Are you teaching asynchronously? Wondering how to deliver lessons that are engaging and provide you with feedback? In this blog post, I'm detailing five different ways to deliver asynchronous lessons, for your music room!
Nearpod
Nearpod is a wonderful tool for streamlining asynchronous lessons. If you want students to watch a video of you, play in Chrome Music Lab, compose their own rhythm pattern, and answer a question, they can….all in one window, without going to another tab! I have created the majority of my lessons in Nearpod this year, and have been really pleased with the students' work and understanding. Check out this blog post for more information.
Choice Boards
Choice boards are a great way to offer students choice! They are typically created in Google Slides; students can be offered several choices, and have to choose a certain amount during the lesson. When they click their choice, they are taken to another slide with that activity or video, and then click home to choose another activity. Read this blog post for more ideas for choice boards, and check out these choice boards below:
Digital Centers
I have done centers for years with my music students, and have really loved them. This year, because I am 100% virtual with the 100% virtual students, I tried to wrap my mind around how to have students do centers, and came up with the idea of digital centers. Digital centers are much like choice boards, but all of the activities revolve around once concept. In this centers set, students can choose from playing rhythm patterns, writing a rhythm pattern, watching a song video, reading rhythm patterns, playing in Chrome Music Lab, and playing a rhythm game.
Just like in the choice boards, students can choose three activities to do. You could have some kind of parameter, like that all students need to do the writing activity, and then choose two other activities, so that you can see the same assessment from all students.
Check out my digital centers sets here:
Digital Escape Room
Have you ever tried an escape room? Escape rooms can be a really engaging way to teach material and have students work in small groups! In this blog post, I wrote about digital escape rooms, which can work well for asynchronous lessons, to keep students excited about their learning, and to help further their understanding!
Virtual Classroom
Virtual, or Bitmoji classrooms, have been ALL the rage this year! When I first learned about them, many teachers were using them as kind of a home base, to communicate everything about their music classroom. However, they can be used in a variety of ways. You could deliver an asynchronous lesson, by having students choose from a variety of activities in your virtual classroom. Here is an example of one of mine:
The piano links to this website, the bulletin board links to the Chrome Music Lab rhythm game, the cat links to bongo.cat, the ti-ti and ta white board links to this free game by Sillyomusic, and my Bitmoji links to a Peardeck asking students what their favorite song or activity from music class is.
I've seen some amazing virtual classrooms shared in Facebook groups recently…everything from a virtual classroom for “Carnival of the Animals,” in which students choose an animal and then watch a video for that piece, to a winter virtual classroom, with links to several winter-themed performances. You can be as creative as you want! Wanting to know more about creating your own virtual classroom? Check out this video by Katie Wardrobe from Midnight Music, which includes information about Google Slides and virtual classrooms, and this virtual classroom template by Glitter Meets Glue.
Are you excited about all of these ideas, but still worried about student participation with asynchronous lessons? Check out this blog post, about encouraging participation in asynchronous lessons.
I hope this is helpful to you, as you create your own asynchronous lessons. Happy teaching!
One Response
Love the Boom Card link! I was just about to teach this with a different activity, but I will start with this. It will go much more smoothly, thank you!