CURRICULUM, MUSIC, AND COMMUNITY | MAKE YOUR OWN MUSIC

Class project:

Family Music Survey

IN THIS PROJECT, students will develop a set of survey questions on music preferences and experiences to ask family members. The class will develop a method of organizing and displaying the information gathered. Students will present their findings to the class and make inferences based on their findings.

Length of time required

30 to 40 minutes in 3 or 4 different sessions during a two-week period.

Materials

Sticky notes, chart paper, computer graphing program, materials to make graphs and charts by hand

Objectives

• Students will create a list of survey-style short answer questions.
• Students will practice the skills of interviewing including asking questions, listening carefully, and taking notes.
• Students will organize and present data in a variety of ways.
• Students will use data gathered to identify patterns and make other kinds of observations.
• Students will build classroom community through the process of learning about their family and peers.

Procedure

1. Warm-up brains by brainstorming kinds of music and music preferences of children in the room in groups or as a whole class.

2. Explain that, as a class, you will be designing a survey to collect information about the class members' parents' musical preferences and experiences.

3. Discuss what a survey question is (a question that yields a short answer), and brainstorm ideas about questions the class might include in the survey. (For example: What kinds of music did you enjoy when you were my age?) See the Sample Parent Interview for a list of questions generated by students.

4. After generating many possibilities, narrow your list down to 5 or 6 questions that every student in the class will ask. (These are the questions that you will use to compile class data.) Allow individual students to choose additional questions that they would like to ask when they survey their parent/s.

5. If you have not already practiced the skills of interviewing, practice by interviewing peers. Through this practice, students should work on asking questions in a clear manner, listening carefully for answers, taking notes, and asking clarifying questions when answers are not understood.

6. Give students a week to complete their parent survey. While assigning this homework project, you may want to talk about polite ways to ask a parent to help. (Let parent know what you want to do. Plan a time to meet and conduct the survey. Thank parent for helping.)

7. Write each of the 5 or 6 class questions on a sheet of chart paper. Provide each student with 5 or 6 sticky notes, and have them write their answers (and initials or name) on the sticky notes — one question answered on each sticky note. Have students place each sticky note on the appropriate sheet of chart paper.

8. Divide class into groups, with each group responsible for organizing, displaying, and interpreting the data for one of the class questions.

• Have students look for categories in which to group the responses (sticky notes).
  
• Label each set and tally the number in each set.
• Use the computer to display results in multiple ways. Decide which tells the best for the class data.
• Conduct a data-analysis by making multiple observations about the data. What does this data tell us about the parents of students in this class?

9. Have each group give a presentation about the data they analyzed. Each group should discuss the categories they used, why they decided to display the data in the way they chose, and what they notice about the data. Students should also share inferences based on the data.

Assessment

Students might be assessed on their ability to organize, represent, and interpret data. They might also be assessed on their teamwork skills and oral presentation skills.

>> Student project: Parent interview