How can we design units and projects? – Designing goals, or objectives, such as transfer, meaning, knowledge and skill, to generate projects based on a “worthy topic”

{Worthy Topic} Defining Music.

Generative Questions: 

1. (What is music?)
2. In order for music to be considered “music”, does it have to have text, or sound? 
3. Without text, or without “sound” (instruments), or both, can music still be expressive?
4. Does music have to evoke emotion, meaning, or even be expressive, if it is going to be called music?

Knowledge Goal

• Students will be able to (SWBAT) express in words, what music is.
  • How would this specific goal support students’ creative and critical thinking?
    • Through a reflection, which my students would fill out, I am supporting their creative and critical thinking by allowing them time and space to search within their own thoughts, based on what they previously know or have experienced, about what mean actually is. Not just in generally, but how they feel about on an individual level.

Skill Goal

• SWBAT experiment with different types of “music”, by evaluating/analyzing what meanings or expressions they trigger.
  • After my students identify what they know/think, this goal would allow them to [think critically] experiment with other types of “music”, which they may or may not consider music, and then describe expressive traits, how it made them feel, and/or the meaningful message that was (or was not) communicated.

Understanding Goal (meaning-making)

• SWBAT post a YouTube video which demonstrates their idea and understanding of music.
  • At this point, students have only thought about what music is to them. Now, I am supporting their creativity and critical thinking by asking them to find a selection of media, visually or aurally (depending on their definition), which will represent what music is to them.

Understanding Goal (involving transfer)

• SWBAT create and perform a live version of their original work, which expresses to their audience what music means/is to them.
  • How would this specific goal support students’ creative and critical thinking?
    • I think this goal would offer an opportunity for them to present what they know to be music. They can now do whatever they want (as long as it’s appropriate for school regulations), and create something that they regard as music, no matter what anyone else would label it as. I think this aspect of creativity would open all sorts of doors for them and produce a final product that’s raw and meaningful to the learners. The process leading up to the completion of this goal, would provide enormous amounts of critical thinking alone.

Notes:

• This task (of coming up with goals based on my worthy topic and generative questions) was quite difficult for me, and required a lot of thought. I am still unsure if the goals I came up with for each category are “correct” or fit the category they were placed under. That being said, I feel that some of my objectives/goals could apply to multiple categories. It’s my opinion, and understanding, that my topic is somewhat broad, and uncomparable to a topic such as Beginning Spanish, or The Declaration of Independance. For this reason I found it difficult to understand and construct appropriate goals and objectives.