Communications
Communication activity #1: Using Wimba Live Classroom for Assignment-Specific Virtual Office Hours
MEL392/393 is an orchestration class. This means the students are practicing writing different forms of music all semester long (jazz in the first semester; classical in the second semester). In addition to project work, in-class assignments are given approximately every 2 weeks. However, due to time constraints, the instructor is rarely able to take up the entire assignment, despite the fact that the students would greatly benefit from being able to watch the instructor work through the task and ask questions. The way the course has been traditionally configured means that the instructor takes up any part that everyone (or nearly everyone) had trouble with, but leaves the rest in the hands of the students. They are given the answer key for the entire assignment and told to check their work. If they need help – if there are parts of the assignment that they don’t understand – they need to seek out the instructor.
Moving to Blackboard gives the instructor the ability to add time to the class. Using Wimba Live Classroom, next fall the instructor will offer a 1-hour follow up to each in-class assignment. During that one hour, students will be welcome to join in and watch as the instructor works through the assignment. Chat will be enabled for students so that they can ask questions and follow up on concepts that they don’t understand. Each of these sessions will be recorded and archived so that students who aren’t able be there in person can watch later.
Wimba was chosen for two key reasons. First, it can be seamless integrated into the Blackboard course shell, which makes it easy for students to find and use. The key pedagogical reasons for choosing Wimba are:
- it allows the instructor to be videotaped, which means it can be archived for sharing later and
- it has the ability for the instructor to share his desktop with students. Because the instructor will generally be working on a score, the ability for the students to watch him in Sibelius as he works through the assignment is critical.
The limitations on this activity come from the fact that the students will be focused primarily on the instructor and will not be able to talk with one another; however, they will be able to see the entire chat, so that they can benefit from each others’ questions. Throughout the course of the first semester, the instructor will use the tracking tools in the Teach view of WebCT/Vista to see how often students are using the archived video. Correlating attendance at the live sessions or video use and marks should give the instructor some indication if this tool is accomplishing the goal.
This activity takes place within the course shell. Instructions for the activity are loaded under ‘Course Content/Using the Live Classroom’ and the Wimba Live Classroom button is located on the front page of the course shell.
Communication activity #2: Using the discussion board to switch gears from jazz to classical
The orchestration students begin the study of orchestration with jazz, because that is the idiom they are familiar with. While it may seem backwards to the outside observer, classical music is covered in second semester, after the students have been working on jazz writing and arranging. One of the challenges for the instructor at the beginning of semester two is to help students begin to think about classical (or ‘legit’, as it is often called) music. The initial assignment designed to help scaffold students from jazz to classical involves comparing Tchaichovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s 1960 jazz reinterpretation of the same piece.
For this project, students will be divided into small groups; the Ellington/Strayhorn version includes nine songs, so there can be up to nine groups. Each group is assigned one of the movements; they are then responsible for comparing the two versions according to a list of criteria, including length, rhythm, and so on. Once they’ve done the comparison, they are invited to use the discussion board to post their results. They need to look at at least two other groups’ analyses and then discuss some of the more important technical differences between classical and jazz music. At the moment, no such exercise is undertaken by the students, although a very short version of it is done by the instructor in class as a demonstration.
In general, the orchestration class does not do this sort of music analysis, as they spend most of their time writing music rather than analyzing it. However, at the beginning of second term, as students make the swich to classical music, it is an excellent exercise to help lay the groundwork for thinking about a different musical form. By comparing it explicitly to the form they are familiar with, they will be more readily able to identify and work with the important differences. Adding a group discussion component to this exercise allows the students to compare notes on the specific exercise and worth together to identify commonalities; as Anderson suggests, it will create an opportunity that can ‘exploit the influence and expertise of peers.’ (Anderson, 200x, p. 38) Analyzing one piece of the Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker Suite will give only limited insight; building on that exercise by looking at other analyses and then discussing them gives the opportunity for a much broader view.
The tool chosen for this activity is the discussion board. Allowing the activity and the discussion to take place asynchronously over the course of the first week of class will encourage a richer discussion than limiting it to a single, synchronous moment. In addition, students often have trouble expressing themselves verbally, and musicans are no exception. The quality of the discussion can be expected to be of higher caliber if it takes this asynchronous format.
This activity takes place within the course shell. Instructions for the activity are loaded under ‘Course Content/Introduction/Introductory Assignment’ and the discussion thread is set up under ‘Discussions’.
Reflection
This was a more difficult exercise than I anticipated. The orchestration course is very skills focused and, of course, writing music is ultimately something the students will do alone. However, I was able to call on some of the research I did for last term’s (510) wiki project, which I wrote on digital composition (written, not music). There are many parallels between the two kinds of writing that helped me think about ways in which the course could be made more communication rich. Because of the tight focus on ‘doing’, there also seems less room for ‘talking’ and a higher value is placed on ensuring that the students have mastered a variety of technical skills and knowledge, generally by listening/watching the instructor. For many parts of the course, there is simply a right answer or a wrong answer – that chord is D minor or it isn’t. After much discussion, however, we were able to come up with two communication activities that will add real value to the course; in particular, the ability to review assignments and answer questions from the students outside of the formal hours of class, while a burden on the instructor, should be a real advantage for students.
On the technical side, working on this assignment made the reason for John’s advice to have the whole course mapped out before loading in very clear! While nothing was difficult, I spent a fair bit of time exploring, trying things two and three (and sometimes four) ways before I was happy with them. And it is very bare bones at the moment – there is nothing in the way of design in the shell, which offends my publisher sensibilities. But that technical challenge is for another day!
References
Anderson, T. (2004) Teaching in an online learning context. In Anderson T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.
Anderson, T. (2004) Toward a theory of online learning. In Anderson T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.
ETEC 565A (2009) ‘Module 3: Interaction and assessment tools, Unit 2: Communication Tools’