Two partners and I designed a unit for fifth grade students learning at a Co-Op.

This activity involves moving along to a song with coordinated movements with learners.

     I was successful in leading this experience in that everyone remained engaged for the entire activity. I believe that I accomplished this by staying engaged myself; my facial affect remained in tact throughout the activity, and I think that this helped my learners to stay interested in the activity. I also encouraged learning for participants by giving them feedback via my facial affect to let them know that they were successful. I could improve this experience by completely memorizing my lesson plan. I was able to remain engaged while glancing at my plan, but it would be helpful to have it memorized completely so that I could focus on my learners entirely. I also messed up my movement at one point, which could be solved if I had memorized the plan completely. From this experience, I learned that even if I mess up or get confused with my plan, as long as I stay confident and engaged, my students will stay engaged with me.

Musicianship (5 points): 5; My movements were very carefully planned to reflect the movement, and my adjustments between phrases were accurate and on beat.

Leadership (5 points): 5; My facial affect, energy, and eye contact remained in tact throughout the experience.

Preparation (5 points): 4; I was very prepared, but I was not memorized completely, which lead to one mistake on my part.

Facilitating the Experience (10 points): 10; I was clear in my instruction, my movements were carefully thought out and planned as far as sequencing, and I remained engaged and involved throughout the experience despite a mistake.

Total (25 points): 24

A song that may be good for a student at my practicum to learn would be Baby Bumble Bee. This song has a simple melody and only two chords. This may be a fun song for the student that I am observing at my practicum; he has special needs and is unable to speak or sing. However, he does enjoy percussion and movement, and this song has some choreographed claps and movement involved, so I think he would enjoy it. For this experience, we would only go to the 1:00 mark on the YouTube video included below. In the video, the performers are members of the YouTube channel VideoKidsTV Songs. The song is a traditional tune, not attributed to any particular artist. A lyric sheet and ukulele tab are available here.

     This observation involved me traveling to Spotswood High School to visit the classroom of Mr. Nathan May. While Mr. May teaches many different music classes at Spotswood, this particular class was a music technology and production class offered for combined grade-levels. Unlike Elkton Middle School's music technology class, this class focuses mainly on recording and editing technology, i.e. Garageband. 
     This observation occurred on a day in which the students had just finished a project in which they created an environment with audio tracks. This is a good example of this type of project. The goal of this lesson was to listen to all of the completed tracks as a class and give feedback to one another. This lesson addressed National Anchor Standard #1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work, Anchor Standard #2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work, Anchor Standard #3: Refine and complete artistic work, and Anchor Standard #5: Develop and refine artistic work for presentation. This lesson also addressed Virginia Standard of Learning for Music HG.2: The student will compose and arrange music within specified guidelines.
     Prior to this class, Mr. May demonstrated the technology to the students. After this, they worked in teams to create their environments. Mr. May monitored the students' as they worked and facilitated their progress. The assessment of this project occurred during my observation: Mr. May listened to the recordings with the class and assessed the level at which the students retained their new skills. After listening to each project, the students all gave positive feedback as well as constructive criticism on how to make the project better. To facilitate these discussions, Mr. May asked specific questions about recording techniques in order to get specific answers about how the recordings could be improved. During these discussions, the students were very on topic and asked questions related to the project. They also offered critiques without being rude to each other. There were a few moments when the discussion got away from the topic and was bordering on inappropriate, but when this happened, Mr. May made sure to bring the topic back into the discussion.
     Overall, this observation taught me many things. For example, students who have never used recording technology can create amazing projects with a little demonstration and facilitation. Many of these students had never interacted with recording technologies prior to this class or this lesson, and they were very successful in creating their projects. I also learned that giving feedback on projects as a class can be productive and helpful without being hurtful, as long as it is facilitated properly. Constructive criticism is helpful and creates growth in students; giving constructive criticism can do the same.

