I choose to report out on the day 4 and 5
portion of my teaching plan. I do feel quite fortunate, because I am in an
active classroom setting where I can apply not only the pre-assessments, and
assessments, but also the content teaching and conveying of information. The
daily dialogue and exchange between students and teacher has provided the most
valuable feedback, that I feel would be different had I been taking these
courses in an isolated “academic” setting. I also think there is a huge
difference between running a class on your own, versus being a student teacher
in a classroom with another teacher. When you are there in the class on your
own, you are responsible for everything. There is no relying on a mentor
teacher to come in a save you, should your classroom management be sub-par, or
if you are under prepared. I have thoroughly enjoyed working and planning and
preparing with my master teacher outside the classroom, and I think that has
given me more ownership over the classroom, and the students have bought into
my vision for the courses and ensembles that I lead. It also helps that I am
involved with other ensembles that the other music teachers work with, so by
extension I am viewed as a member of the larger teaching team.
I have found that the students respond more
to working on the repertoire then the scale study and chorale work that is part
of the warm ups. If the warm ups are presented as cold, old fashioned, and
simply “something we do at the top of class,” then they have less buy in and
participation. When the warm ups are directly connected, and even interspersed
with pieces of the repertoire, then the students make more connections between
the warm ups and the repertoire, even before I walk them through the
connection. When students can hear and see the connection between why we are
using the warm up and chorales and how they connect to the repertoire, they
challenge themselves to be truly “warmed up” to play the pieces. Student buy-in
and motivation is better then any teacher driven motivation I can offer.
The students always did better on the scales
and chorales the second time. Students were able to identify passages they
could perform better, or play more smoothly or with more emotion. Once I turned
to treating the chorales as mini repertoire pieces, the students played them as
such, and not just as warm ups. Sometimes a mindset change is all that is
needed for improvement. Authentic
assessment is incorporated in one form or another, as I am constantly looking
for student improvement over time. After each rehearsal, I evaluate the
ensemble’s performance and find out what the class needs to work on in order to
build upon or improve a weakness. All the rehearsals culminate in a concert or
performance, and in the case of competitive marching band, we even get feedback
from esteemed adjudicators on our strengths and weaknesses.
Because my
classrooms are always a mix of grades 9-12 (with the exception of Freshmen Band
and Freshmen Orchestra), differentiated instruction and assessment is a must. I
did have a few ELL students in my classroom. To accommodate assessment methods
for ELL students, I word directions or instruction another way, or sing how a
passage should be performed. Because so much of the grading is based on non-verbal
performance, ELL students typically do not have a hard time following along. In
addition, music notation is a language itself and all students are on the same “playing
field” when it comes to reading notes; they all have to learn what each note
means. I also use universal gestures while conducting to give non-verbal
instruction to students during a performance of a piece. An example of this is
putting myarm out, palm up; this is the symbol for more volume. Similarly, by
putting my palm down, this signals students to decrease their volume. I am able
to assess student performance based on if they follow my gestures or not.
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