Robert Young 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...

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...

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...

This week we put into motion the idea of stations in the classroom. This turned out to be a great success. Because we are in block scheduling the classes get long, and the students get bored and tired. So have this active way to engage students in different activities was, to me, a fantastic idea. One, it gets students out of their seats and moving around. Two, they don't get as bored since each station time is 15 minutes long. It also gives more time for individual help on the piano. The songs we are playing are getting harder and they need extra teacher help. It is a great feeling to have students tell me that they bought a piano or that they are getting one for Christmas/birthday. The fact that students are becoming inspired to play music on my account has and always will be a great feeling. I remember when I was about the same age when I really started to become passionate about music. One goal that I accomplished this week was just refining my teaching and also not trying to f...

This week was probably the easiest week so far. The students (and myself) have gotten into a pretty good routine. They know what to expect when in class now. I brought my acoustic guitar in and there are a few students who know how to play. So that was exciting. I sometimes let students sing and play the last few minutes of class and they really get a kick out of it. Teaching/testing songs on the piano is the highlight of my class. The students absolutely love it and it is a great instrument to learn. I really like the setup of a classroom-half the class plays piano, half the class works on workbooks/other activities. If possible I want to use this setup when I get my own class someday. One thing I want to do more is to incorporate student decision into the classroom listening. So, I made a box of "Song suggestions" and once a week try to pick a song from the box to play for the class. (if appropriate) Also, my cooperating teacher went to a meeting about actively having the s...