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Mar
30
Yes, listening to music in the classroom can help students be more productive, especially students with ADHD type symptoms.
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Yes, listening to music in the classroom can help students be more productive, especially students with ADHD type symptoms. [3:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (615)Well I don’t know what happened, but this week’s post just disappeared from my WordPress files even though I know I saved it . I’m still in a state of shock as I keep trying frantically to find the post. No, my dog didn’t eat it- that’s a favourite student excuse for not handing in work. I was so pleased with what I had written. It was so good, so thorough, so everything. Today post would finally settle “the music in the classroom debate” once and for all -or so I thought until what I had written disappeared. (I wonder if there’s some kind of lesson in there for me that I will realize at a later date. Maybe it’s something about hubris and saving your work in more than one spot)
I’d decided that because there was so much interest in my articles about listening to music in the classroom that I wrote here and here some time ago that I would revisit the whole topic. Basically at that time, I argued that listening to music in the classroom increased students productivity. I got lots and lots of feedback about this both supporting what I had said and questioning it. Many students wrote to tell me that music helped them focus and wished teachers would let them listen to music while doing their work. Some teachers wrote and told me their students worked better with music. Other teachers were skeptical and wanted to see scientific research to back up my contention. Some people wrote to tell me that they couldn’t work while listening to music. That was good to know. I appreciate all the feedback and thought that I would do some research to back up what I believed that listening to music can help students be more productive in the classroom.
I found research that supported my contention that music can facilitate learning, especially the learning of students who have the ADHD behaviour characteristics of excessive fideting, being easily distracted, difficulty focusing and following instructions, daydreaming, difficulty with materials management, impulsively acting before thinking etc. Now since I’ve spent most of my teaching career supporting students like this, I was really pleased to read Daniel Reit and Dr. Patricia Chiodo’s “Implications of ADHD Research on Music Education Practices” published in 2006, Nina Jackson’s article “Music and the Mind” and Chris Boyd Brewer’s “Music and Learning: Integrating Music in the Classroom. I was really excited after reading these articles because they gave me some information that supports what I believe.
Next week, you’ll be able to read how these articles support my contention that listening to music can facilitate learning and why it does. When I first starting blogging, I used to write my articles in Word and then transfer them to Wordpress. I stopped doing that some time ago and just write whatever directly into WordPress’s editor so I’ll have to go through and recompose my argument from the bits I highlighted in the printouts of the articles. At least I highlighted pertinent bits of info and have made comments in the margins in pencil so I do have something to work from. If you can’t wait for some reason or other, please go to those sites and see for yourself. The links should take you there and the articles are very accessible.
Please check back here next week and if all goes well and I don’t have any more lessons to learn, you should be able to see how these articles support my contention that listening to music in the classroom can facilitate learning.
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7 Responses to “Yes, listening to music in the classroom can help students be more productive, especially students with ADHD type symptoms.”
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I remember my grandmother playing music and asking me to draw pictures to it. I see the link between music and both creativity and analytical thinking.
P.S. How do you get your blog to allow commenters to edit their comments? This is great!
Mathew,
Now that you mention it, I had a grade school teacher that did that too. I’d forgotten about that.
As for the comment editor- Here’s the link to the comments editor. http://www.raproject.com/ajax-edit-comments/ Ron was really helpful when I had a minor problem getting the thing to work. it’s visible to visitors but not to the blog owner at least in my case.
Thanks for the link to the ajax plugin. I’ll install it soon when I’m feeling brave.
I totally agree with this. You are right. We are like kindred spirits. I play music in my classroom and the kids love it.
When I took over my classroom, the children were so unruly. But once I started playing 103.5 in the classroom, they calmed down and started behaving better. I am so happy that I did. I always plan to play music in the classroom. I think that I’ll write a post on this later in tonight.
Leila,
I look forward to reading your post. I’ll look for it later.
While completing a MS in Early Childhood & Elementary Ed., I had the opportunity to conduct a case study on a student with ADHD. Other teachers & teacher aids cooperated with the study. One of the most successful strategies was to allow the students to listen to music in assisting him to focus on assignments. He had a personal tape player and earphones. I kept samples of work attempted without the use of music and work completed with the use of music. There was a huge difference.
Several years later I tried the same strategy with another ADHD student with similar results. More recently, I shared my experience with a new teacher in our school who asked for help in coping with an ADHD child in his class. He accepted my recommendation and decided to play music softly for the entire class and noticed instant progress by several students including the ADHD student.
Marlene,
Thank you for sharing your positive experience with music. I hope that someone who had ADHD or knows of someone who has ADHD reads your comment and uses it to get support for listening to music while working. that has been my experience as well time and time again.