3rd week

This week I've been doing some serious observation on group work.
All the grade 7 and 8 music students (total of 8 classes) are doing their culminating task, which is improvisation on making sound effects for the picture book Where the Wild Things Are. Prior to their working time, I gave examples from the Carnival of The Animals by composer Saint-Saens, and talked about how he uses the elements of music to imitate the different animals with music and sounds. I also demonstrated some techniques on the flute and showed the students how they can make different cool sounds with the instruments. Overall, the students seemed to liked the task a lot.

My AT had to assign groups because we wanted a combination of different instruments in each group and we know assigning groups can avoid some classroom management problems.

From what I've observed, most of the students at the school doesn't have much experience in group work, and about half of the groups were not very productive. They were easily distracted, they were chatty and often go off topic, they have poor time management, and most of them doesn't know how to work collaboratively with their classmates, the bad behavior students were rude and disrespectful to others.

Despite the chaotic moments, there were some really surprising moments too. I found out that there are many students with very creative ideas and talents in playing their instruments. Even the bad behavior students and class clowns can be engaged and focused on the task. I think the biggest challenge for bad behavior class is how to improve their group working experience, and build a better classroom community/environment.

2nd week of Practicum 2

For some reason, this week went by faster than last week, perhaps March break is on its way.

During this week I've learned to make my instruction really clear and always demonstrate all the song games and activities for the young primary students. When learning songs by rote, I always have to read out the lyrics first and have students follow me after each phrase I sang. The primary kids can be very silly sometimes, they love to move around, even when I asked them to make a big circle holding other person's hand while walking around can be chaotic.

Also new this week: Ellesmere- Statton Idol audition was held at the music room after school. And I get to watch the auditions. There were about 15 candidates, and they did lots of singing and dancing. I was really glad to see the talents those students have, some of the students were shy and sounded small when they sang but because it's only the first round of audition and the teachers wanted to see all the candidates before decisions can be made, so they didn't give out much comments to the students. Hopefully the March break would give them more time to practice. Looking forward for the real show in April!!

2ND practicum START!!

Hi fellow classmates in mid-town, hope you are doing well in your 2nd practicum!!

I was still pretty nervous and excited about this practicum. I'm now teaching kindergarden kids to grade 3s and also the intermediate students (7 &8s). A big gap I know, but I'm really glad I get to teach the primary grades as well for music rotary, because this is what a music teacher get in real situations. My AT had to teach the whole school last year including the junior grades 4-6s. She was really exhausted being the only music teacher in the school with occasional itinerant music teachers.

Anyways, I finally get to meet Mr. So-Mi, a puppet bear for the primary students that my AT uses. (some of the intermediate students told me that they've known Mr. So-Mi for all their lives since their kindergarden days, and they missed Mr. So-Mi.)
but ... Mr.So-Mi wasn't in good condition, because his magical hat was about to fall off and his shirt was party ripped :( . My AT has been so busy that she forgot to take him home, so I decided to do a little repair and sew the parts together.

During this first week of practicum, I taught a few grade 1 classes and played the "Rhythmic Chair"(that we learned from Alison) with them. The grade 1s loved the game, and I can see modifying the activity for other grades as well. This game works really well with teaching them about rhythm and notation.

I'm really glad and learned a lot about teaching primary and junior students from Alison's classes. I've adapted her activities for my grade 7 &8 unit plan on music used in movies.
Since I had to teach all the grade 7s and 8s (total of 8 different classes, each has their own characteristics) . I kept the lessons the same. So far the lessons went well and they enjoyed the listening activities. But so far my biggest concern and fear is the classroom management issues with the Intermediate students. For most of the classes, this week was my first time meeting them, because I only see each class once a week. Some classes were very nice but some were very chatty and rude. I find overall, their attention span is short, so I tried to make sure I play lots of film music that interests them and gets their attention.


Friday ended with a high-note: the primary K-3 students had Dance-a-thon in the morning. I watch the entire "show". The kids had a great time... and of course in the end, they all sang to Justin Bieber's Baby song !