DIS 1000-06 Music, Resilience, and Life Skills

I have come to enjoy working with first-semester Freshmen, helping them make the transition from high School, elucidating some of the hidden curriculum, and so forth. So, when the opportunity came to create a first-year seminar course (what we call “Intellectual Discovery”) in the new Gen Ed curriculum, I leaped at the chance to adapt my MUS 1600 Human Dimensions course. I tried to help it along by giving it the most buzz-wordy title I could manage, and it worked: the course was approved, and even selected for inclusion in a pilot Learning Community program.

I adapted a substantial component from Jessica S. Gifford’s Resiliency Skills Training program (which I downloaded from the Academic Resiliency Consortium’s library) and shuffled the topics to put the rhythm and movement pieces together and push melody and harmony to the second half so there would be a creative project in the second half of the course. In order to meet the Learning Community expectation, I arranged for a guest performance by the OTESHA Creative Arts Ensemble (West African drum and dance) and a “field trip” to a Ziggy’s, a local music venue, for a contemporary reggae show featuring MATISYAHU.

The Learning Community piece complicated things somewhat, since my course ended up paired with Freshman music theory. I abruptly ended up with a non-major course that was nearly 90% music majors. Only five of the thirteen students attended the MATISYAHU show, so it was not a very effective community builder, and there were other missed opportunities for coordination between the courses since the other instructor wasn’t really involved in the previous Spring’s LC workshops. It was basically a wash, but one has to start somewhere.

It took some time for me to get used to thinking of the class as a resiliency course instead of a music course, and by the final showcase, I was embarrassed to realize that all of the resiliency work was sequestered in the course journals on Blackboard, and nowhere evident in the ePortfolios. In the coming semester, I’d like to revisit the coordination of music and resilience work, enhance the reflection component of the ePortfolios, and add a page to house the journal entries. As a part of the LC program, I was inducted into a cohort of SoTL Scholars, so I will have an opportunity to run an action study in the coming year to measure the effectiveness of the resilience and reflection work.

MATISYAHU performs at Ziggy’s

Learning Outcome Assessment

Music Outcome #1: Students will recognize musical elements and make inferences form their observations (Assessment: Song Analysis 2)

The Song Analyses are still not where I’d like them to be. I want the students to be making more inferences, connecting the musical characteristics to the meaning of the songs, and I’m really not getting it. In retrospect, putting melody and harmony in the second half of the course was a bad idea, and I need to be more systematic in providing opportunities for them to practice observation—inference thinking. Most obviously, this could be done with the opening listening exercise.

Music Outcome #2: Students will describe the benefits of participation in music and reflect on its impact on their personal development in a summative ePortfolio (Assessment: ePortfolio narrative)

This, I think is going fine, although again, I would like to reinstate the Musical Life History revision (which got lost somewhere) so that they have a more permanent record of their change in perspective.

Inter-and Intra-Personal Skills #2: Foster a constructive team climate through polite communication, a positive and confident attitude, and helpfulness (Group Work)

This was not very successful: I had an OK piece on the front end in introducing the Teamwork VALUE rubric, but the assessment really didn’t happen nor was there any route to improvement. I think this needs to be spread out more evenly across the semester, and I’ll have to come up with some better supporting exercises highlighting the various rubric descriptors… maybe reflective piece on what it means to be polite, supportive, etc.?

Inter- and Intra-Personal Skills #4: Demonstrate emotional intelligence, a growth mindset, and resilience while addressing challenges and when facing new opportunities (Assessment: Composition Projects)

In terms of the Composition Projects, this is pretty successful (although the emotional intelligence piece is a little out of place—that’s more a component of the group work).

Integrative Learning #1: Connect concepts, theories, and frameworks of fields of study to life experiences, drawn from a variety of contexts (Assessment: Experiential Projects)

I’d like to see more connection to the topics from the readings, which means first that the students need to be doing the readings and absorbing/retaining the information. This is not happening, and I need to both support it better by teaching note-taking (life skill!) and enforce it better by making students report on and apply the material. I can see come solutions here:

• A series of reading prompts to guide the note-taking and prepare discussion topics

• A series of note-taking exercises using Cornell, Indexing, SQ3R, etc. in order to get them used to collating and organizing information

  …maybe this could even be something like bringing in notes and creating a collaborative index? The knuckle-headed material froim Katsch will provide a lot of easy practice material, so that they won’t be as overwhelmed by GILES ET AL.

Integrative Learning #2: Adapt and apply skills, abilities, theories, or methodologies acquired in one situation or discipline to new situations or problems (Assessment: Connection to Your Major)

I think this works. With so many music majors, it was a little silly, but ultimately, i think it’s one of the stronger components.

Closing Thoughts

The syllabus is still not playing the role in the course that I’d like. It really needs to be in everyone’s hands every week, and even though it will become pretty heavy, the more prompts I can put into it, the better it will be. The blue books were a last-minute inspiration, and I like the way it gave everyone a dedicated place to take notes, or at least something to put on their desks during the opening piece. It probably makes less sense for me to buy them (maybe make it a gradebook component?).

I intend to enact a mid-term deadline such that no work from the first half of the course can be made up after the mid-term, and late work can earn no higher than an 8… or a 1/Yellow… which is another thing: were several occasions where I was giving “pass” credit to things that really weren’t worthy of the “pass” (which I shouldn’t do), but I miss the color system with the middle grade. The new Blackboard won’t let me do color grades, but I can certainly do 2-point assignments (for 0, 1, 2) instead of P/F (0,1).

The relationship wiuth Counseling Services is growing, and I want to contiune growing it. I’d also like to bring in Career Services (I made a connection at the Symposium, anyway) and find a way to incorporate the Library (which, I’m sure is four or five emails to Bryan Nichols). It might be good to have an outside academic success piece as well, although I’m not entirely sure where that would come from… maybe Bryan knows.