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.