Modeling

Most of my teaching experience so far has been through private music lessons and a strategy that I think is really effective for me is modeling on my own instrument and playing along with students. I like to explain to students that playing as a duet is like playing in a really small band; as soon as you play with another person you have to start thinking about such things as keeping a steady rhythm, balance, blend and tuning which are the things we work on in our band classes. It gives students an opportunity to focus on these concepts and begin to think musically. It is also very beneficial for auditory learners to hear how something is supposed to sound as well as read it from the page. I realise this is a musical example but I think the idea of modelling is important in any subject area, certainly it is important to demonstrate how to properly execute a lay-up, or to give demonstrations of a specific technique in art class.

Assessment for Learning

After taking assessment in the arts with Dr.John Fawcett I must say that my eyes have really been opened, and my philosophy really changed. The assessment for learning movement is new, exciting, and just makes sense. I don't think I really realized how to properly assess and evaluate in a way that's fair for the learner, and really shows their achievement of the learning outcomes. I want to encourage anyone who hasn't been involved with the assessment for learning experience yet to get out there and read up about it. I've really changed my teaching style and philosophy I believe for the better, and have a clear understanding of how important assessment can be and how it can be a hugely negative or positive affect on our teaching.

Teaching Strategy - work habits mark

My sponsor teacher has a particularly mis-guided grade 11/12 class. She decided part way through the semester that she would give them each a mark out of 3 for every class based on their work habits that day. She told them her plans and then implemented it right away. At the end of each class she would go around and tell the students what mark she gave them. Surprisingly, most students agreed that the mark she gave was accurate. Although my teacher can't put these marks into their grade, she can use them for reference when doing the G,S,I part of the report cards. Also, it made the students feel like their work habits were more important in the grading process and made them reflect on, at least momentarily, about how they behaved each class. I don't know if she has kept this up since October but I will be interested to know if it has helped the overall behavior since then.

Bonus Stickers

For many of us our Assessment of the arts class had completely changed and confused our thinking on how we are to evaluate and assess our students. We have been told that bonus marks are a huge no no because they skew the representation of the student's achievements. For myself, and probably some of you bonus marks were a part of my high-school experience. Now that I have been shown "the error in my ways of thinking" I have decided that bonus marks do not have to be a bad thing and if used correctly will not skew student progress. Bonus marks were a huge incentive for me and I still want to offer that for my students. I think that by changing bonus marks to bonus stickers or bonus "insert non mark related incentive" is a great way to engage your students. So instead of giving bonus marks on a test or bonus marks for doing some extra special project, or for great participation that we instead give the students bonus stickers. Make up a chart on poster board and give students bonus stickers then you can have a prize at the end of the year. It could be something you buy (if you want to spend the money) or you could set up an incentive with the class that if everyone can accumulate X number of stickers by the end of the year you will have a pizza party or it could be as simple as handing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place Bonus Sticker Awards (do them up all fancy on nice paper etc...). Or maybe you could buy a trophy and have a large plate that every year the winner gets their name engraved on it, or whatever you can think of). I think this is a great way to incorporate bonus "marks" into the learning without having it cause misrepresentation of the child's achievement.
This was just an idea I came up with the other night during our last Assessment class and I wanted to share it with you. Do with it what you will.
Good Luck on practicums and Merry Christmas

Teaching Tip!

My older sister is teaching grade 11 and 12 chemistry and I asked her the other day, her best teaching tip that she could give me. She said that over her 2.5 years of teaching, she realized that you need to establish a solid routine. You should not let your students get away with inappropriate behaviour. If you let the inappropriate behaviour slide once, everyone will expect their bad behaviour to slide and everything will just be chaotic. She said that you almost need to train your students ex. in her class, when its a lab day, the students know to bring a pencil/pen and that is it. You have to stick to your rules/guidelines.

Cellphones in schools

For those of you who are also in Tatianna's class, my group included one of these videos in our presentation. Both of these videos are about the use of cellphones in schools and the problems that have arisen from students using cellphones during school hours. The use of technologies such as cellphones, laptops, and iPods are going to be issues that are very relevant to our future teaching career. We are going to need to think about and decide how we are going to handle the problems that come with the use of these technologies and for me personally this will be an interesting topic considering I use and own all three of the technologies and use them in my everyday life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny5Aq2G3770

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIjbnfYCDFk

The boy with the incredible brain

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=4913196365903075662&ei=0CQkS_DWJYGmqQPygsRQ&q=the+boy+with+the+incredible+brain&hl=en&view=3&client=firefox-a#

I'm guessing that everyone in Phil's class is also in Tatiana's ED-D 430 class. Anyway, I'm not sure if both classes are going to/have watched the video on Daniel Tammet the British mathematical savant, but if you haven't you definitely should. After watching the 10 minute clip Tatiana showed us in class I went online and found the full 48- minute documentary “the boy with the incredible brain” and watched it. If you're up for feeling intellectually inferior, this is an awesome watch. Enjoy!