5/10/2018
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Bonnie Butterfield
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One of the more difficult music theory concepts with my beginners is the concept of the time signature, especially the bottom number. It's hard to get them to think of a quarter note NOT being one beat. I found that my students who were specifically leaning disabled were struggling with the concept that the value of notes is not finite. I decided to make a large chart with three columns of squares. One had a time signature with a 4 or the bottom, one had an 8 and one had a 2. Each square had a number next to it: 8, 4, 2, 1, 1/2, 1/4, representing the beats. Then they had several squares that had whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes; there were multiples of each. We placed the squares in the correct number box in each column, and they were able to see how the numbers shifted, but the relationship between the notes stayed the same. A whole is always twice the value of a half, no matter how many beats it is. For quizzes, I allowed those students to have that visual aide, though they had to fill it up themselves. We had done it so many times and practiced, they became familiar with the patterns and were successful at answering questions that dealt with time signatures. This also helped my students without disabilities! |