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Yes, listening to music in the classroom can help students be more productive, especially students with ADHD type symptoms.
Filed Under The way I see it
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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.
Related Posts
Related posts:
- Listening to Music Helps Students Be More Productive in The Classroom
- Research about the benefits of listening to music in the classroom leads to optimism
- The controversy about the benefits of listening to music in the classroom continues.
- Sadly listening to music in the classroom using the latest portable media players no longer helps my students focus
- The Music in the Classroom Debate Continues
Comments
21 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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Edublog Awards
Toronto Reading Council
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.
I have ADHD and I am trying to get my school to alow music in class do you have an idea about on how to aproch this situation can you help me? Most of these kids here at my school have ADD or ADHD, and music helps lots of people concentrate even kids with ouit ADD right?
Walter,
Yes students who do not have ADHD or ADD also benefit from listening to music. Having headphones on and listening to music is like sitting in one of those carrels that teachers put kids in so they can concentrate. it has the same effect because listen to music blocks out all kinds of distracting noises around you so that you can concentrate. I’ve had many students tell me this.
You can go to another one of my articles that talks about research that says listening to music allows kids to work better.http://tinyurl.com/6n7v4b Then print it out and show your teachers. That may help.
I am glad that you are working towards helping parents cope up with their ADHD-affected children and how they can tutor them to become better school-attenders !
Great Post !
i am doing an essay so your comments really help
Thanks for taking the time to tell me that. I’m delighted the comments helped. Good luck with the essay.
this shi* is wack i need more info i’m tryin to write a persuasive paper to get the board policy changed
Robert,
I guess you’ll have to do more work on your own.
i need to know if you support listening to your own music on your own personal music player, even if it is a phone
Garrett,
I’ve found that my students can’t resist text messaging so I ask them to listen to music on an mp3 player.
Hello. I would like permission to use your blog/article as a resource. My friend has been suspended from my school for listening to his music player in-between classes. It is our wish to make a complaint to the Dean or the Board of Education. Your permission and any other possible help would be greatly appreciated.
Yes, by all means.
haha lol
What about students who are doing self paced computer work and listening to “hip-hop”(little wayne, Jay Z, Nas) does anyone have research on student academic gains or scientific research supporting this claim? Some programs allow students to bring in cell phones and mp3 players while attempting self paced work, is there any research to substantiate allowing these distractions?
Control group: Students who are ADHD, at-risk between 16 and 21 who are below grade level and 10-15 credits shy of graduation-attempting to complete self paced assignments. APEX LEARNING OR PLATO SOFTWARE.
Paul,
I’m not sure about research for the kids you describe. I do know when I let my academically at-risk high school students listen to music they actually do the work instead of just sitting around getting into mischief or falling asleep.. My aim is to get my students to do enough work to start succeeding in school instead of failing and dropping out. My students tell me they wish more teachers would let them listen to their music while they work. I must mention that some of my students have told me they cannot work with music. I have noticed that these are kids who play instruments themselves. They get too into the music. We’ve had a conversation about this in class. I give my students a choice and they appreciate it. I do not play music softly in the background for the class to hear. My student don’t like that. Many of my student cannot do self paced work at the computer. They hate it because they like having a teacher and fellow classmates to interact with in a regular class. Of course there are all kinds of students. I can only speak to the ones that I support in my spec. ed. class and math class.