Share Music and Create a Class Playlist

Activity

Community building activities, Ongoing engagement

Share Music and Create a Class Playlist

Maha Bali

Invite students to share a favourite song and why they chose it, helping them express themselves and build community through a collaborative class playlist. Works synchronously or asynchronously.

Tech needed: Shared online space, Music sharing

Synchronous, Asynchronous

Accessibility: Auditory

Duration: 5-30 mins

Student preparation: None

Educator preparation: None

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

Help students share something about themselves, musical tastes, while building community as they speak about their musical choices.

USEFUL FOR

It can be used early in the semester, where all students share their favourite music, and we build the playlist and share it with everyone, or it can be used as a weekly warmup, where one or two students share at the beginning of class and the playlist builds over time.

PREPARATION

Almost none. Students can probably on the spot share their favourite music on YouTube or Spotify or such.

INSTRUCTIONS

Ask each student to choose one piece of music to share with the class and play it for everyone, explaining why they like it.
This can be done synchronously or asynchronously, in one class session where everyone shares, or spread out over the entire semester where one or two people share each class session.

DURATION

If synchronous, about 5 minutes per student or so.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

You could ask students to bring pieces of music that represent particular moods or thoughts, rather than ones they like in general.
Asynchronous options may include using a Padlet for students to comment on each others’ music choices.
You could think of ways to refer to the playlist or reuse it throughout the semester if you create it early on.
A class playlist may also be an ongoing thing done outside class time if you ask students to share some of their favorite music on a space like Slack throughout the semester. For example, “I’m listening to this music as I do this assignment” or “this reading makes me feel like… this song”.
If you have students who are hard of hearing, perhaps ask students to focus on lyrics they like or poems, rather than music per se.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Music-sharing site (e.g. YouTube, Spotify or SoundCloud) that is accessible to all your students.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Do you have any suggestions? Please share them in the comments below.