More of What was Learned and Experienced In Observations

I really enjoyed the school observations and found them to be some of the most useful and insightful experiences in my music ed. classes. For the most part, I saw great things happening in the class room. The most successful teachers were the ones who kept the pace of the class moving and kept the students constantly involved, even when a different section was being worked with. This is especially important in music classes where you have large class sizes and students who all have giant noise makers in their hands. The teachers who were prepared and had a plan for how they would keep students engaged while they were not directly involved in what was being taught had great success. Conversely, the teachers that were least successful were the ones who were unprepared for their classes. For example, one teacher I observed was working out how to conduct a passage while she was trying to teach her students which really didn't work because the students instantly lost interest and began to chat with their neighbour or generally lose focus. Overall, one of the many important things I learned and liked was to be prepared always!

Classroom observations: what I liked and did not like

One of the issues that often arises in music programs is large class sizes. Often a large class size is considered a good thing for music teachers as it is a sign of a strong program and allows for several different instruments to cover all parts of a given musical score. However along with large class sizes come a number of different problems including classroom management, noise control, lack of individual attention, and more marking to name a few. While some teachers I observed definitely had a more difficult time than others I felt that most teachers did a very respectable job of managing their classrooms which would often include 30-60+ students. Considering that each student is armed with a powerful noise-making device that can easily overpower the teacher’s voice it is very important to be able to control the noise level of the room at all times to keep it from getting out of hand. I think the most effective strategy that was used was to keep the students busy throughout the entire class, this usually meant lots of group rehearsing and shifting through a number of different pieces during each rehearsal. This was effective as it kept students engaged throughout the class and gave the students plenty of practice time on their individual instruments during class.
One of the issues that I had with several music programs was that the focus was often completely based on performance while other aspects of music such as ear training, music theory and composition were rarely incorporated. I would like to see more music programs leading students towards a deeper understanding of music rather than just teaching students to read standard notation and how to play as part of a large ensemble. I think that by giving students opportunities to compose, improvise, and perform in smaller groups with music of interest to them would be very enriching to their music education. During the private lessons that I teach I try to include different facets of music and try to help students to better understand music as they play it and I hope to apply this to my classroom teaching when I have the opportunity.

First class: what I've seen and from what I've seen what I liked and did not like

After our first class we were asked: "in what we have seen in schools, what did we like and dislike?"

When it comes to what I liked, I definitely approved of group assessment. For music, often a form of assessment is the dreaded playing test. Rather than having students test by themselves in-front of the class, which I have seen many teachers do, a few teachers would assess by using a playing test in two different variations: one would be with pre-selected groups, and the second would be random group selection right on the spot. A playing test in-front of the entire class would make any student (even any professional musician for that matter) nervous, but to play with several other musicians/students at the same time, takes away the fear of everyone hearing you. The teachers would have the groups repeat the test twice, and would use their ears to assess each student individually. Not only does this benefit the students, it also saves the teacher a large amount of assessment time.

What I did not enjoy has been the lack of planning toward the PLO's. Often I have seen too many teachers create their curriculum and then insert the PLO's into that, rather than designing their curriculum to meet the PLO's. I find the students do not learn as much when the curriculum is created first, as there is no real end goals for the students, rather just what the teacher would like to do. I find this also gives students sometimes (definitely not always) a blind view of the world of music, as often most curriculum first classrooms just focus on instrumental performance, and not the various other aspects of music.

Although there are more things I could say, I find these two points address key issues that are important to me and are a large part of my teaching philosophy: student comfort in assessment (although there are times when students need a gentle push out of their comfort zones, playing tests are one place where I feel staying within those boundaries are a good idea) and having end goals for your students (generally I find ones set out by the government are good to follow).

First Post??

I'm not sure if this post will work as I haven't actually started a thread for posting on here before, but I'll give it a shot!

We were asked in class today to post our reviews of things that went well, and things that maybe were not quite for us, in our practicum. I'd like to share one thing that my sponsor teacher, Mr. Lee, did with his physical education classes. Mr. Lee used something called PACE (Participation, Attitude, Co-operation and Effort) marks. This was a self-grading system out of 10 marks for the students where they had a daily opportunity to think critically about their behaviours and attitudes in class and give themselves their own grade based on the four categories of PACE at the end of the period. The final PACE mark would be decided when the student and Mr. Lee were in agreement. So if a student felt they deserved an 8, Mr. Lee would explain why or why not he agreed. 9's and 10's were reserved for the students who went above and beyond during the class. He would use these PACE marks during class to remind students that the choices they were making would affect their grade, and that ultimately it was their own choice how they did in the class. He always left it as a choice for the students instead of trying to force them into anything.

I feel that by making students accountable for their own actions, and giving them the opportunity to reflect on each class it gives them the independence that they should be given at a highschool level. This is not a new idea by any means, but I really liked how he had that individual time with students, albiet briefly, at the end of each class.


Another thing he did that I really enjoyed in his english class was every 20 minutes or so he would do a brain teaser or quick random fact quiz to change the pace and keep the students interested during their 90 minute blocks! The students absolutely loved it!

invitations have been sent out to all the seminar students