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Week 15 Student Teaching

This was the last week of my student teaching at Ludwig school. It was bittersweet. One to be done with student teaching and find myself a school to work at, and two because I will miss the school. I really liked the school. I grew up in Lockport and so did my parents, and their parents before them. So, I have a lot of history in the town and it was a great experience getting to know the students and staff there. For my final lesson, I did this awesome drum circle thing that incorporates ostinato, call and response, and dynamics. The students loved it and it was very fun. They actually liked it so much I had to calm them down because they were going a little crazy. But all in all, it was a great last lesson. I even brought in my banjo and played some songs for the kids again and they loved it. After a self-reflection, I realized how much I really like teaching elementary and beginning band. At first, I was a little thrown off because I never consistently taught elementary kids before ...
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Student teaching week 13

This week I took over all of the fourth and fifth-grade classes. My goal was to come up with original lesson plans for each class. (I have been using a book called "Game Plan" that the teacher uses the week prior) It was a little tricky because I had to meet the music objectives for that month for her class so things like ostinato, Mixolydian mode, improvisation, etc. I wrote four lessons that I thought could go either way. They could either work really well or fail miserably. (Some of the lessons consisted of composition, which can be hit or miss with some students) These lessons I thought about and I really wanted to do them. The first one was a responding assignment. I had the students bring headphones to class, come in listen to a song (I used a Paul Simon called the Obvious Child which has tons of African percussion in it) and draw a picture of how the music made you feel, what type of instruments you heard, or maybe a time that it reminded you of. I feel like just liste...
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Student Teaching Week 12

This was my first week with leading instruction with the fifth-grade classes. At first, I was not used to teaching elementary students. The audience is totally different and you have to go about how you communicate lessons very simply. My goal this week was to teach in Carl Orff's style of elementary education. The Orffian method is to start kids off with body percussion and singing, then transfers those rhythms and melodies to recorders and percussion and the students perform it. The one thing I was not used to was incorporating movement into the lessons. There are often games and dances utilized in the lesson plans. At first, I was having trouble with it because there are so many steps in each lesson. If you miss one, you have not executed the lesson properly and there is not a lot of time so you have to make sure you are not spending too much or too little time on one thing. By the end of the week, I was teaching the lessons very smoothly. One hurdle I had to come over was becau...
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Week 11 student teaching

This was my second week at my second placement and it was amazing. I started to get to know students and they are hilarious. They are a lot nicer than eighth-graders. I think the best part is the beginner band experience I'm getting. I'm learning a lot about instruments. I bought a flute about a year ago because I wanted to learn more band instruments and brought it in. So I've been playing that which is fun. I have also been participating in the band, playing various instruments. It's actually pretty cool because it gives me the chance to teach me. I literally ask the questions I don't know and that makes them feel special. When I ask students for help on a note of a fingering, they get super excited. So far I've learned some notes and played the clarinet, flute, trumpet, and trombone. During the week I lead the percussion section in sectionals which was super cool because I'm a drummer and I've been teaching drum/percussion lessons for the past 7 years...
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Week 10 Student Teaching

This was my first week at my second placement. Now, I'm in a 4th and 5th-grade school. The environment of this school is much different than my first placement. I have actually worked at this school before as a teacher's aid for about 6 weeks. So I've met a lot of the staff and the principal before. The town that the school is in the town I grew up in. The first thing I noticed when observing the music classes was how much different the content students are learning and how the class was managed. Every class is 30 minutes and there are tons of activities crammed into those 30 minutes. In my first placement is was very laid back and the classes were very long. The music teacher teaches the entire school. So, she has over 400 students a week. It makes for a very busy week. This first week here I've basically been observing. I found some great tips/materials from the first week. The teacher has this book called "Game Plan" and its a bunch of music lessons that t...
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Week 9 Student Teaching

This is my last week here at Humphrey. My cooperating teacher has slowly been taking over the lessons. One thing I notice is the kids really aren't responsive to him. Whenever he asks questions. They ask me. Even when he comes to them with their hand raised they say "No I need to talk to Mr. Young..." It's actually funny because he's like "Really?! You don't want my help!"(kidding of course). I know that they are just not used to the new teaching style of my teacher and they have had me for the past nine weeks. The last 2 days have been actually sort of emotional. When students say goodbye, they are so sad and they are so bummed out when they find out I'm leaving. I'm not gonna lie I almost cried. We seriously had a lot of fun during the class. They would love to see me in the hallways. They say hi even when the are with a group of friends. It's funny when I first came to the school I ws a little terrified. And honestly, I thought, man th...
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Week 8 Student Teaching

This week was my last week in charge of the class. Next week the cooperating teacher will be transitioning back into leading the class. Most of the week has been the same structure of students using 15-minute shifts. This eases up the monotony of having a 90-minute class. It allows students to get up, move around, and interact in different activities. One thing I love teaching in this class is composition. I think mainly because of the technology that is available to students was not available to me as a 12-year-old. It is great because when students are done making a melody they get to hear it playback on heir Chromebooks. I really like to stop the class and listen to the students' composition and play guitar with the melody, it embarrasses them but it's fun for me. I think in my future of teaching I would try to incorporate recording original compositions. I discovered this website called "sound trap" which allows students to log into a shared digital workspace that...
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