Project Creation for All Learners: The World Music Project

In my General Music classes, we are starting our summative World Music Project. I've done this project for multiple semesters now, and have found some strategies that have made this project successful for a majority of my students. Accommodations, real-life skills, and student choice are all embedded into this assignment. As it has been refined and redesigned, I feel I have not only created a stable, cross-curricular project but have also advanced my abilities as a teacher through it.

The grading for this project is 20 points and is broken down as follows: five points for research, five points for the slideshow, five points for presenting and being an audience member, and five points for group evaluation. It seems like a small number of points but summative assessments are 80% of a grade. I don't need to have high point values on something for it to be impactful. I regularly go back and forth on how I feel about summative assessments, but I find about 95% of students are successful with this format.

One part of my practice that has greatly evolved with this project is my ability to embed accommodations into assignments I give. This is something I was terrible at when I began teaching. I found meeting accommodations to be overwhelming because I was creating alternate assignments for multiple students with different needs. While sometimes this is still the case, I've found a lot of accommodations that students needs can be helpful to all students. One example of this is breaking things into smaller steps. This is a common need that I see in IEPs. To help with this, I make the research and presentation two separate assignments in Google Classroom. I start by giving students the Guiding Questions document. This has all of the questions I expect my students to answer for their country. Saying "research a country" can be too vague for many students, not just ones with IEPs. This makes the idea of research less overwhelming and clearly states what facts I want students to look up. Once the research is complete, students receive a Presentation Guide so they know exactly what to include in their slideshow. There is no guesswork or lack of expectations. I also include an extra credit opportunity on the presentation guide for my quick finishers to accommodate their need for more detailed work. Another accommodation I include is not taking off points for late work. Extra assignment time on assessments and assignments is one that I feel benefits the whole class. I could go into detail on this another day, but I've found it helps students to understand the logical consequence of not using the work time they're given in class. You can still hand in work, but you need to finish it on your own time if necessary. My students with IEPs use this accommodation, but it teaches my other students to be efficient in their work time. These are just a few examples, but it allows me to include accommodations without having to create multiple different projects.

Student choice is another factor that I have embedded in this project. I allow my students to choose their partners (or lack thereof) and country to research. I limit my groups to a maximum of four, as I feel anything past that is too many to truly contribute to a project like this. But students also have the choice to work by themselves. Students are more motivated to research something they are interested in. If I gave them countries at random, I may not see as much work ethic. I have had students choose countries for a variety of reasons. Being in a diverse school district, many of my students choose to research the country they are from. For example, I had a student present on the Philippines because he had immigrated from there just a few months earlier. He was able to share parts of his life that students may not have known. One student this semester chose Chile because he wanted to talk about Easter Island. They are small things that make students much more willing to learn. Students choosing partners also allows them to have a bit more fun. My social students prefer to work with friends, and they usually benefit from it. Sometimes they need reminders to stay on task, however, they are more excited to go into their groups when friends are present. This is the same way that my students who prefer to work alone thrive by putting on a pair of headphones and diving into their projects. I also give students choices in how they format their presentations. When they ask how many slides are required, I tell them that I am not concerned they reach a certain number, just that they include all the information from their guiding questions/presentation guide. Letting a bit of personality shine through in their slideshow usually results in more interesting slides and themes, which keeps us all invested in the presentation.

This project also incorporates some real-life skills that I think all students need to practice. The first of these is working with others. Even when working with friends, disagreements are bound to happen. I am sometimes running conflict resolution within work time to ensure that students are staying civil within the groups they chose. They learn about compromise, getting points across to others, and dividing workloads. Partners will hold them accountable to get their work done, as it brings down the whole team. My students also learn what is considered a credible resource. Before I even let them start researching, my students and I go through this Research and Resources document. We discuss thinking critically about the sources in front of us and signs that may mean a source isn't credible. This isn't just helpful for scholarly work, but also allows my students to learn how to judge the information that they find through applications like social media. Lastly, students learn how to talk in front of a group. When I first started doing this project, I didn't tell students how to present. I assumed they knew how. I ended up with a lot of kids who stood directly in front of the projector screen, back facing the audience. I now take a few minutes to explain what good presenting looks like, including volume, body language, and positioning. It has made a difference in the way my students look when they present and eliminated some anxiety about talking in front of a crowd. Many of them have no idea how to, so explaining what we should see eliminates a lot of anxiety.

I always enjoy this project and walk away with new ideas to continuously refine it. I've included some student work below so you can see what the research and final projects look like. The initial setup is a lot of work, but now I simply refine the process before I assign this project. If you are on the fence about setting up a project like this for your class, go for it! There are a lot of benefits for you and your students to enjoy.

Research Sheet Example 1

Research Sheet Example 2

Presentation Example 1

Presentation Example 2

Presentation Example 3