This document discusses how to incorporate music into Common Core classrooms to foster collaboration, discussion, and deeper learning. It argues that quiet classrooms are no longer optimal and that music can help create student-centered environments that align with Common Core standards. Specific tools like Pandora, Spotify, and YouTube are recommended for accessing music to set moods, engage students, and support different types of learning activities. The document advocates putting music selection tools in students' hands and references research on how background music can benefit learning and behavior.

1. The Sound
of the
Common Core Classroom
Marc Townsend
Laguna Middle School
San Luis Obispo
@TeacherTownsend
Rich Hovey
Grizzly Youth Academy
San Luis Obispo
@TeacherHovey

2. A quiet classroom means students are learning.
A student who forgot to take her headphones out is
willfully defying you.
(Insert musical genre) has no value.
That student fell asleep because he’s narcissistic and
unreachable.
Have you ever, in your life, believed this?

3. Students are moving
Everyone laughs at a joke
Pairs and/or groups discuss
something
You switch from silence to
media
When a classroom breathes

4. The New Classroom Model
Optimized for:
– Collaboration
– Mixing
– Student-
Centered
learning
– Pair-Sharing
– Movement
– Noise!

5. Make it noisy!
Today we hope to demonstrate how music, the lifeblood of the
noisy Common Core classroom, is used to foster
– Argumentation
– Discussion
– Public speaking
– Collaborative group work
– Deeper meaning to your lessons

6. From College and Career
Readiness Anchor Standards for
Speaking and Listening:
New technologies have broadened and expanded the role that speaking and
listening play in acquiring and sharing knowledge and have tightened the link
to other forms of communication. The Internet has accelerated the
speed at which connections between speaking, listening, reading,
and writing can be made, requiring that students be ready to use
these modalities nearly simultaneously. Technology itself is changing
quickly, creating a new urgency for students to be adaptable in response to
change.

7. College and Career Readiness Anchor
Standards for Speaking and Listening:
Use of diverse media is called upon by
the CCSS to develop:
• Analytical skills
• Evaluation techniques
• Reasoning
• Argumentation

8. College and Career Readiness Anchor
Standards for Speaking and Listening:
Use of diverse media is called upon by
the CCSS to develop:
• Analytical skills
• Evaluation techniques
• Reasoning
• Argumentation

9. College and Career Readiness Anchor
Standards for Speaking and Listening:
Use of diverse media is called upon by
the CCSS to develop:
• Analytical skills
• Evaluation techniques
• Reasoning
• Argumentation

10. Musical Intelligence
• Howard Gardner in Frames of Mind: The
Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Basic Books,
1993) incorporated musical intelligence as one
of the 8 basic intelligences.
• Paquette & Rieg (2008) note that music has
the power to make a classroom one in which a
child can “thrive emotionally, socially, and
academically.”

11. The Mozart Effect
Bloor (2009) references
“The Mozart Effect” in his
study on London
classrooms. He notes and
supports prior studies that
demonstrate a correlation
between the playing of
Mozart and improved test
scores in both math and
reading.

12. “Music” in many classrooms, if used,
consists of this

13. and this.

14. It’s time to unleash online digital music
across schools.

15. For the Novice: Radio-Style Products
Pandora
Slacker
Songza

16. PandoraOur Favorite: Songza
Music Concierge

17. PandoraOur Favorite: Songza
Songza also appears
more ad-free than
the others,
HOWEVER

18. PandoraChrome Adblock Extension

19. For the Expert: On-Demand Products
Spotify
Apple Music
(released June 30,
2015)
YouTube

20. Spotify.com
• Spotify is a music streaming application for PC or devices with
millions of songs available at your fingertips.

21. Playlists on Spotify
• Create your own playlists to support units
• Stream entire albums or the playlists of others to support your learning environment

22. Spotify to Support a Lesson/Unit
• To support the mood of
our units, each day music
is streamed that supports
the unit.
• The music plays softly
while they write, reflect,
pair-share, etc. …
• Sometimes the music itself
becomes a lesson
– In this case, they wrote a
reflective piece relating
Taiko drumming to the
Shinto belief system
based only on hearing the
music

23. Make Connections
and access schema.

24. Connect with the Moment

25. Set the Mood
While working collaboratively to problem solve how
to defend their African kingdoms, West African
tribal music played in the background.

26. Set the Mood
PBL Project: Vegas History Hotel

27. Music for
Classroom Management
• “Ready to Work” song
• Furniture transition song
• Song for cleaning up
• Music for pair-share

28. Other Music-Related Tools
Booktrack: Read with a Soundtrack.
Focus at Will: Customize music style and tempo for
concentrated work sessions.
Soundboards: Have fun with voices and sound
effects.

29. Put the tools in students’ hands!
• Have students make playlists.
–For preferred activity time
–For classroom culture
• Transitions
• Group work
• Focused study

30. Put the tools in students’ hands!
• Have students make playlists.
–For upcoming events
• Election Day
• Pi Day
• Graduation
–For subjects, units, and lessons.

31. Put the tools in students’ hands!
• Writing & Speaking Assignments
– A curator’s guide to a thematic
playlist
– A defense of song selections for
a novel soundtrack
– A screencast or slideshow of a
song analysis

32. Speaking of playlists…

33. YouTube.com
Moving beyond only user created videos, many organizations now
use Youtube.com as their own music and video delivery platform

34. YouTube.com
Unlimited, instantly available
music and videos?
Why wouldn’t you?

35. YouTube
Channels and Playlists
Archive your favorite videos from year to year by creating your
own channel with various playlists

36. Follow Other Educators
Follow other
educators to get
updates on what
they are
showing in their
classrooms

37. Strategy: Get In and Get Out
• Playing a quick ≤ 4
min clip can work
wonders for appealing
to the visual learners
in your classroom.
• We call this “Get In
and Get Out”
– No need to play an
entire documentary 1. Students watched this video in class
2. They pair-shared their observations
3. We discussed as a group
4. Students wrote a reflective paragraph connecting the
video to our curriculum
5. We concluded by reading our paragraphs out loud to
our table partners.

38. PandoraNote: There will be obstacles to all this.
1. Too many people still believe a
quiet classroom is a good
classroom.
2. Many districts still block access
to YouTube and music websites.

39. References
Bloor, A. (2009). The rhythm's gonna get ya – background music in primary classrooms and its effect on
behaviour and attainment. Emotional and behavioral difficulties, 14 (4), 261-274.
Common Core Standards Initiative (2014). Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org
Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Paquette, R., Rieg, S. (2008). Using music to support the literacy development of young english
language learners. Early Childhood Education J, 36: 227-232.

40. Let your
classroom breathe.
Marc Townsend
Laguna Middle School
San Luis Obispo
@TeacherTownsend
@TeacherTownsend
mtownsend@slcusd.org
Rich Hovey
Grizzly Youth Academy
San Luis Obispo
@TeacherHovey
@rich_hovey
rhovey@mygya.com