1: Cues are important for getting students to reach into their prior knowledge. The more connections into each student’s prior knowledge, the more learning will be engrained. I was reading a book the other day (I don’t remember the author’s name) and it was talking about how memory is triggered more when a school subject can be related to someones prior knowledge and culture. This is why I think it is extremely important that teachers should get to know their students so they can understand how to relate to students’ prior knowledge even more. Advanced organizers can keep students and their parents on task and asking less questions, because it will be easy to be organized. Google calendars is a great way to stay organized personally or to keep students more organized with homework. Having seen the effectiveness of Google calendars from a student perspective, I know this is something I will use as an advanced organizer.
2: Nonlinguistic representation to me has a lot of similarities to prior knowledge. It can be used as a way to stimulate the mind in other ways besides the primary content itself. Music can use images, colors, graphs, and many other things to help people understand the form, style, and importance of the piece. Students could also use storyboard type tools to create visual ideas to associate with the music the band would be playing. These sort of connections not only help stimulate deeper learning, but can make the classroom more exciting!
3: Summarizing and notetaking are some of the best ways to engrain information into the long term memory banks of the mind. I remember reading a book about Robert Fulton, an inventor, and how he would attend lectures and take notes and then go back home afterward and summarize the notes. On the next day, he would re-summarize his notes again. This method of note taking takes much dedication, but I would like to follow a model similar to his own. I like the idea of using templates to guide students note taking, but for music classes, a pencil and paper would probably be the most effective since musical notation is best done on paper. However, I think I could use Google Docs to have students summarize their notes for homework then share them with me and I could make any corrections and guide them in their learning. Note taking and summarizing would also inspire students to research their interests relating to the topic on the web and help them become a self-directed learner.
4: I would like to develop a webpage or part of my webpage specifically for homework and practice. I believe practice is essential for every kind of learning, but more importantly, good practice is important. For my music classroom, a fully developed website where students could do numerous practice assignments and recieve regular feedback would be a goal of mine. Regarding musical practice, a place where students could submit recordings using tools such as smart music would be beneficial for their learning in many ways. In a music theory classroom, flashcards and various online tools could be effective for developing their learning.
Here is a little exercise I created on Quizlet: http://quizlet.com/37259831/flashcards