If you are looking for some fresh and interesting ways to explore the achievements of African Americans with your band, choir, or orchestra during Black History Month in February, below are some helpful ideas and resources for you to consider to help build some deep and engaging lessons and/or units.
I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) on their Library of Congress – Teaching with Primary Sources project – where we are utilizing the Inquiry method or approach throughout the units. If you currently use Inquiry as a tool in your classroom, you know the power of the approach and how it is able to transform your classroom into a student centered/student driven environment.
If you are new to this idea, teachers that have used inquiry through various approaches have found that the students are more engaged, more thoughtful, and become more responsible for their learning. Since students direct much of the learning, most of these lesson ideas shared in the accompanying documents below will deploy the inquiry approach, making it even easier for you, the teacher, to use these ideas with little time or planning on your end. If you are new to the idea of the inquiry approach or methodology, here are several wonderful resources for you.
What the heck is inquiry based learning?
Bringing inquiry based learning into your classroom
Research briefs on the impact of inquiry based teaching
There are lesson ideas for each of the traditional ensembles: band, choir, and orchestra. Click the buttons below to open the PDFs in your browser. We know that February is a month away, but it will be upon us in short order, so click the appropriate link below and take the time to explore!
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