with that. However, i saw that i have capabilities to teach, and i was born to teach and lead. Lastly i admire teaching wholeheartedly.

3. What did find interesting and meaningful?

I find music lesson phase interesting and meaningful because the lesson plan outline games/ activities that should be performed by each in the classroom and provide opportunities for learners to engage with and actively listen to move to, and create or perform music. It also motivate us to learn and make learning more interesting.

What challenged you and what do you still struggle to understand?

I find art integration difficult, reason being that i fail to integrate it with other subjects and also struggle to integrate arts with music.

What didn't you find valuable for your teaching practice?

I didn't find anything, everything that i learned in this module is not valuable for my teaching and learning in the future which would make me a successful teacher.

Important aspects to keep in mind when planning foundation phase lessons.

Content

Start by listing the important facts, key concepts, skills or key vocabulary  that i intend to cover.

Goals 

Identify the aims or outcomes that i want my learners to achieve as a result of the lesson plan i will teach.

Objectives 

Identify objectives that i will hope my learners will achieve in the tasks that will engage them in the learning process.

Resources

List the materials and resources that will be needed for the lesson to be successful.

Introduction 

Describe or list a list focusing event or attention  grabber that will motivate learners to pay attention. 

Development - learners activities 

Describe how i plan to model or explain what i want my learners to do - activities that learners are required to do.

Closure

List or describe ways that i can wrap a lesson.

Evaluation 

List or describe ways that you will assess or measure learner success in achieving the outcomes planned to reach.

The value of utilising arts integration in foundation phase learners. 

The standard assist learners with learning facts, it helps learners grow in their potential of understanding these facts. Arts integration also provide authentic and personally meaning learning and reveals learners potential. Arts integration builds cooperation, collaboration and confidence, it provides a sense of ownership - give learners a way to express what they have learned in class through different art forms. Furthermore, art integration build a sense of ownership whereby it give learners a way to express what they have learned in class through different forms. Lastly, arts integration build critical thinking whereby learners engage in critical thinking and construct personal meaning through their learning in arts-integrated lessons, they develop the skills to work through problem-solving and to innovate new solutions, this builds grit and perseverance capacities in all learners.

As a teacher, i am encouraged to include elements of play to encourage creativity, discovery, collaboration and to apply arts integration strategies as often as possible in their teaching.

The inclusion of music and arts throughout the teaching enable teachers to foster not only social and creative thinking skills but increase learners motivation for learning while also learning more about themselves. Music helps to develop the skills, attitudes and attributes that can support learning in other national curriculum subjects, it helps to develop child's spatial temporal reasoning skills, developing the ability to think in patterns and pictures. Lastly, arts improves academic achievement - it inspire kids to excel in and out of the classroom. Therefore music and arts enhance creativity whereby children develop innovation skills when they are encouraged to express themselves and take risks in creating arts and playing music.

Art integration is an approach to teaching in which learners construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Learners engage in a creative process which connects an art from and another subject and meet evolving objects.

This approach to teaching is grounded in the belief that learning is actively built, experiential , evolving, collaboration, problem-solving and reflective. 

Art integration provide multiple ways for learners to make sense of what they learn(construct understanding) and make their learning visible (demonstrate understanding).

Working in the arts helps learners to develop creative problem-solving skills, Teaching through the arts can presents difficult concepts visually, making them more easy to understand, Integrating art with other disciplines reaches learners who might not otherwise be engaged in classwork, Art experiences boost critical thinking, teaching learners to take the time to be more careful and through in how they observe the world and lastly, Working in the arts helps learners to develop creative problem- solving skills.

what did you find art integration interesting? 

I Find art integration interesting because it promote active engagement in teaching and learning activities, experiential learning, authentic learning activities, collaborative, problem solving skills and reflection. It also promote active learning experiences through which foundation phase learners can internalize new knowledge and skills by engaging in authentic activities which have real life value.

However, arts integration provides teachers with the opportunity to promote and support the developmental needs of learners while offering learners the opportunity to engage in teaching and learning activities which are fun, fosters collaboration and connection and promotes learner's innate curiosity, creativity and imaginative abilities. Furthermore, arts integration enable foundation phase learners to develop their problem solving and critical thinking skills through engagement in authentic learning activities which foster the ability to become aware of the various ways in which they are not only connected to each other but our world while drawing attention to the ways in which the various subject s in our curriculum are connected.

What did you find art integration challenging?

Music educators often find arts integration to be challenging because it requires a great deal of time, necessitates collaboration with other teachers and can unfortunately promotes collaboration with other teachers and can unfortunately be bias of one subject over another. Learners find it difficult to interact with art hence there must be a seamless integration of two or more subjects and that both subject must be experienced and engaged with the same time within an activity. 

However, learners often struggle to differentiate between aspects of music integration/development through teaching and learning, these aspects are too confusing for foundation phase learners. For instance, Teaching and learning about music is when a learner listen to a song and determine whether the tempo or  dynamic of the song, so in that learners may be confused of the different music concepts and struggle to identify the dynamic of the song whether it is a tempo, timbre, Beat with movement etc. Also it is often difficult for foundation phase learners to understand 

 

 

What possibly made some learners uncomfortable during these activities?

Some learners were uncomfortable during these activities because the teacher's focus was on playing the game and teaching the song to learners but didn't consider the cultural background, religious beliefs and home languages of other learners. It is unfair for other learners to be taught a Zulu song whereas it is not their home language and becomes difficult for them to pronounce words correctly.

