Music Genres Surveys to Teach in Class
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Lesson Plan Procedures
Using technology to teach music is a great way to introduce musical concepts to your music students, while using something very familiar to them. After all, technology is the wave of the future!
Here are the lesson details for the music genres survey idea found in the first article in this series. Enjoy!
Day 1
- Begin the lesson by asking the students their favorite music genres. Either using the board or overhead, write down 5 genres of music-Rock, Rap, Country, Jazz, and Dance/Pop. Next, take a “vote” by having the students raise their hands only for one choice. Then record the data on the chart on the board next to each genre. Explain to the class that this is an example of a survey.
- Pass out an example of a survey already done by another class on the same topic. Ask the students “how would you show the results of the survey?” Hopefully someone will say “graphing”, if not, then answer for them and have a short class discussion on graph review. Ask them what a bar and a pie graph look like. You could either demonstrate this on the board or select a student to draw them and then pass out the graphed results of the previously handed out survey to each student.
- Explain to the class that they are going to create their own surveys by using the computers, that is going to ask the public what their favorite music genres are and why.
- Have students use the computers/laptops that are available and show them how to register for survey monkey using a proxy projector in order for them to follow the instructions more easily.
Day 2
- Have students sign in to www.surveymonkey.com and guide/help them to create their surveys. Each student should have a survey that contains at least five musical genres that we have previously studied. They also need to ask why the person does/does not like a particular genre.
- Students will then print their surveys and they will be given a week to collect their data.
Day 3
- After a week of collecting their data, each student will then create a graph of their results by using either a pie or bar graph, whichever they prefer. They will use graph paper for this activity and will need to label their graphs appropriately as well as using various colors.
- The class will then hand in their completed graphs.
- You should then create a class graph based on the results from the students to show them for the next class.
Day 4
- Show the class their survey results by displaying the class graph on the overhead.
- Using the computers again, have the class go to www.blogger.com and help them to set up a classroom blog.
- Have the students use the blog to share their personal results of their surveys and their experiences during the process with their friends/classmates.
Day 5-Closing
- Have students write a short summary/reflection on what they have learned about society’s taste in music and why they feel this way.
- Have the students share their graphs with their peers.
- Have the students complete a crossword in small groups on musical genres created by you at www.halfbakedsoftware.com/hot_pot.php
Possible Problems and Solutions
- Malfunctioning computers**-** it would be good to have a few extra laptops/desktops available in case a battery dies or there is not enough
- If proxy projector or overhead do not work-blackboard or chart paper can be used
- The favorite types of music surveys are too long to graph or too much information-closely monitor students when creating their surveys and check their results before they graph.
- Absent students-have them pair up with someone else on the survey and graph
References
- Teacher experience.
This post is part of the series: Music Technology Ideas for the Music Classroom
In this series, you will find a great music technology idea to use with your Music students that helps them to understand the Music genres through taking a Music survey and using a classroom blog to share their results with their classmates.
