Music to your eyes at Dent Middle School

So what do you do at the end of the school year after all testing is done to keep your students engaged in learning? Ms. Huff, a seventh grade TLC Science teacher, and Ms. Sawyer, a seventh grade TLC social studies teacher, are collaborating on an end-of year music video review project. Students are working in collaborative groups to create a music video based on concepts learned throughout the year. The two classes are allowed to choose any topic they learned this year. Mrs. Huff and Ms. Sawyer said the groups picked evenly from science and social studies concepts. The only stipulation for choosing their topic is once it has been chosen another group cannot pick the same topic. Students write appropriate lyrics to accompany a karaoke track of a popular song. Then the soundtrack is then combined with a video created by the students using original and stock images in Movie Maker or other video editing software. Final projects are presented to and shared with all class members during the last week of school.

Here is a playlist to all the student videos.

Ms. Sawyer teaches 7th grade social studies in The Learning Collaborative. She is in her 4th year of teaching, the last 3 at Dent Middle School in Richland School District Two. Ms. Sawyer was in an ITEC classroom before moving to TLC. "I try to take a creative approach to social studies, encouraging students to experience history first hand."

Mrs. Huff is the TLC Seventh Grade Science Teacher at Dent Middle School. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology (2008) from The State University of New York College at Brockport. Mrs. Huff holds a Masters in Adolescent Education (minor in grades 5-6) from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY (2009). She also holds certification in Gifted and Talented Education from Coastal Carolina (2012). Mrs. Huff has taught in the private and alternative school settings in New York. When she moved to SC in 2010, she taught high school biology and health at Edisto High School. This is her second year with the Richland School District Two.

Here is a playlist to all the student videos.