Secondary Scoop: MS SS and HS Music

Middle School Social Studies (Mr. Daily)

This semester the 8th Grade students in Social Studies have worked on the process of creating research papers. In September, the 8th Grade students were given their first assignment in this process and they have worked steadily over the course of the semester. They have completed their rough draft and peer editing in November and they will return their final paper in December. The students are learning the skills they will need to conduct academic research in high school and beyond. The goal of this long term project is to expose students to the process of research and writing for history. 

They are learning to: 

  • Choose and then narrow a research topic. 
  • Design a research paper.  
  • Understand the importance of planning in the proces. 
  • Use information gathering tools such as boolean operators and truncation to locate information. 
  • Use search engines and databases other than basic google searches. 
  • Use word processing programs to write, format, and edit their work. 
  • Obtain useful information through the research process. 
  • Differentiate between acceptable and unacceptable sources of information.
  • Analyze information obtained from a variety of sources. 
  • Understand the value and limitations of sources. 
  • Synthesize information to create a proper academic research question and thesis.   
  • Ascribe the work of other authors in a research paper through proper citation. 
  • Be familiar with the Chicago Manual of Style guidelines. 
  • Collaborate on academic research through peer editing. 
  • Understand how research papers and projects are assessed using rubrics. 
  • Create a final product – academic research paper. 

The students have worked very hard on this process and the rough drafts demonstrate the success of the learning process they have engaged in so far. The variety of topics and the quality of the work is impressive. The students are thoughtful and reflective. They have regularly asked good questions in order to increase their understanding.The research paper will be the final project for 8th Grade Social Studies students this semester.  

See also: Secondary Scoop: MS Bahasa and SS Theatre Arts

High School Music (Pak Priyadi)

In a usual year (Pre-COVID 19), December is the month when students in the subject of Music, in the Surabaya Intercultural School, would be busy with the preparation for the End of Semester Music Concert.  As we are still working online, this tradition cannot be followed in 2020, as in years gone past.

It is hard for students to miss this opportunity of performing live in front of an audience for the Music Concert, and many are feeling disappointed because of this. On a positive note, however, students can still express their music skills by jamming virtually and can have lots of fun in the process with their teacher and peers.

In order to jam virtually, some preparation is needed. The teacher has to choose a song that is suitable for the class and then accompaniment music needs to be created and recorded for a virtual ensemble.  This is then shared with the class via email/Google Classroom.

Then, the group will learn the song with guidance from the teacher during the synchronous and asynchronous classes. Students will have the opportunity of rehearsing the song from the tutorial videos created by the teacher. As the group needs to practice the song before they make a final video recording, students are expected to listen to the music accompaniment and be able to play along with it. Once the class is confident enough to play the song, students will start recording individual videos of their music.  The students are then required to send their completed video recording to the teacher.

The final part of the process involves the editing of the student videos. All of the work needs to be synchronized in order to produce the perfect virtual ensemble. The challenging part is to synchronize all of the video tracks, which is time consuming. In the end, the teacher and students alike, can enjoy the final virtual band performance. This is the great part about music; it can be enjoyed anywhere and under any circumstances!

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