Sound and Music
SOUNDANDMUSIC.ORG
PROJECT PILOT: 2011 EVALUATION REPORT
CONTENTS PROJECT CONTEXT
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WHAT’S THE IDEA?
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MINUTE OF LISTENING PILOT: FEBRUARY – APRIL 2011
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HOW DOES IT WORK?
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PILOT RESULTS
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PROJECT FUTURE
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CONCLUSION
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watch the film from the pilot: www.soundandmusic.org/projects/minute-listening
PROJECT CONTEXT Sound and Music is all about listening. Simply put, we want more people to discover the joys and rewards of listening, not just to music, but to all kinds of sounds and the sonic landscapes around us. From a very young age we learn to talk about the things we see – show a 4 year old a painting and they can tell you about the colours, the shapes and the things they see depicted. But ask them to close their eyes and simply listen to the world around them, could they describe what they hear in an equally vivid way? Listening, and the way we experience sound, has a huge impact on our lives. Yet in a predominantly visual culture we rarely give time to exploring our aural experiences and developing our listening skills. This begins at an early age. Current music provision in schools, and recent recommendations for changes to Music Education invariably place an emphasis on learning and performing over listening and creativity. 1 In addition, there is a vast range of music and sound that children are never encouraged to explore. Sound and Music has a history of inventing and delivering a variety of highly successful projects in schools exploring listening and sound. Initiatives like the national Sonic Postcards project and the Expo Youth bursary schemes bring together artists, teachers and children to engage with their local sonic environments, develop their listening skills and explore sound in genuinely creative and inventive ways. At SAM we wanted to create a project that could take the essence of this work to every school around the country; a project that encourages young people to listen and that opens up a whole world of sounds. We want kids to be wowed, shocked, delighted, opinionated and sometimes moved by sounds they would never normally get the chance to hear. From this idea came the concept for Minute of Listening.
1 See ‘Music Education in England: A review by Darren Henley for the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’ (2011) and ‘Music Education in England: The Government Response to Darren Henley’s Review of Music Education’ (2011)
‘I think that teaching and encouraging good listening and discussion skills is essential. Furthermore, opportunities for this are few and far between in the Curriculum’ Participating teacher from Harleston Primary School
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WHAT’S THE IDEA? Minute of Listening is literally that: 60 seconds of new sound or music delivered to a school classroom each day for the class to listen to and discuss. Our aims for Minute of Listening are to create a project that:
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Develops pupils’ listening skills
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Encourages teachers to explore the effect of concentrated listening on the way pupils learn
Develops pupils’ communication skills Encourages pupils to develop a greater interest in a broad range of music and sound
Screenshot of the Minute of Listening Application.
But how do you get a project like this into every school? This was the challenge. With a clear agenda developed for the project, the next step for SAM was to find a way of delivering Minute of Listening to schools and to trial the concept in a live pilot. During the pilot we wanted to test four things:
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Demand: was there demand for a project like Minute of Listening?
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Feasibility: could it be done?
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Delivery: how could daily sounds be delivered to classrooms?
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Content: what kinds of sounds should be included in the project and how would children and teachers respond to them?
MINUTE OF LI S TENI NG
MINUTE OF LISTENING PILOT: FEBRUARY – APRIL 2011
THE TECHNOLOGY SAM worked with Norfolk-based interactive design agency Neontribe to find a way to make Minute of Listening happen. We wanted to create a piece of software that schools could get on a USB stick or download from the web, and we wanted this software to deliver sounds every day of the week to schools, for free. Following a phase of designing, developing and testing with local teachers, the Minute of Listening Application was born. Combining a bold, child-friendly design with simple, intuitive user navigation, the Minute of Listening Application could be downloaded and installed on classroom computers from the project website. Each day the App would be opened to a big green play button, loaded with a new sound for the day, with accompanying questions, information on the sound and a calendar of all of the minutes of audio from across the project for teachers and their classes to explore. Several extension activities and resources for teachers to use, based on the day’s sound, were also available through the Minute of Listening website.
Above: Interface elements of the application
The ‘Minutes’ of sound included in the pilot were selected from a wide range of sources. They included field recordings, performances on solo instruments, sound poetry, vocal performance, orchestral work, and music from around the world. In selecting sounds for the project SAM aims to strike a balance between audio that engages and is more familiar to young people, and ‘challenging’ and unusual sounds that haven’t been heard by teachers and their classes before.
