Sonic Pi Composition Lesson Plan #6: Showcase and final reflection

“My favourite music is the music I haven’t yet heard.” –John Cage

Lesson Overview:

The aim of this lesson is to (1) give a presentation of each student’s work, (2) reflect and give feedback on each project as they are played, and (3) wrap up this unit of work.

Download a PDF version of this lesson

Preparation tasks for this lesson:

 - It would be easier for this lesson to export each project as an audio file, download each video and use free video editing software to present each project such as movie maker (Windows) or iMovie (Mac). This is less awkward than attempting to sync the video on a projector with the original sound on mute while the students project is pressed at the same time

- Ensure each project plays before this class starts. Some students might have left bugs in their code which might be embarrassing if error messages appear

Over 1 hour depending on the number of students

Contents:

Introduction: Making constructive comments musically and computationally

10 minutes

Activity 1: Class demonstration and comments of all projects with film

70 minutes

Wrap-up Activity: Quiz and reflection

15 minutes

Learning Outcomes:

Key concepts

Sonic Pi syntax to be taught this lesson

Interdisciplinary Curriculum Links

Learning Outcomes

Computational Thinking

Programming

Music

(strands)

Music:

-constructive feedback

-arc of composition

-variation/repetition ratio

Programming:

-efficiency

-optimisation

-performance constraints (time limit)

(none)

Evaluation/Reflection

As per lessons 1-4, debugging

DI, CI

Music:

-All students will evaluate their projects for their fitness for purpose to their chosen video

-All students will have the opportunity to give constructive feedback

Programming:

-All students will adhere to the project length constraints of the length of the chosen video

-All students will reflect on the efficiency of their own and another student’s code: reflect on potential ways to optimise the code

Introduction: Making constructive comments musically and computationally (10 minutes)

Activity Overview: Students are briefed on giving constructive feedback for the presentations following this activity.

Teacher Instruction:

  1. Briefly explain six elements of music [Rhythm, Dynamics, Melody, Harmony, Tone color, Texture] through the piece ‘Time’ from the film Inception.

Activity (5 minutes):

  1. Discuss how one might focus on one or more of these elements to give musical feedback
  2. Discuss how one might evaluate the efficiency and optimisation of code [repeating code, code that doesn’t do anything etc.]

Activity 1: Class demonstration and comments of all projects with film (70 minutes)

Activity Overview: All projects will be presented to the whole class with an opportunity to give constructive feedback. Afterwards, 10-15 minutes of reflection should occur on how well the unit of work went and suggestions for the future.

Suggested Teacher Instruction Sequence:

  1. Present each project while playing their chosen film on a projector and allow 2 minutes of feedback for each
  2. Discuss the potential study and career opportunities students could go down with music and programming https://chrispetrie.github.io/furtherstudyandcareers.html

Suggested links and resources to facilitate activities:

Student Activity (20 minutes):

  1. After all projects have been played, have a class discussion on what they’ve learnt and how well they thought this unit of work went
  2. Discuss future potential study and career opportunities students could go down with music and programming https://chrispetrie.github.io/teachercareer.html

Notes to the Teacher:

  • It is recommended to play the group projects first so that everyone is warmed up to give responses to individual projects (where students may feel vulnerable)

Wrap-up activity: Quiz and reflection (15 minutes)

Activity Overview: All students to complete a quiz containing 10 questions on music and programming -  as well as a few reflective questions on this lesson (all students will complete this each lesson).

Student Activity (10 minutes):

  • Students individually complete the quiz and reflection on the key concepts in this lesson within 10 minutes linked here.

Administrative Details

Contact info

petriechris@gmail.com 

Credits

Developed by Chris Petrie.

Last updated on

27/06/2018

Copyright info

The content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.