They don't know what the songs says and it is difficult for them to interpret the instructions of how the song should be played. They feel discriminated from others because other  home language are chosen over theirs. They also feel uncomfortable during these activities because they are expected to dance in front of boys whereas in their cultural things are done differently.

Why were some learners uncomfortable?

Some learners were uncomfortable because they are being taught a Zulu song whereas they don't understand Zulu and come from different backgrounds so it becomes difficult for them to understand the song as well as the game because they speak different languages, they may feel discriminated from others hence they don't know Zulu.

The teacher didn't cater for the needs of all learners and ensure that every learner is treated fairly.The teacher didn't make accommodation in their practice (considering their cultural background and religion) so that these other learners would not disadvantaged. Furthermore, in some cultures girls are not allowed to dance with boys so it becomes a problem when they have to dance in front of them in the class that's why they become uncomfortable.

Can you thinks of ways to address these issues in future? What will you change?

Firstly, the teacher must cater the needs for all the learners, make accommodation in their practice (cultural background and religion) whereby the teacher consider all the languages - home languages of the learners and rules of all cultural religion that has to be adhered to and in relation to the song and game activities, the teacher must use one language (English) as a minimum language that is stipulated in the curriculum all learners.

How can we accommodate diverse learner profile in our classroom?

Practice cultural sensitivity

Ensuring that you are sensitive to every culture, beliefs and language concerns from learning styles to the language they use- the teacher may use a minimum language to accommodate all learners and ensure that all learners feel included.

Teachers needs to be aware of discrimination and inequality in the classroom.

The teacher must avoid using other learners home language in the learning activities because would feel unwelcome in the classroom and also all cultures must be given the same respect and be treated equally.

 

 

 

 

 

Music elements are building blocks in music. Tone refers to a specific music element that gives music  it's characteristic sound and through which we differentiate between music and noise.

The basic elements of music are:

• Duration(of tone ) including music concept of beat, meter and rhythm.
• Pitch (of tone)
• Timbre
• Tempo
• texture 
• Form

Explanation of concepts in music

Beat

• Beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse, of the mensural level. The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music.

Meter

• is defined as the rhythmic pattern constituted by the grouping of basic temporal units called beats into regular measures or bars.

Rhythm

• It  refers to the recurrence of notes and rests (silence) in time. Also is the pattern of sound, silence and emphasis in a song. 

Tempo

• is the speed or pace of a given piece. In a classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece and is usually measured in beats per minutes.

Pitch 

• In music, position of a single sound in the complete range of sound. Sound are higher or lower in pitch according to the frequency of vibration of the sound waves producing them.

Timbre 

• is known as tone color or tone quality and is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone.

Texture

• texture is how the tempo, melodic and harmonic materials are combined in a musical composition determining, determining the overall quality of the sound in piece.

Experiencing and facilitating music concepts through movement songs and games.

Learners listen to pieces of music to identify different music elements. They may use locomotor/ non-locomotor movements to show that they have identified every element accurately.

Meter and Rhythm 

Move the beat (meter) of the music (walk on the spot, around the class , march, waltz).

Emphasise the main (first) beat through movement (clap on the first beat, stomp your feet on the first beat).

Body percussion (clap, swap, stomp, patschen - is known as skipping.

Show the difference between meter and rhythm through movement (walk to the beat of the song and clap rhythm)

Clap the rhythm of the song 

Stone passing games.

Pitch

Group toning with movement (sing vowels or syllables such as Mi, Me, Ma, Ni, Na etc

Demonstrate the melodic contour with your hands.

Draw the contour.

How do music concepts relates to life skills, mathematics and language education.

Music and mathematics have a close relationship whereby in mathematics time tables of notes are in order to play it more beautifully but understand the structure of music and more.

In mathematics, we use numbers, patterns, notes values to teach music. The three subjects which is Mathematics, life skills and language are related because they have same music elements or concepts which are the beat, rhythm, pitching and notes values to perform music activities. In life skills and language education, we also have the music concepts which are the same as in mathematics . Music concepts are related to mathematical as they both use patterns. It (Mathematics) elaborate on how setting vibrate at certain frequencies. When doing maths a child can perform music reinforcing parts of pitch can be used by some theorist as a abstract algebra to analyze music.  So music is taught in the same way it does not differ regardless of subjects.

 

 

 

After  i have read Study unit  1, I learned that Music plays an essential role in the Foundation Phase learners. A holistic development is an approach to learning that emphasises the importance of the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of children, particularly in their early childhood. A holistic approach motivates learners to learn more about a particular subject. For example, When children goes to school they already have the ability to sing or dance. So, if the teacher use music in learning and teach them to sing or sing for them it become easier for them to learn and understand the content better. I also learned about the three theories namely the  Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, Piaget's cognitive development theory, Vygotsky and the zone of proximal development which draws focus to the  influence of social interaction and relationships whereby learners foster relationships with their peers. 

Music instils curiosity and it allows children to learn naturally and creatively. Through music learners enjoy the lesson much better and they will use the rhythm to remember what they have been taught in the classroom. However, the rhythm abilities include clapping hands, tapping and also the area of coordination and music reading.

Lastly, The holistic development is not only about mental development but it include psychological, social and emotional growth.