THE SCHOOLS SAM delivered the first pilot of Minute of Listening in partnership with the Creative Learning Team at Norfolk and Norwich Festival. Working with N&NF, 10 Primary Schools around Norfolk were signed up to take part in the pilot, which would last for 6 weeks from 28th February to 8th April 2011. Across the 10 schools, the pilot involved: >>
70 classes
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1,600 children, ranging from 3 to 11 years
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130 non-specialist teaching and support staff
Following a week of preparation for the project from 28th February to 4th March, teachers were asked to try the Minute of Listening with their class every day over the course of 5 weeks. They were asked to feedback on their Minute of Listening experience through skills audits and questionnaires at the beginning and end of the project, and to keep a daily log of their class’s response to the sounds they heard.
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HOW DOES IT WORK? A typical morning during the pilot might go something like this… It’s Monday morning and the class are about to embark on Minute of Listening. The class teacher has already downloaded the Minute of Listening Application to her classroom computer, and the opening screen is displayed on the interactive whiteboard. The screen simply shows today’s date and a large green ‘Play’ button. The teacher explains what is about to happen. The classroom door is closed, there is no talking amongst the class. The teacher presses ‘Play’ and a countdown begins: >> >> >> >>
Be still Be quiet Listen Now close your eyes
The sound begins to play. The children hear one minute of howls, shrieks and calls. No one speaks; the whole class and the teacher focus on the listening experience. The minute ends. The teacher and class can now reflect on what they heard by exploring the Minute of Listening Application further. By navigating to the question mark symbol on screen they are taken to a series of questions that include: ‘when you listened, what did you hear?’, ‘how do you think the sound was made?’ and ‘how did it make you feel?’. The questions are aimed at encouraging a free and creative response to the sound they just heard; there are no right and no wrong answers. Through the class discussion children are supported in developing their own opinions and vocabularies around sound, and the activity supports several key agendas across the primary curriculum. If the class and teacher wish to, they can choose to reveal what the sound they heard was; in this case, a field recording of Black Howler Monkeys, recorded by Chris Watson in the South American rainforests. The class can learn some interesting facts about the monkeys’ call (the loudest animal on land!) and Chris’s role as a field recordist, capturing the sounds of animals and their habitats around the world. Following the activity they may return to their normal lessons or undertake a Minute of Listening extension activity that teachers can download through the website.
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MINUTE OF LI S TENI NG
‘As time went on the children became increasingly engaged in the listening aspect of the activity.’ Year 2 teacher, Barnham Broom Primary School
PILOT RESULTS Of the classes participating, 63 teachers returned evaluations of the project, giving a valuable insight into how Minute of Listening was used and received in the classroom.2 These evaluations showed that most teachers used the Minute of Listening Application on their interactive whiteboard, and the remainder used their classroom computers to play the sound each day. 96% of teachers said they found the Application easy to use and navigate, and several even asked a child from their class to activate the sound.
‘They became quicker to settle down, listen and focus ready to start Minute of Listening as the project went on.’ Reception teacher, St Edmunds RC Primary School
‘They really enjoyed listening to all the sounds and were fascinated by the unusual recordings’ Year 5 teacher, Woodlands Primary School
The way that different schools and classes used the Application varied across the pilot. In most schools, teachers used Minute of Listening in their classrooms as a structured activity first thing in the morning or after lunch. Others tried to fit in Minute of Listening around existing lesson plans. Two schools used Minute of Listening in their school assemblies as a communal activity across all the year groups. Using the feedback completed by teachers, several visits to schools during the project, and an in-depth evaluation meeting with a group of teachers involved, we were able to build an interesting picture of how the Minute of Listening pilot had (and sometimes hadn’t) met our expectations and original aims:
AIM 1: TO DEVELOP PUPILS’ LISTENING SKILLS Before starting the pilot 87% of teachers commented that they were looking forward to taking part in a project around listening, either because their pupils found it difficult to listen in a concentrated way, or because their class were already good listeners who they thought would find the project particularly rewarding. Observations from teacher comments show that, although some felt they clearly saw a change in levels of engagement and listening ability throughout the project, others found that it made little difference to listening skills overall, despite Minute of Listening being an enjoyable activity for the class. The development of listening skills can be difficult to quantify, and the average perceived improvement in listening skills of 11% reported by teachers in their skills audits does not take into account how teachers judged listening to be improved and what they qualified as ‘good’ listening. The daily logs completed by teachers throughout the project show that during the Minutes they saw a great difference in levels of focus and behaviour, depending on what the class were listening to. For example, Cathy Berberian’s Stripsody provoked a reaction of giggles and questioning, whilst most classes remained quiet and focused when listening to an Amazon Rainforest recording or piece of classical music. It is interesting to observe that many teachers considered giggling and extreme responses from their class as an indication that they had failed to listen or concentrate correctly. However, a strong reaction – even a noisy one – from a class would at least suggest that they are listening and are engaged with what they are listening to. This aspect of the pilot certainly demonstrated that there is a need to more clearly define what is meant by ‘good’ listening and what ‘listening skills’ can mean in the 2 The figures and percentages used in this report are taken from mean averages of responses given in the completed teacher evaluations
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context of the project. This element should certainly be a central part of teacher resources in future stages of the project, and a focus for teacher training. Several teachers commented that they felt that the project did have greater scope for improving listening skills, but that a minute a day over a 5 week period was too limited a time to see any real difference. They suggested that with a few changes to the software they could use Minute of Listening more intensively, for example, for a two week period with a new intake of nursery children, or for a term-long project around listening and sound for older classes. Some teachers were also keen to have more guidance provided with Minute of Listening on how to lead deep listening exercises and develop listening as a skill amongst their class.
