CLASSROOM KARAOKE STRIKES A CHORD
Walk by a classroom where long-time Kirkwood adjunct instructor Richard Campagna is teaching and you’re likely to hear the class, or Richard himself, singing. Although it’s not a music-related or voice class, Richard has a knack for using popular music to connect students to coursework.
In tune with a new way of teaching
Using music as a teaching tool, Richard has found benefits to learning by incorporating songs from some of the 1960’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s greats including Jim Croce, Bob Dylan and the Eagles into subjects such as law, history, political science, philosophy and psychology. By utilizing lyrics, Richard feels students have a greater tendency to relate to and remember the material. For example, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel is an incredible history lesson. “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd dives into the world of abnormal psychology.
For a business law course, Richard provided the example of the Eagles’ tune “Business as Usual”. While the song played, students intently listened to the lyrics and were to identify as many legal issues or references to law as they could. Then they were asked to think of other songs that would relate to the topic and sing a chorus or two for the class.
Hitting the right note
Kate Jett, department assistant at the Kirkwood Regional Center at the University of Iowa, had taken a professional development workshop led by Richard during last year’s Collaborative Learning Days. In this workshop, The Role of Karaoke – Live Music in Life and Learning, the group discussed how to integrate music into the classroom.
“Karaoke offered a participatory nature,” said Kate. “We chose songs that spoke to a specific principle or topic that could foreseeably be used in a classroom setting to facilitate learning and retention.”
One example Kate mentioned was how a workshop participant sang Jackson Browne’s 1983 hit, “Lawyers in Love” because it spoke to the political and social environment at that time when it was written. It could be helpful, perhaps, in an American History or Cultural Anthropology class.
“This context provided an aspect of history that you can’t get from a book,” said Kate. “Music can quickly accomplish the establishment of emotion and sets an overall atmosphere, which text alone does not.”
Kate went on to explain how this unique approach to learning really “demonstrated the power of effectiveness of the tool” while bonding the participants through this type of a sharing experience. According to Richard, it doesn’t require singing talent, simply a desire to be open to a different way to learn.
Spotlighting success
In addition to the opportunity to sing, the classroom karaoke style of learning helped make participants more at ease with each other and broke down any apprehension barriers. “We bonded as a learning community through the shared experience with music,” said Kate.
Many of Richard’s students are singing the praises of breaking from the same old song and dance, and are really enjoying his alternative teaching style that seems to be really making a difference.
The whole Campagna campaign was strange … endorsements from dead people, etc. I did not vote to nominate him as I was skeptical of the fundraising claims at the time.
Thanks for the correction on that, Paulie. I didn’t realize Andy wasn’t able to edit other people’s comments.
I’m really not able to keep an eye on the site like I used to. I do try to check in a couple times a day to check for pended comments, but I’m not able to devote much time to IPR at this time. My personal life continues to be overwhelming, and I don’t see that changing soon.
I’ll take Frankel up on his suggestion and respond in open thread. Despite my strong dislike of and disagreement with Andy, I thank him for refreshing my memory about Campagna’s run for VP.
“paulie
May 5, 2017 at 12:45
I edited out the irrelevant portion of the comment on the Wrights thread and deleted Andy’s response. Andy is correct, at this time he can only delete comments on threads that he posts. I am concerned that he may get too trigger-happy with comments on other threads. Posting from an anonymizer is not in and of itself necessarily proof of trolling.”
It should be pretty obvious who the trolls are.
“paulie
May 5, 2017 at 12:47
‘I was referring to the Wrights thread. Somebody must have moved a post, or posted a response in this thread by accident.’
I don’t think it was by accident. Jill showed some sense and respect by not continuing the meta-discussion on that thread. It has nothing to do with Campagna either though, so if you want to continue it I suggest open thread.”
I don’t really wish to continue it. Just delete all of them.
I don’t think it was by accident. Jill showed some sense and respect by not continuing the meta-discussion on that thread. It has nothing to do with Campagna either though, so if you want to continue it I suggest open thread.
I edited out the irrelevant portion of the comment on the Wrights thread and deleted Andy’s response. Andy is correct, at this time he can only delete comments on threads that he posts. I am concerned that he may get too trigger-happy with comments on other threads. Posting from an anonymizer is not in and of itself necessarily proof of trolling.
I was referring to the Wrights thread. Somebody must have moved a post, or posted a response in this thread by accident.
“Jill Pyeatt
May 5, 2017 at 12:15
‘This is a rather disgraceful use of this thread. Hopefully somebody will take down any troll posts here that come from the people who are such cowards that they hide behind fake names and IP anonymizers.’
Why don’t YOU take them down Andy?”
Because I was under the impression that I could only take down posts in threads that I started.
“Instead, you respond to him, thereby making it difficult to remove for anyone else to remove it without making the thread read strangely.”
You can take down my response as well.
I think that any troll, or troll related, posts in this thread should be taken down.
Thanks Andy. I don’t know why you find it interesting that I have been following the LP for a while and use anonymizers, since millions of people use them. There are many perfectly valid reasons for people to be anonymous on the internet. But then you do have a problem with paranoia that many people here have noted.
This is a rather disgraceful use of this thread. Hopefully somebody will take down any troll posts here that come from the people who are such cowards that they hide behind fake names and IP anonymizers.
Why don’t YOU take them down Andy?
Instead, you respond to him, thereby making it difficult to remove for anyone else to remove it without making the thread read strangely.
Please help us out with the troll monitoring. Just go into the comment in the dashboard and mark “spam”.
If you need help in figuring out how to do it, Paulie or I would be happy to help you learn the process.
Please stop responding to the troll(s), and put the comment in spam instead.
“Great ideas
May 5, 2017 at 11:51
Odd how he completely disappeared after his VP run. Come to think of it, I never heard of him before that either. Didn’t he make some crazy fundraising promises that never materialized in order to get the nomination?”
So whoever is posting as “Great Ideas” (under an IP anonymizer) has either been following the LP for a long time, or has been an LP member for a long time. Interesting.
Yes, Campanga claimed that he had $200,000, or $250,000, or something like that, in donations that were already lined up, and that they would come in only if he received the nomination for vice president. He won the nomination, yet the money never materialized.
I recall the views he espoused to be pretty libertarian, but I don’t think that he did much as a candidate. He did put out a kind of goofy sounding press release at one point where he claimed to be endorsed by Ghandi.
I did some petitioning in Iowa a few years ago, and I encountered one or two people who said that they knew him.
Odd how he completely disappeared after his VP run. Come to think of it, I never heard of him before that either. Didn’t he make some crazy fundraising promises that never materialized in order to get the nomination?
I wondered whatever happened to Richard Campagna.