Week 3

PART I: Clements & Klinger 1.5

1. How does the teacher focus the attention of students at the beginning of the class? If this is an elementary setting, how do students enter and exit the room? This is a 5^th grade chorus class, and when the students come in they help put the chairs in a circle and the teacher uses a “talking piece” (a small object to pass around) to have each kid tell how they were feeling and why, on a scale of 1-10. They do not have a special routine for entering or exiting the room.
2. How does the teacher determine the students’ prior knowledge of a subject or concept? The teacher asks questions of the students about things like breathing and vowels, and asks why we should lower our jaw when we sing. Their responses show the teacher what they already know (or at least, what they can verbalize about what they know).
3. Does the teacher use a visual organizer or post an instructional outline to help direct student learning? When and how is it used? The teacher does not have a visual organizer or instructional outline, but at the end he does hand out papers to show them what the sheet music looks like of the round they are learning.
4. If the students are assigned independent or small group work, what does the teacher do to ensure students understand the instructions? Is there more than one strategy for providing instruction? The students generally work as a full group, but at one point they do break off into two groups in order to hear each other better for the round. Their instructions were to break off into groups, and they were told which group would go first and which group would go second. The instruction was given verbally, so there were no other strategies for providing instruction.
5. If students are assigned cooperative learning groups, when and how does the teacher give the instructions for the group work? How are the groups selected? When the students split into two groups for the round, the teacher allows them to choose their groups, but later in the class he has a few students switch so that the skill level of the two groups is more balanced.
6. How does the teacher assess student understanding? The teacher asks the students how they thought they did in the round singing, and then asks questions to clarify their responses. One example is that a student says, “We were really off key.” The teacher then responds, “What does that mean?” The student can then explain what their understanding of “off key” is, and the teacher can help the student fill in any gaps.
7. What instructional strategies encourage participation of all students during large and small group work? One strategy is asking all the students to stand while they sing, and to look in the mirror as they sing to match their vowels. This gets all the students involved in the group, and gives them a specific thing to look for in both themselves and in others as they sing.
8. Does the teacher provide additional instruction while the students are working/playing? If so, how is this done? The teacher does not provide instruction while students are singing besides cueing the second group to come in for the round with a nonverbal gesture.

Part II: Reflection

This week was our first full week of school (finally!) so it was good to feel out what a 5-day week of teaching actually feels like. I realized that my more on-task groups meet on even days of the cycle, and my groups who have a little more trouble focusing and investing in the class meet on odd days of the cycle, so I think that’s just good for me to recognize because I think it takes a different kind of preparation for odd days and even days. It’s easy for me to get more anxious or uncertain about myself and my presence on those days where the classes are a little more difficult, but those feelings definitely affect my actual teaching in class, so I am working against getting stuck in those thoughts and instead trying to be as present as possible with the kids in the room and celebrating their (many!) successes.

6th grade is a sweet group to work with, and they are an interesting crew because a few of them have some combinations of learning/processing/hearing difficulties. Something I noticed this week, though, is that even though I notice the other girls getting annoyed sometimes, they are also very gentle about helping the other students self-regulate. There is one student in particular who has some general social awareness differences, which I think results in her not always singing on pitch because she has trouble connecting with what the students around her are doing. However, as I was working with one section of the chorus, I heard another girl gently explaining to her how sometimes her voice was just going a little bit too high and she had to make it a little lower to stay on the right part. As I write it down, it sounds like such a small thing, but that moment of her taking care of her classmate was incredibly special. Those are the little moments I hope I always remember to celebrate.

7th grade this week was a little tricky as usual, and I can tell that they are still adjusting to the idea of chorus as an actual class where they have to focus and stay on task (I don’t think this was at all the case with the previous teacher). Ideally chorus would be a place to come in and just sing, but I am learning that it’s also okay if they are not ready for that yet as a group. On Tuesday we practiced standing up quietly (!) because they couldn’t do it the first time, and while I kind of hated spending time on that, it was clear that this group in particular needed to take some steps back and focus on creating a respectful classroom culture. We stood up and sat down probably 4 or 5 times, but then after we warmed up I only had to ask once for them to quietly sit down and they did. So, a tiny success! But in some ways, also a big success – I think laying this ground work will help them be a more coherent and respectful group as we work together this year. One thing that I always find hard in chorus (and especially in larger groups like this one) is trying to figure out what other sections should do while I am teaching one part to a given section. I recognize that it is hard to just wait quietly (I even have trouble doing that in groups as an adult!) and sometimes they haven’t learned their own part yet so they can’t even hum along to practice. Something to think about for next week!

I love working with the upper school chorus! They are also a rather small group (we are down to 10 students), but they are doing a fabulous job of tackling the challenges I am giving them! They are singing in 5 part harmony in one of our pieces – meaning they are mostly just 1 or 2 on a part! – and I tell them every class how impressed I am by them. Something I am learning, though, is that a few of them are relatively new to singing and definitely to chorus, so there’s a significant gap between the more advanced students in the class and the more beginner level students. I feel badly for the few kids who are definitely more advanced because it takes a while to learn parts, so I’m brainstorming ways to help give them more challenge or leadership in the class. One thing that is challenging for all of them, though, is reading music, so we are taking time every class to do a little bit of sight-reading. That feels like a sort of equalizer for everybody, which is nice, and it’s a good time for me to celebrate the successes of the students who are newer to singing but are catching on quickly to the sight-reading.

All in all, I feel like I am learning a ton every day! It’s hard to remember everything that I want to do, and hard to keep the big picture in mind, and still definitely hard to have daily reminders about the teacher I am replacing and how she used to do things, but in all of the things that are hard, there are so many great moments and good days – and the good days are so good! I am looking forward to seeing where this next week takes us.