AIM 2: TO DEVELOP PUPILS’ COMMUNICATION SKILLS Of the teachers who completed the question in their evaluations, 97% said that they regularly used the stimulus questions within the Minute of Listening Application as a basis for talking about what they had listened to with their class. The communication and discussion aspect of the project went above and beyond our expectations for the pilot, and Minute of Listening for many classes seems to have been a way for children to let their imaginations run wild when talking about sounds with their class. Despite teachers of younger classes observing that children sometimes found it difficult to differentiate questions and to come up with different ideas from their classmates, on average teachers saw an improvement (almost 20% according to the skills audits) in their class’s ability to articulate thoughts and opinions about sound. Several teachers were really impressed by the development of their pupils’ vocabulary, especially when they introduced technical terms related to sound, such as ‘echo’ and ‘pitch’ for example. Other teachers used the ‘More Info’ area as a literacy tool, encouraging children to read the information with them or introduce words and concepts such as ‘onomatopoeia’. The sounds and their descriptions in general proved a great starting point for conversations relating to other cross-curricular areas, including literacy, geography, science and art, and teachers expressed an interest in expanding on this area of the project.
‘The most notable improvement was their vocabulary for describing sounds, especially the musical ones…They created wonderful pictures describing what might be happening.’ Year 3 teacher, Woodlands Primary School
‘It helped me think of the voices and helped me with my imagination. It let you use your imagination before you found out what it was. You could do dances to them!’ Year 2 pupil, Barnham Broom Primary School
‘The children were regularly motivated and excited to listen to the sound again and the stimulus questions often focused their thinking. The descriptive language that they gave was at times astonishing.’ Nursery teacher, Harleston Primary School
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MINUTE OF LI S TENI NG
AIM 3: FOR PUPILS TO DEVELOP A GREATER INTEREST IN A BROAD RANGE OF MUSIC AND SOUND In their initial questionnaires several teachers outlined how they were looking forward to listening to a wide range of different sounds with their class and were interested to see how their class responded to different kinds of sounds and music. In their feedback over 90% of teachers said their classes often or very often heard new sounds that they had not heard before.
‘It was really scary when the sounds were loud. I liked trying to guess what they were. It was fun imagining what might be happening.’ Year 2 pupil, Barnham Broom Primary School
‘[It made me think of] a dance floor with a DJ’
‘It sounded like I was in an orchestra’
Surprisingly, in their feedback many teachers commented that their classes had enjoyed the more ‘unusual’ or non-musical sounds – such as porridge cooking, throat singing, bats echolocating and a howler monkey – sounds that let children use their imaginations to interpret what they heard before finding out what it actually was. However, a few classes enjoyed sounds that were more recognisable, or that they could relate to subjects they had been learning about. This feedback would suggest that the project was successful in selecting an appropriate mix of sounds, with a balance of challenging and familiar content. Of teachers who responded to the evaluation question, 95% repeat listened to sounds at some point during the project – particularly if children were especially interested in a certain sound they heard – whilst other teachers played the sound more than once on a daily basis.
AIM 4: FOR TEACHERS TO EXPLORE THE EFFECT OF CONCENTRATED LISTENING ON THE WAY PUPILS LEARN Based on the skills audits and teacher feedback it would seem that, outside of the daily Minute of Listening activity, the pilot had little impact on behaviour and concentration amongst the class for the rest of the day. However, several teachers also felt that the pilot was too brief to assess any long term impact of the effect of repeated focussed listening activity on the way their classes learnt. This would certainly be an area for exploration in a future, more extensive pilot phase.
