MUED 1010

 MUED1010 Week 1:

In this class James Humberstone opened up the class in a very interesting captivating way. Without speaking he engaged in body persuasion and cued us in to repeat what he did. This continued on and progressively got more challenging and involved. This then led to sung melodies in unison to the rhythm of the body percussion. Many challenging variations of this went on whilst the room was then divided in to different harmony parts making it a whole class collaboration. This for me has been the coolest start to any class ever! After this activity had finished James explained to us that he was using the Orff pedagogy to engage the class in this activity. We haven't dived heavily in to this yet but from what I gather this pedagogy utilises body movement and physical cues to coordinate student activity and learning almost turning it in to a constructive game of call and response. I can see the value of this in the classroom as it demonstrates that actions are really more powerful than words.

Carl Orff pictured

MUED1010 Week 2:

In this class Jennifer Rowley came in to greet the education students and run the class. The majority of the class consisted of an introductory activity where every single student got the opportunity to introduce them selves, talk about their musical journey that led them to where they are today and most importantly their motives of why they want to be a teacher/study music education. This was such an amazing activity as I got the opportunity to hear so many diverse stories REAL stories about a musical journey that has led to studying music education. It was amazing to hear that so many people had staple role models that inspired them to go down a path of music education. It seems that majority of these role models were in fact high school music teachers and instrument tutors. The key thing I took out of today's class was when Jennifer said "be a disrupter". This was in response to me saying I aspire to change how music is taught by having a more improvisational approach to teaching. The context behind this is to be the individual that challenges as a stagnant system, be the individual that makes that big change that should have been made long ago. 

Reading:

In this reading it shows that kids who have had or are getting musical training have an advantage in academia, sport and other activities they partake in as the musical training has long term effects that boosts cognition, multi tasking and many other functions.

https://sydney.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=crossref10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02616&context=PC&vid=61USYD_INST:sydney&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&lang=en

MUED1010 Week 3

This week we had a special guest come in and teach us about Orff and engage us in amazing activities that one day we can all pass down to future students. The lesson was introduced with a call and respond musical role which was an amazing ice breaker for the lesson. We did an activity that required us to sync body percussion, actions etc to the words 'Trash, Garbage and dirt'. The activity started in a very Orff manor with the teacher initiating the activity in a very call and response type manor with lots of repetition of the words/actions we needed to eventually learn and remember. We did this activity in a circle. The teacher explained how engaging in student/teacher activities in a circle puts everyone on the same level and fades out that distinct student/teacher relationship as everyone is coming together for an activity. In groups we were then instructed to create our own actions with a mixture of percussion, words and body actions too sync in with the 'Trash, garbage, dirt poem'. This was a really fun activity as I got to problem solve and collaborate with my fellow studying peers. The follow up activity to this was putting our own moves, lyrics, etc to sample 16 syllabal poems that were on the board. My group and I took a very 'Back Street Boy's' approach to this as you will see in the video below. 

Class activity link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18uJdXfxwXTWOMAiTE21wpvMt6cg1FYUw/view?usp=sharing

MUED1010 Week 4

Today's class would have to be one of my favourite Orff based classes so far.