How can I use questioning strategies to develop my students’ critical thinking through instrumental music?

Laura Boillat


Seminar Title


How can I use questioning strategies to develop my students’ critical thinking through instrumental music?


Concept/Strategy

Focus of the Research


Critical Thinking Questioning Strategies


Grade Level

Research Was Applied


High School


Relevant Grade Level

Connections


Middle School


Discipline

Where Research Was Applied


Music


Additional Discipline Areas

I see Application to


All Disciplines


Invitation/Commercial


Do your students understand your content? Can they work within and through the content to analyze, evaluate and create? Or am I asking the wrong questions? Find out in my session on higher order questioning strategies that promote critical thinking! No matter your content area or the ability levels of your students, we (and especially our learners!) can all benefit from refining our questioning strategies. Get a better handle on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and forming questions that challenge your students to dig deeper into your content. This will be a hands-on session tailored for your you and your content area, whether you teach math, science, reading, or physical ed, so come prepared with a lesson or unit you’d like to enhance with refined questions that you create to promote critical thinking in your classroom!


Abstract


My interest in guiding my students to deeper thinking within music guided my research into critical thinking and a variety of questioning strategies. My first task was to define the term critical thinking, which ended up being a relatively ambiguous term as it seemed to lack a clear, agreed-upon definition. I then began reviewing research and literature surrounding a variety of questioning strategies and techniques, including Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, the Walsh and Sattes method, and Maieutics (the Socratic method). In my attempt to acquire a critical thinking definition, higher order thinking skills continued to pop up. Realizing the time constraints I had to take into account, I narrowed my focus to creating questions based on levels 4-6 of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy: analysis, evaluation, and creation. In my research with my 9-12th grade concert band students, I sought to develop my questioning techniques to facilitate my students’ critical thinking skills surrounding music. In order to gauge progress of myself and my students, I collected data in the form of 1) a pre- and post-study student survey, 2) personal observations, and 3) periodic exit slips. After analyzing the data I collected, I determined it was inconclusive whether or not students’ critical thinking skills actually developed or if they just gained an increased awareness and confidence. However, I do feel that through this study I became better at developing and asking questions that elicited higher-order thinking from my students, which, in the end, is still a win for my students.