USING A PROJECT APPROACH IN TEACHING MUSIC

Pavlinka Veljanoska is a music teacher in the primary school “”Goce Delchev”” in Negotino and is keen to implement innovative ideas into her teaching. After completing the workshops on school-based assessment, she tried to introduce formative assessment in her teaching.  A good example is the work of her students in the sixth grade.
The students studied a traditional folk song related to the history of their town, choosing the song, “Song to Baba Mitra”. At first only a small number of the students actually knew the song. So Pavlinka planned a project named: “Traces of a song”. The students researched the background of the song through interviews, literature reviews and investigation of the culture of that period. They worked in teams, kept a diary of their work and self-assessed their work and results and recorded their work in their portfolios. 
“They prepared a report on their conclusions, a presentation for the other students and developed a story for the wall newspaper” explained Palvlina, who explained that she had monitored and assessed the work of the students continuously and had applied the methods of formative assessment that she learned in the PEP workshops.
By the end of the project, all students were able to transcribe the song in musical notation and express emotions when singing the song, which were the main curriculum goals. In addition, the students improved their skills in research, team working, presentation, communication, and self-evaluation. Pavlina noted that students who previously had no interest in folklore music participated actively in the project and changed their attitude towards this type of music.

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