Week 2

PART I: Clements & Klinger 1.2

Draw a map of the music classroom environment that indicates the following items. If you are teaching in various non-music specific locations, draw several smaller maps that indicate the space available for music activities. Then respond to the points below.

• Arrangement of desks, tables, chairs, risers, etc.
• Teacher work area or office
• Student storage areas and/or classroom instrument storage or lockers
• Learning centers/stations
• Resource materials such as bookshelves, drawers, etc.
• Equipment such as drinking fountain, sink, pencil sharpeners, bathroom, telephone, computers, etc.
• Bulletin and chalk/white boards
• Anything else you think is important in the environment.

The chorus room, on the 5th floor, is set up with anywhere from 5-25 chairs depending on the class size, and there are no desks, tables, or risers. For the 5th grade chorus class, the children move 8 chairs into a small circle in the center of the room with the teacher. There is not much of a work area for the teacher, besides a small laptop sized rolling desk, and there is not a designated office for the teacher. Students store their binders on a shelf right beside the door to the classroom. There are a number of file cabinets and bookshelves with sheet music on them. The water fountain and bathroom are down the hall and to the left. There is a projector and a screen that can be pulled down to cover the wall that has mirrors across it, and the cords to hook up the laptop are on the adjacent wall. There are curtains on the wall with mirrors so that the mirrors can be covered if necessary. The piano also sits in front of the mirrors, so that the person playing would face the mirrors. The wall opposite the mirrors is a window that looks out on 81st street. Another teacher’s office is within the room, right to the left as you enter.

1. How does the set up of this classroom contribute to student learning? Putting the chairs in a circle allows the students to be closer together (as opposed to sitting in a row), and therefore allows the students to be able to hear each other better. The mirrors are helpful for students to look at their bodies as they sing, so they can observe things like the shape of their mouths as they sing. The mirrors can also be distracting, as some children look at themselves in the mirrors when they should be focusing on another task. The person facing the piano also has to face away from the students unless they move the piano, so it can be tricky to adjust your body to play and teach at the same time if you use the piano to teach.
2. Is it possible or feasible to rearrange the classroom environment for various activities? If so, how can this be done? The classroom environment can change for various activities, because the space is open for the chairs to be moved around. For example, the 5th grade teacher split up the larger group into two smaller groups, and had them make two smaller groups with their chairs so that they could focus on singing their assigned part in the round they were singing. The chairs can be in rows or circles, and can move to face the screen if necessary. The piano, though bulky, can be moved as well if you unplug the humidifier tool.
3. How far away for the music-teaching environment are the following locations? The school office and the custodian’s office are on the first floor to the right of the elevator, the water fountain and the bathrooms are on the 5th floor down the hall and to the left, the cafeteria is on the first floor straight across from the elevators, the main performance area is on the 5th floor right next to the chorus room, and the practice rooms and instrument storage are spread out on the 6th floor.

4. If appropriate and available, ask your cooperating teacher for seating charts that indicate student names and attach a copy to this worksheet to help you learn names. N/A – I already have all my students’ names and have learned them.

5. What do the contents and the layout of this classroom(s) say about the music activities valued by the cooperating teacher or school building? From the set up of the room, you can tell that this room is designated for choral ensembles and that it also functions as a (disorganized) library for all the choral sheet music. The circle set up of the chairs tells me that the teacher values community and group work, which makes sense for a choral environment.

PART II: Reflection

One specific thing that I learned this week is that my 7th grade class (my biggest one) functions better when they sit in a huge circle in the room, rather than in a few rows. I had originally set up the room in a circle, and wanted to see if they would focus better if they had more structured rows – and they definitely did not! There was excessive chatter and unfocused behavior, I think partly because the kids in the back row thought I couldn’t see them, so then the next class we went back to using a big circle. One more general thing I am learning is that being a new teacher who is replacing someone who was there for a long time comes with some interesting challenges. For example, a student who was used to the lack of structure of one of my classes (which is now slightly more structured) told me she would like to drop the class unless I changed it back to how it used to be. Navigating that conversation was tricky because I know I am doing what I am doing for the right reasons, and it will just take a bit for people to understand the why behind it. But I am naturally a people pleaser, so there have been some situations like this one where I had to tell myself to have a backbone!

This week I especially enjoyed working with my 8th grade students. They are working on singing in harmony while they also learn a complicated body percussion pattern, and they are so into it! It’s great to see them tackle something that I knew would be a challenge for them, and to see them put in the work and the repetitions to get the muscle memory to do these complex tasks all at the same time. We also took a video and watched it back so they could see how it looked and hear how it sounded, and they were able to informally give themselves some feedback to improve their performance for the next run-through. Also, I am really proud of my students in all my classes for jumping into some sight-reading! This is a skill I really want all my students to develop as the year goes on, so that we can learn music more efficiently and can work on more pieces of musicality, rather than on plunking out notes.

One thing I want to improve with my 7th grade class is trying to use positive narration to encourage the behavior I want, rather than continually calling out people’s names who are not doing what I want them to be doing. I think it’s both good for me, because I won’t lose my patience with them so quickly, and good for the students, because they can direct their focus to the positive behaviors instead of being distracted by the unfocused behaviors.