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PROJECT FUTURE Overall, there was a fantastic response from both teachers and children who took part in the Minute of Listening Pilot. Over 90% of teachers thought their class would like to continue with Minute of Listening, and over 75% of teaching staff were also keen to participate again. Many classes enjoyed the routine of preparing to listen and the communal experience of listening together. Surprisingly the most prominent, and perhaps slightly unexpected, outcome of the project was the real opportunity Minute of Listening created for classes to not only listen together, but to unleash their imaginations and engage in class discussion about their thoughts and opinions on what they heard and felt. With no right or wrong answers, even children reluctant in coming forward were given an opportunity to voice their thoughts. Not only did this project prove exciting and interesting to children participating, but it has great potential to support the very current agendas around speech, language and communication development in addition to its aims around listening. The teachers involved in the pilot had several suggestions as to how Minute of Listening could be improved and developed. These included: >>
Frequency of engagement Many teachers felt that to really get the most from Minute of Listening they would like to use it less often (ie. not every day), but for longer periods, so that they can really spend some time focusing on the sounds and the practice of listening with their class. This might be for an afternoon a week, or for a particular term-length project about sound.
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Bank of sounds In addition to the daily sound option, several teachers were interested in a bank of sounds being available, allowing them to select sounds to match to their lessons, eg. a minute of sitar music at the start of a lesson about India, or a selection of rainforest sounds.
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More themed extension activities Many teachers wanted to link sounds to National Curriculum topics. They requested more information about the sounds included in the Application, as well as resources and activities to use in lesson planning and even packs of themed sounds, eg. animals and their habitats.
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More pictures, bigger pictures Many teachers found the images included in the Application too small, particularly for younger children. They asked for more and larger images and even video to support their class’s learning, for example, by showing music and sounds being created.
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Teacher training Teachers who we met and spoke to during visits all expressed an interest in additional training for teachers prior to the project, to introduce them to the Application and its possible uses, and to learn new approaches to leading deep or focused listening in the classroom.
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MINUTE OF LI S TENI NG
CONCLUSION The pilot showed that there is a clear demand amongst teachers for activities that address listening and creativity in the classroom. Teachers and children loved taking part in the project, and the vast majority were keen to participate in Minute of Listening in the future. The method for delivering sounds to the classroom each day worked. Children were interested in all kinds of sounds and their favourites often defied our expectations!
For SAM, Minute of Listening has huge potential to develop as a project. The pilot results have proven very encouraging, and feedback from teachers and users have indicated positive ways of addressing the project’s challenges and opportunities. We discovered that the core idea of the project and the content is popular with teachers and classes. The pilot also highlighted areas for development; namely, how the Application is delivered and distributed to schools; additional supporting crosscurricular material; training for teachers; and the option for a bank of searchable sounds. Through Autumn 2011, SAM will be developing the Minute of Listening software, teaching materials and the distribution model, towards a larger second stage pilot in Spring 2012. Working with partner organisations across the UK, we aim to test the second version of Minute of Listening with 70 schools and approximately 11,000 primary school pupils. From this next phase we will test what we have learnt from the first pilot in order to deliver Minute of Listening on a national scale and achieve our goal of more people discovering the joys and rewards of listening.
Minute of Listening is a project devised by Sound and Music. The pilot was delivered in collaboration with Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Neontribe.
FIND OUT MORE To find out more about Minute of Listening, go to the Sound and Music website at www.soundandmusic.org If you would like more information about the project or the Minute of Listening pilot, please contact Natasha Chubbuck, Learning Producer at SAM, by emailing contact@minuteoflistening.org
Sound and Music
Sound and Music promotes challenging contemporary music and sound art through a range of projects; incorporating live events, learning, artist development and digital platforms. We embrace complexity and risk-taking and invite the audience to listen in new ways. Simply, we want more people to discover the joy and rewards of listening. People come to contemporary music and sound art from many different directions – actively seeking out the new, by accident, or through other forms and genres. SAM encourages people to embark on this journey, as well as helping guide those further down the track. To find out more about SAM’s work go to www.soundandmusic.org
SAM would like to thank all the teachers and pupils who took part in the Minute of Listening pilot at Barnham Broom Primary School; Arden Grove Infant & Nursery School; Old Catton C of E Junior School; Mileham Primary School; White Woman Lane Primary School; St Edmund’s RC Primary School; Howard Junior School; Woodlands Primary School; Harleston CEVA Primary School and Sparhawk Infant School & Nursery. With special thanks to Louise Dennison at Norfolk & Norwich Festival; Harry, Rupert, Heydon and Neil at Neontribe and Matt Barwick at Magnify Films.