Jamstiks in the Classroom: Week 3

Welcome back! During our third class with the Jamstiks, I feel the students have really grasped the routine of connecting and getting set up. There were few students who seemed confused--a definite win!

Today's agenda was as follows:

Lesson Summary: Completing JamTutor Lesson 2: Single Notes

Classwork: Demonstrating completion of Lesson 2 (check marks through each step of JamTutor)

Quiz: Lesson 2 Challenge: Cruisin Down Open Street 110; each student may attempt it any number of times, using their highest score

Homework: Responding to questions regarding the essay, A Brief History of the Guitar. http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/BriefHistory.html

Students got to work quickly, practicing their fretted single notes. We haven't gotten into chords just yet, so this is a nice introduction. A common complaint I heard was, "this is hard!" I said, "why, yes, it is hard. But do you think you can improve with practice?" Almost without exception, each and every student did. Some were working so hard for small gains and I made sure to encourage them to continue on. Improving just a little bit each time is really what life is all about!

Tech-wise, the class went pretty well. Only two Jamstiks had any trouble connecting. We switched them out and it worked out. Three of my students reported that the Jamstik "just turned off," but I wasn't watching to verify that they didn't do something to inadvertently do it themselves. I'll keep an eye on those students next time to see if there's something further. In the grand scheme of things, a handful of hiccups with 38 students in one day is a pretty good ratio!

The app did freeze on JamTutor's Arcade Mode on a few students' iPads, but they closed it out and opened it again and it worked just fine. This isn't something they haven't encountered before in their myriad technical endeavors, so I don't feel it was unsatisfactory. Besides, the students had the opportunity to test out new software and help make it better for future users--a task they were proud to be a part of!

One other bonus from today's classes was our guest photographer from the Pioneer Press! A story should be running on Sunday, May 3rd, so we're all quite excited about that.

I felt that having an objective quiz from which to assess them worked out well. I'm going to see how rigorous it is as the quarter goes on. Some were able to get 100% in the Arcade Mode Challenge while others struggled to break 40%. Most ended up between 60% and 80%, which is considered Partially Meets Expectations and Meets Expectations in my classroom, so I feel that legitimate progress is being made by our class.

Stay tuned as we try out chords for the first time next week!

Troy Strand