WAC: Is Music in the Classroom a Distraction or Study Tool? - 2/30/18

Ariel Thongkham

Science 8A

Mrs. Redifer

2/30/18

Is Music in the Classroom a Distraction or Study Tool?

          In this day and age where technology has become essential to society as a whole, it seems that every student has access to a mobile device. Access to a mobile device gives students the capability to easily obtain music softwares, such as iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, etc. This privilege that students possess, encourage the integration of music in the classroom. Currently, students and teachers have found creative ways to use music as a study tool. Music is able to change the way you feel, which acts as an advantage while you are studying. When it comes to teaching about the past, an American History teacher found it helpful to play music from the era her students were studying. The music affected her students' emotions in a way that helped them deeply connect to the era on a spiritual level. In addition, she discovered that classical music changed her students' emotions by making them calm and focused on their work. Certain genres of music can also stimulate your mood, which results in a better performance. When students are feeling fatigue, they tend to be too tired to complete assignments to the best of their ability. However, when listening to certain music that boosts their energy with excitement, it can cause them to do work to their fullest potential. Although music is very beneficial to student learning, it is important that students are listening to the right music while studying.

            Do particular genres of music change the way you feel? Music has the ability to affect your emotions in a way that can be beneficial to student learning. An article titled "Music in the Classroom: Distraction or Study Tool" discusses an interview with American history teacher, Katie Chester, at Empire High School in Tucson, Arizona. Upon being asked about her thoughts of music in the classroom, Ms. Chester responded by saying, "For history, we do music of the time period to get a more emotional look at the era. Plus classical stuff helps [the class] calm down and focus". When Ms. Chester's 5th period American History class was learning about the 50's era, she played music from the 50's era while they were studying. She discovered that as the students listened to music from the era they were studying, it helped them become more spiritual toward the era and even have a deeper connection to that time. As a result, students were more eager and wanted to learn which helped them get a better education. In addition to this, when students weren't learning about a different era with predominantly different music, Ms. Chester played classical music for her class. Classical music brings tranquility to the classroom which aids the class to calm down. Thus encouraging them to focus on what they are doing.

            Along with affecting your emotions, listening to the right song can stimulate and help boost your mood, essentially causing you to ameliorate your performance. According to the article titled, "Music in the Classroom: Distraction or Study Tool" it states that, "When you hear something you like, it heightens your arousal and mood, which improves performance". Especially with pop culture and up beat songs, people tend to have uplifted excitement upon listening to them. This increase in energy can be so critical to student performance. For example, if students are taking a test or completing an assignment with fatigue, it can greatly effect their performance. Most times when students and people in general feel lethargic, they don't want to do anything and incline to give up on what they are doing. In addition, feeling tiredness also results in the person not concentrating on tasks they need to complete. However if they listen to songs that enliven their spirits, they'll become more energetic and will be motivated to finish the task at hand. Plus, being more awake with a positive mood always helps you focus. So it is important for students to tailor the correct song for studying. Their personal, ideal song should activate their emotions in a way that makes them feel more cheerful and alive. Furthermore, it should inspire them to concentrate and complete what needs to be done.

            The opposing side of this argument believes that music acts as a distraction rather than a tool in the classroom. In an article titled "Why You Shouldn't Listen to Music While Studying" it explores research and tests taken by the University of Wales Institute that discovered, "Participants performed worst while listening to music, regardless of whether they liked that music". Researchers instructed 25 participants to memorize, and later recall, a list of letters in order. Participants were tested under various conditions that include listening to quiet music, music that they said they enjoyed, music they said they didn't enjoy, a voice repeating the number three, and a voice reciting random single-digit numbers. The results of the study led to the idea that "Music may impair cognitive abilities when you're trying to memorize things in order, because you may get thrown off by the changing words and notes in your chosen song". Although studies do prove this claim to be true, previous studies have found benefits to listening to music before performing a task.  In the same article "Why You Shouldn't Listen to Music While Studying" it says, "Listening to background music prior to task performance increases cognitive processes, such as attention and memory, through the mechanism of increasing arousal and positive mood". So while lyrical music may be a distraction to some when engaging in a task, listening to music before engaging in a task is helpful. In addition the research only supports how lyrical music affects your memorization. Thus leading to the idea that listening to music while completing tasks not requiring memorization, may be fine.

