I think the ukulele is one of the most accessible instruments out there. But that doesn't mean we don't have to spend some time now and how to differentiate.
You're listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tarbet, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher at the elementary music summit each week, Bryson and his guests will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher, and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show Notes and resources mentioned in this episode can be found at that music teacher.com.
Welcome back to that music Podcast. Today, we're gonna be talking about ways to differentiate when teaching ukulele in the general music classroom. I'm really excited because like I said, I, we've been talking a lot about ukulele these past few weeks. But I love the ukulele, I love how relatively accessible it is, especially when you're thinking about other string instruments like a guitar or violin or anything like that, it really makes it I think it really is pretty accessible. But that doesn't mean that it is 100% accessible for everyone without doing a little bit of work on ourselves. So one of the first things that came to mind when I was told that I was finally gonna get recorders is how do I make sure this is accessible to all of my students. So first of all, I have some students that have limited mobility in their hands and their arms. So I wanted to make sure that we I came up with a way that we were able to make sure that they were still able to make music with the ukulele. So there are a few things that I've done for that. First of all, I have I bought a cord buddy, it is essentially a plastic box that goes on top of the fret board. So instead of having to do different chord shapes, all the student has to do is push down one button, and it'll play that it'll essentially push down all the different strings that need to play that chord. So that's great, because then all they have to do is push one thing down rather than having a specific, a specific formation. So especially if you have like maybe limited foot by motor or have limited mobility in their hand in general, that makes it so all they really have to do is put it in there and push something down rather than hold the instrument there and put a specific shape down when it comes to strumming. I'll be honest, I don't have my students use pics. I really like the idea of teaching them how to use just using their nerves. I got a little bit of I get a little bit of flack sometimes because you know, you got to build up calluses, you got to figure out how to do without slicing your hand. But I think I think one, we don't have to worry about the picks getting stuck in ukuleles getting lost getting broken. strumming too hard because they're using their hands. Now how do we make that accessible to students that might have a limited mobility in their hands or limited fine motor skills. So did is I actually went and bought this. It's about the size of a saucer, a foam. I think it's technically like a foam or like a felt sound panel that you would put on your wall. But it's only about the size of a saucer. And then I traced the essentially the size of a giant pick made out of that. And then I cut that out and that student is able to grasp it because it's it's large, and use that as a strum instead of using their hands. So that's kind of the three things that I used did for some students that are in my classes, that those were kind of the biggest ones that I wanted to think of. Obviously, differentiation is more than just that it's making sure that they're able to access the curriculum, not just figuring out how to play ukulele. So I've figured out a few different ways to differentiate ukulele instruction. And the first one I learned kind of by accident, not necessarily by accident, but it just kind of I didn't really think of it beforehand, it kind of came to me in the moment. And then I stuck with it because I thought it worked really well. So we started do the ukulele by learning a song that had two chords in it. I taught them one chord. And then if they if a song came on, and they had the other chord they'd play, and then eventually we learned the second chord. So this is when I said, alright, you have a choice. You can play they're both chords. Or you can just play the first chord we learned. So if you think you're still struggling with that second chord, and you, you want to just kind of work on your work on the first chord, then all you have to do is play that first chord. If you're ready for a little bit more of a challenge, you can play both chords. So in this way students were able to choose students were able to pick pick pick was, which was the best choice for them. And they were able to switch in the middle of the song if they got bored, or if they do try the other part. What I loved about this is since we were all playing together, nobody had to know what anyone else was doing. One thing that I've that I've done a lot of in the ukulele as we've been you were doing the ukulele is understanding that everyone is going to learn at a different pace. There are a lot of different skills that are going together to make this work. And I think by allowing students to choose how many chords they play, want to give them a break if they need it. Some Students might need more time changing chords. So if there's a really fast chord, maybe they ignore that one. And I've used that strategy as we've gotten, learn more and more chords. So sometimes we have three chords in a song, some students are going to play all three chords, some students are going to play two chords. And then some students might just play one chord depending on where we're at what they need, and what they need more practice on. But what's really great is I'm able to extend this. So I had some songs that just had a coordinate that we hadn't learned yet. And honestly, I was like, we probably won't learn that for a while. But I said, Hey, if you are feeling super confident in the three chords that we've been working on, and you want to play it, because it only happened, like one time in the whole song. And I said, if you want to try this, this new chord, give it a shot. And I always talk about, you know, is it okay to take Yes, but I just want you to give it your best shot, that I feel like it's the biggest way that I have been able to differentiate is just allowing the students to choose how many chords they do. Same things go with strum patterns, some of the playlists that I found on YouTube had a strong pattern that went along with it. So I said, Hey, if you're feeling pretty good about the strumming, you can do the strum pattern that's on the video, if you're still struggling with the chords and just want to focus on those, you can just do it down, down, down, down, or whatever works best for you. Allowing them to chew that, again, we're still making music, we're still all going to be part of the song. And no one really has to know who's a little bit further along than others. So all in all, the biggest suggestion I have for anyone who's wanting to differentiate the ukulele, offer choices, give them levels, allow them to choose their difficulty level, allow them to choose their support level. And that is kind of biggest, the biggest thing that I've seen successful is not saying, Alright, I'm just gonna play the song or three chords with this strumming pattern, because like some students that aren't able to do that, and they'll either stop, or they'll just pretend, or they'll try their hardest and just feel frustrated. But bringing them choices allows them to scaffold themselves, or allows me as the educator to scaffold for them, or to give them more support or less support as they need it. So that they can, they can make it better and they can make progress and they can continue to grow. In psychology, you know, we have the zone of proximal zone of proximal development. So how do we get them to traverse there's EDP? ZDDP ZPD goodness, how do we get them to get higher? How do we get them give them the least support they can to make the best possible growth. And that is where differentiation comes in. Especially when we can do it in a way that removes the the social aspect of student Well, oh, well, they know that I'm only doing one court not really everyone's kind of doing their own thing. And no one is really focusing on anyone else. And that's that kind of building of the social environment around differentiation can be a while. But I've seen really good success with it. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, if you did, it would be great. If you left a review, wherever you're listening to those reviews help us out so much they help us get in front of new listeners, as well as letting us know what you want to hear more of here on the podcast. If you haven't already, I would like to invite you to join us inside that music teacher community, which is a growing online library of professional development specifically for elementary music teachers. In addition, it's a community where we're able to support each other and essentially serve as that PLC that we actually want to be a part of by people that also understand that music education background. To learn more, you can check out the link in the show notes or head on over that music teacher.com And we'd love to have you. With that being said thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. We'll see you next week every Wednesday here on the podcast and if no one has told you, I'm really excited and I'm really so thankful that you are making a difference in the lives and the students that you teach.
