Using Seesaw to Foster Music Performance Self-Efficacy: A Tool for Face to Face and Virtual Teaching Micki Stukane (She/Her) Wall Intermediate School mjstukane@gmail.com
Seesaw is a web and app-based learning platform that connects teachers, students, and parents through a student’s digital portfolio. Using the various features of Seesaw to create a digital performance portfolio, teachers may help foster music performance self-efficacy in face to face and virtual teaching. Performing is a large aspect of music making that sometimes acts as a gate keep due to fear or lack of comfort and prevents some students from participating in music. If a music teacher could improve a student’s music performance self-efficacy and help them believe that they can be successful in performance, more students may be involved in music programs. On Seesaw, students and teachers are able to share and document work from the classroom in a face-to-face or virtual setting. The platform allows students to document their learning in a number of formats: drawings, text, pictures, videos, voiceovers, and more. Parents are able to access their own student’s digital portfolio from a web browser, or through the parent-app, and even interact with the content through “likes” and comments. With the class stream, students are even able to view and interact with each other’s work, similar to social media. Unlike social media, however, a Seesaw classroom stream is only visible to the teacher and students and can be curated by the teacher through the approval settings. Self-efficacy, as defined by Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, is a person’s judgment or belief in their capabilities to succeed, complete a task, or accomplish a certain performance level.1 Perceived self-efficacy does not have to do with the skills someone actually has, but rather what they believe they can do with the skills they possess. Music performance self-efficacy specifically addresses a person’s belief of their ability to perform music.2 A low self-efficacy may cause a person to undermine themselves and fail to complete a task, regardless of their capabilities to do so. In relation to TEMPO
music performance, a student is more likely to be successful in a performance if they have a positive belief in their performance skills.3 Because self-efficacy has been shown to be malleable4, it is possible for a teacher to help foster music performance self-efficacy, and Seesaw provides the tools to do so. Self-efficacy is affected and influenced by four different sources: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological state. Mastery experiences can include prior and perceived successes, as well as prior and perceived failures. Mastery experiences in performing don’t need to happen in front of a large crowd to have a lasting effect on a student. With Seesaw’s recording and uploading capabilities, performance videos or voice-over audio can be recorded by the teacher or student right in Seesaw or uploaded as a file. These recordings can be in-class or at-home performances that become visible in the class stream, and visible to any parents who have accounts linked to their student. When teacher-approval settings are enabled, the teacher can review student work prior to it being visible to others, ensuring that students are sharing their most successful work. Vicarious experience is based on a person’s observations of a peer with whom they identify. Positive vicarious experiences can be supported on Seesaw with the class stream feature. Once approved by a teacher, students will be able to see each other’s work and performances within the stream. Students may gauge their own ability to succeed based on the successes of their peers. If students are able to see exemplary examples within the class stream, this may encourage their beliefs about their own ability to complete the same task. Because of the teacher-approval settings, the teacher can make sure that only successful completions of the assignment are visible to others. Verbal and social persuasion is when a person tries to persuade another or encourage another that they are able to 46
OCTOBER 2020