             The escalation of mobile devices and access to online software or applications, has given students the privilege to listen to music in the classroom. In order to use music as a study tool, it is essential that the proper music is played for it to be beneficial in student learning and performance. For music that is played in the classroom, classical songs tend to make students serene. Moreover, classical music makes students focus on what they need to accomplish. If students are learning about times of the past or different cultures, it is helpful to play music of the era or culture they are studying. Listening to this type of music, assists students to have emotional look on what they are learning and have a deeper understanding. Students are able to focus, connect, and understand the material they are being taught depending on different genres of music, because music is able to change your emotions. Adding on to this idea, certain genres of music can change the way students feel by increasing their arousal and mood. Upon listening to pop songs, student energy levels correlate with the upbeat tunes. This can be necessary when students are feeling too tired to complete work to the best of their ability. However, pop and upbeat music can help awaken these students and as a result, they will put their full potential to the task at hand. Recent studies show that lyrical music acts as a distraction while memorializing material. Instead, it is more advantageous to listen to lyrical music before performing memorization tasks. Lastly, students should tailor music that works for them. No matter what research proves, it is important that students listen to music that genuinely helps them in the classroom.

Roller Coaster Project Blog 2/18

Summary

        Over the course of a month, students engage in a physics unit where they learned about what happens when an object goes into motion and how that object is able to move. This unit had various topics that students learned about such as basics of motion, distance and displacement, speed and velocity, acceleration, energy, forces, and Newton's three laws of motion. To thoroughly understand and get a deep learning of these topics, students were assigned to complete worksheets, documents, and labs for each topic. Once all the hard work was done, the last step is a fun project that allows students to create their own roller coaster. When putting together the roller coasters, students needed to review their knowledge of each topic when calculating the physics of their roller coaster.

Backward-Looking

        Students started off this physics unit by completing worksheets, documents, and labs on each topic. Depending on the score that students received for these assignments, they were given a correlating amount of coins.These coins come in handy for the final part of this unit. The final step of this unit is a project where students build their own roller coaster. Students were put into groups of four to complete this project. The amount of coins earned earlier were accumulated together to let groups know how much materials they were able to buy for their roller coaster. My group first created a sketch of our vision for what we wanted our roller coaster to look like. Then we bought the amount of materials we needed in order to make this design a reality. The materials my group bought were twelve feet of piping for our track, one wooden dowel to hold our roller coaster up, hot glue/tape to hold it together, and a marble as our cart. As my team put each aspect of our roller coaster together, we constantly tested our design by running the marble down the course to make sure that it stayed on the track. In addition, these tests helped us ensure that there was enough acceleration for the marble to go through each loop, turn, and hill properly. Once we were satisfied with our roller coaster, we calculated the speed/velocity, distance and displacement, kinetic and potential energy, and acceleration. At this time we also labeled where the topics we had studied, took place on the coaster.

Inward-Looking

        I feel proud of this piece of work that my group and I have built. The reason for this feeling is because my group was able to create a roller coaster that actually works and is consistently functional. The marble is able to go through the course without falling off the track and the marble is able to go through each loop, turn, and hill with enough acceleration. In addition, my group has made a roller coaster that I would actually enjoy and want to ride if it were to be life size. I enjoy how it has the thrill factor with the speed and actions of the course. However although I enjoy this roller coaster that my group created, there are a couple of things that I don't particularly enjoy. The first dislike being that our roller coaster doesn't have any theme. Most roller coasters in real life have a theme to make it look interesting, yet my group didn't have enough time to decorate our roller coaster. The second dislike I have is that our roller coaster isn't very sturdy. When we run the marble down the course, the coaster shakes a bit and requires on a certain type of lighter marble in order for it to work. If the marble is heavier, it will weigh down the track and fall of.

Outward-Looking

         The roller coaster my group made is somewhat different than the roller coasters that other groups made. My group did not design our roller coaster the way other groups designed theirs. Although all roller coasters were different, some were more alike than others. Most groups started their roller coaster off with a vertical loop after the drop. However, my group decided to start our roller coaster off with a horizontal loop that kind of resembles a spring, after the drop. The other difference is that my group's roller coaster had two loops in a row while other groups designed their roller coasters to have only one loop. The last difference is that my group stopped our marble different than other groups. We folded our piping into itself to create a cave like end. Then we stuck a wad of tape in the cave that abruptly stopped the marble as the coaster came to an end. An obvious similarity between my group's roller coaster and the other coasters is that all groups made their coasters out of the same type of materials. These materials included the Styrofoam piping, wooden dowels, a board as a base, hot glue, tape, and a marble. Another similarity is that all groups had to include a loop, turn, and drop in their roller coaster and all groups were forced to start with a big drop to create enough acceleration for the marble to go through the course.

