District/School Administration PK-16 Program Support Educational Technology
Technology Toolkit

Creating Music
Dighton-Rehoboth Reginal School District

Evidence of Effectiveness

Instructional objective: The students will create and perform their own pieces of music for recorder (a woodwind instrument) and/or xylophone using Finale NotePad software.

Evaluation: The evaluation has two main parts: composition and performance. The school is an inclusion school, so the range of abilities in each classroom is great, but the expectations are the same for each child: use what you know, challenge yourself, and try your best. While working with the children in the lab, the teacher observed and assessed whether or not the students understood the rhythmic and melodic guidelines given. These guidelines were important because otherwise the software would allow students to create incomprehensible and unplayable pieces of music. At the conclusion of the project, the teacher evaluated the students' final compositions and performances.

Student improvement: The use of Finale NotePad made the children excited about creating their own pieces of music. After the first day of using the software, many of the students told the teacher that they had downloaded the free program at home and presented some music that they had written on their own.

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