Turning STEM into STEAM Makes Ordinary Lessons Sing!
MEMBER
In an era when enrichment subjects like music and art are considered a luxury that many districts can ill afford, Bill Selak has found a way to have his cake and eat it too.
Selak lost his position as a district music teacher at
Covina-Valley Unified School District in Covina, California, USA, over the summer because of budget cuts. He is
now a second grade teacher, so instead of teaching music
to 500 students, he teaches all subjects to 20. But for his 20
students, at least, music will not go away. In fact, it will be
an integral part of their learning. That’s because Selak has
devised a way to teach core curricula through music.
He first taught the four-week lesson, which marries core
academic topics with song, as a music instructor last year.
He had 14 groups of students, which gave him plenty of
opportunities to work out the kinks. The first week, the
classes decided on topics and types of songs. The second
week, they wrote the melodies. Next, they used Garage-Band to develop the instrumentation. And finally, they
wrote and recorded the lyrics.
In the span of a month, the fourth and fifth grade stu-
dents had written and recorded tunes such as “The Water
Cycle,” “U.S. Presidents,” “Pangaea,” and “The Rock Song.”
It was an ambitious project, but not ambitious enough
for some of Selak’s students. “More than one student said,
‘So we are going to make a music video, right?’ ”
And they did. Selak, who teaches Digital Video in the
Classroom as well as other courses at two nearby universi-
ties (Azusa Pacific University and University of La Verne)
walked his students through the process of video creation.
The 14 songs, collected on an album titled
STEAM-Powered Songs, won the California Student Media Festival
in the Elementary Fine Arts category last spring. The songs
and videos are available for free download on Selak’s school
website, K5tunes.com.
Selak loves music, so teaching through song comes
naturally to him. “A good teacher incorporates other subjects into lessons. A good music teacher also teaches math,
language arts, science, and social studies,” Selak explained.
“Rather than simply talking about geography, explore where
famous composers lived. Instead of passing out a worksheet
on fractions, write a song that includes 16th notes and 8th
notes.”
profile
That’s the innovative thinking that
landed Selak on California State Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s Education
Technology Task Force, which came up
with recommendations for bringing digital age tools into the classrooms in 2012.
Using technology in the classroom is something Selak has
experience in. He maintains a music podcast of
students’ performances,
recordings, and compositions. And he has
recorded a series of
video tutorials to asy-chronously teach band
students how to play
their instruments
and learn new pieces
of music. All this content is available on the
K5tunes.com site as
well as You Tube and
School Tube.
Selak devotes time
to these projects because he knows they
make a difference.
“The arts are essential
in our schools. Brain research shows that students
who participate in the arts
are more successful in every
other subject,” Selak said.
“I did not get into education
to help raise test scores at my
school. I got into education
to change lives. Incorporating
arts into classrooms is a pre-
—Diana Fingal is the
senior editor of L&L.