Forward-Looking

        As I look at my group's roller coaster, there are a few things that I would like to improve upon. As I've stated before, our roller coaster has no theme. This is crucial because without any decoration to the roller coaster, it takes away any attraction or interesting factor to our coaster. As of now, the roller coaster is just plain and quite boring. When we first designed this roller coaster, my group based it off of the idea of traveling places in different areas of the world. This idea gave us the name, "Around the world in three seconds". We wanted to include a Styrofoam ball that we would paint to look like the Earth, in the center of the base as the coaster loops around it. However, we decided to drop this idea as we realized we didn't have enough time to execute this design. In addition, we didn't want to spend extra money on the outside materials that it required. Yet now that I see the final product, I wish that my group stuck to this idea or at least gave it a theme and attempted to decorate it. The next thing that I would improve is making the roller coaster more sturdy. I wish that my group gave more support to our roller coaster by gluing more dowels to hold it to the base. Since we didn't do this, our coaster can only handle the lighter marble and even then it shakes when we run the light marble down the track.

Forces 2/11

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Forces can change the speed of something, the direction it is moving in, or its shape. A force can be a push or pull on an object. For example when you push a door open, you need to apply force to the door. In addition when you pull open a drawer, you need to apply force to the drawer. Balanced forces is when two forces acting on an object are equal in size but act in opposite directions. For example if the force of a rope is pulling a crate up and the weight of the crate is pulling the crate down at the same force, this is a balanced force. Unbalanced force is when two forces acting on an object are not equal in size. For instance, when someone is pushing a table with more force than the person who is pushing the table in the opposite direction. When two or more forces are acting on an object at once, the result is the combination of forces or combining forces. When two forces are acting in the same direction, the net force is the sum of the two individual forces and the object will move in the direction of the forces applied. When two unequal forces are acting in opposite directions, the net force is the difference between the two individual forces and the object will move in the direction applied by the larger force. Finally, when two equal forces are acting in opposite directions, the forces cancel each other out and the object will not move.

S&EP - SP1: Asking questions and defining problems

I formulate testable questions when I read over the "Forces" document that I was assigned to complete. On this document, there were questions that I needed to answer about forces. I established what is already known about forces by answering the questions that I knew the answer to. Once I found the answer to each question, I wrote the answer. I determine what questions have yet to be answered when I went over the document and figured out what questions I hadn't answered yet. I read over these unanswered questions and did my best to find information in order to answer them. I defined constraints and specifications for a solution as I realized that certain questions on this document required information that wasn't stated in the provided videos or articles. These certain questions needed to be answered with my own knowledge on the topic.

Newton's Laws of Motion 2/4/18

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Isaac Newton has created three laws to explain how forces make objects go in motion. Newton’s first law is known as the law of Inertia. This laws states that moving objects don’t spontaneously speed up, slow down, or change direction. An example of Newton’s first law is that if a bicycle is at rest, without force it is going to stay at rest. Newton’s second law states that force is the product of mass multiplied by acceleration. A more in depth definition of Newton's second law is in order to cause an object to accelerate, a force needs to be applied that is proportionate or larger than the mass of the object. This law also explains that the more force applied, the quicker the object accelerates. In addition the more mass there is in an object, the more force you need to apply in order to accelerate the object. An example of Newton’s second law is that if a bicycle is carrying a large amount of mass, the person pedaling will need to apply a large amount of force in order to make the bicycle accelerate. Newton’s third law is explained as, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. An example of Newton’s third law is the action is when you drop a bouncy ball and it creates a downward force hitting the ground. The reaction is when the floor reacts by pushing the ball the same force but upward, causing the bouncy ball to bounce back up.

S&EP - SP3: Planning and carrying out investigations

I identified questions to be investigated when I asked how each short lab represented each of Isaac Newton's three laws of motion. For the second lab that tested Newton's second law for motion, I identified my variables and controls. The controlled variable were the length of the track, the height of the ramp, and the starting positions of each marble. The manipulated variables were the mass of the marbles. There was one smaller marble and one larger marble that would be tested. I designed and performed experiments to test my hypotheses for the second lab that represented Newton's second law. I thought that when we released the smaller marble with less mass down the ramp, it wouldn't make the larger marble go in motion when they came in contact, and proved the opposite. The smaller marble did make the larger marble move, however the acceleration was very slow because it wasn't enough force.