Jamstiks in the Classroom: Week 5

Welcome back!

I continue to try and pull away the scaffolding for students as they come in. This week, they were able to come in, get their materials (Jamstik, iPad, pick, strap) and get right to work. It's a pretty well-oiled machine at this point!

Today also marked the first time that an actual score translated directly to a student's Exit Ticket grade. I chose Wide Open 170 Challenge for today's assessment and was fascinated by the results. First of all, the scores were MUCH lower than typical. I wondered why that was and dug into the challenge a little deeper. The way it's laid out is the same as previous challenges, but it implies something kind of new:

It features the E and A chords, learned in Lesson 3, but it features individual notes as well. My students' instinct was to play the notes individually, one finger at a time. The point of the exercise is to play arpeggios up the strings (open E, 2nd fret B, 2nd fret E, 1st fret G#, B, E), then finish with a strum of the entire chord. It's implicit that the user will keep all their fingers down for either chord, switching only after the big strum. Obviously, the students who discovered this on their own did the best. I let them know after a few minutes that that's the intent and they all said, "ohhhh, that's WAY easier!"

One student did experience some motion sickness with Open 170 Challenge, but he explained that he has had a history of that. I told him to try a different challenge and he did just fine.

Next week we will be strumming full chords only for the Challenge, so stay tuned to see how the kids do!