Combating Learning Loss : Brain Breaks
Combating Learning Loss : Brain Breaks
TEAMM Questions
The American public school system is all about trade-offs. As music educators we know that an investment in our subject will yield amazing results for our kids and communities, but sadly it often is viewed as an expendable “extra.” I have had ups and downs with administrators over the years and certainly have had to navigate some challenging political situations. But what can we do when we simply don’t get enough time with our kids? When there is a long span of time (sometimes over a week) in between class sessions, how can we combat that learning loss? TEAMM members are asking me that question all the time. I’ve come up with a few tactics to help kids bridge that span of time, to get a little extra reinforcement to the concepts and material we cover in class! In this post I’ll share some of those ideas with you and present some video examples! But first…
Housekeeping:
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From the Archive:
Beautiful Classroom Management
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze himself recommended that students should ideally have class twice a week for 45 minutes in order to retain information and build physical skills. At various times in my career, that was approximately the amount of time I was able to see each student. It seems like a pretty minimal expectation… I’m not sure if there’s any subject that can be easily taught with less practice than that. When we think about the “body as instrument” comparison, which I invoke many times, even weekly instrumental instruction relies on some “at home” practice from the students.
When the students only have one session a week (or LESS in some cases) it is impossible to imagine that these skills can be effectively acquired if the ONLY time they encounter the practice is during class. This reality is one of the reasons I advocate for a curriculum that preferences EXPERIENCES over SKILLS and attempts to provide CONNECTIONS to music and less knowledge ABOUT it. Delivering powerful moments of musical joy will have a more lasting effect than the minutiae of music theory or history.
That being said, it is still an important component for students to retain information and practice skills. How can I encourage students to “practice” outside of our class sessions? It’s not so easy… they won’t remember the songs necessarily, and certainly they won’t be reminded to MOVE THE RIGHT WAY if I’m not there to contribute to their success! I came up with an interesting solution to the problem in recent years.
I know that their classroom teachers were taking “Brain Breaks” during class time, in which they would put on a “Go Noodle” video or another dance oriented video from You Tube and invite the students to move with it. I observed some of this, and although I cringe a bit at the chaotic nature of their movement, it was effective at engaging them and encouraging some physical interaction.
Why didn’t I make “Brain Break” videos? I could easily customize them to include content from the previous week’s lesson. This would serve a few purposes:
Encourage students to interact with the songs and ideas from each lesson outside of class
Educate teachers as to the nature of the kind of work we do in music class
Provide teachers with a “Brain Break” video that isn’t quite so chaotic and sets a slightly more focused tone.
Be able to provide some reminders for the RIGHT WAY TO MOVE and build better habits
I have a few examples from my Kindergarten curriculum, but these could be made for any grade level and any content. Each one only takes me about two hours to make. I record the audio, record a video on my phone, dump them into my computer and patch them together. If I had a bit more technical skill and time, I could make them better, but I think this level of quality is PLENTY for its purposes. The kids already have a connection with me so seeing me in the video delivers a lot of excitement. They get to share the activity with their classroom teacher which lets them be the “expert.”