     For this observation, I traveled to Elkton Middle School to visit the classroom of Mr. Kley Todd. This was a very exciting observation for me because this was a music technology class, which is not something that many schools offer. The class consisted of 8th grade students, many of which were students with special needs. This is important to note because Mr. Todd firmly believes that if the school did not offer this class, these students may not otherwise find themselves in a music classroom.
     The goal of this lesson was to continue their learning on Ableton Push, the website hooktheory, and to expand their knowledge on common chord progressions; the students were in the middle of a project in which they would create an original song using Ableton Push and a laptop. This lesson addressed National Anchor Standard #1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work, Anchor Standard #2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work, Anchor Standard #3: Refine and complete artistic work, and Anchor Standard #5: Develop and refine artistic work for presentation. This lesson also addressed Virginia Standards of Learning for Music 8.1: The student will read and notate music and 8.6: The student will create music through a variety of sound and notational sources.
     Mr. Todd accomplished his objectives by giving a demonstration on Ableton Push for the class prior to students going off to work on their own. Once the students were working on their own, he monitored their work and facilitated their progress. Mr. Todd always encouraged their creativity in an appropriate way and facilitated discussions on the topic. The students helped their own learning in the classroom by asking questions when they didn't understand, rather than remaining quiet and shy about not understanding a topic. Mr. Todd did occasionally allow the students to get too off-task, but once he realized this, he was able to calm the room down and return to discussion of the topic.
     Overall, this was a wonderful classroom visit. Upon discussion with Mr. Todd, I discovered that all of the students' technology (iPads, Ableton Push, and Chromebooks) were obtained through grants to the school. These were grants that Mr. Todd actually applied for himself; this taught me that if I feel my students need more resources to be successful, I should do all that I can to make that accessible for them. Upon further discussion, I also discovered that this particular class was not offered until Mr. Todd introduced it three years prior. He explained that this class was always being evaluated and changed to accommodate the students. He also explained that he felt this class was important to offer because it allows students to be involved in music without being involved in an ensemble; this encourages students who are shy or have special needs to join because they can receive individual attention from the instructor. This class also helps to bridge the gap for people who want to be music makers but may not know how to play an instrument or how to sing.

     For a practicum observation, I traveled to Mountain View Elementary School and visited the music classroom of Mrs. Kari Carpenter. However, on this particular day, the class was being taught by a student teacher, Mrs. Moore. While Mrs. Carpenter facilitated Mrs. Moore's teaching, this reflection will be focused on the student teacher.
     The objective of this lesson was to prepare the students for an assessment in which they would be tested on their ability to read the treble clef staff and its corresponding note names. This lesson addressed National Anchor Standard #7: perceive and analyze artistic work and Virginia Standard of Learning 3.1: the student will read and notate music. The students took a pre-assessment prior to this lesson, and the goal of this class was to monitor their progress. 
     Mrs. Moore accomplished her learning goals by teaching the kids songs and acronyms to complement the treble clef staff. She took several moments to teach these tools, then took time to assess their understanding. To do this assessment, she quizzed the students aloud. Next, to help them retain their knowledge, Mrs. Moore set up games around the room. These games included students quizzing each other on white boards, a "treble clef" twister game, in which students would call a note for their peers to put their feet or hands on, a game in which students spelled out words using the staff, and an electronic game that had notes on lines and spaces for the students to guess. 
     At the end of the class, the students took their post-assessment. While many were successful, many were not. It was discovered that several students used the correct acronyms in the wrong direction on the staff. For example, students spelled the word face (for spaces) starting from the top space down instead of from the bottom space going up. This was a good learning opportunity for Mrs. Moore because she knew that she had more work to do with the students. 
     Overall, I feel that while some students didn't retain as much knowledge as others, Mrs. Moore did an excellent job instructing them and facilitating their individual learning. The students were all very respectful of one another and asked questions that pertained to the lesson at hand. There were occasions when students would say, "I don't know," or, "I can't," and when this happened, Mrs. Moore made absolutely sure to encourage them to keep trying. One critique I would have for Mrs. Moore is that she doesn't always adapt her teaching style to the student; this can be changed by adding extensions to her lesson plans and planning to accommodate for students who don't understand the concepts as quickly.

     This semester, myself and Codey Logan (whose reflection can be found here) were given the task of creating a musical experience for students at W.H. Keister Elementary school's Keister Music Night. This event was run by Mrs. Maggie Hagy. The event was an opportunity for students and their parents to come to the school to experience a night of music making in new ways. Codey and I were assigned to third grade students, and we were to address National Core Music Standard #5. 

​     Codey and I designed an experience in which students were given hand drums, and we played "Simon Says" with drum patterns. We began with a simple idea and developed the idea into an actual experience. The purpose of our experience was to develop the students' rhythmic capabilities. Each beat Codey and I demonstrated got more difficult as the game progressed. The students were then given the opportunity to improvise their own drum beats for the group.
     While our particular group of students did not have much parental involvement in the event, engaging with the students was so exciting. Going into the event, I was very nervous. I wasn't sure if we had come up with an experience that the students would enjoy. However, my nerves quickly went away when the first group of children joined us. They were so excited to play with the drums and to play a game with them. We did have a few rambunctious students, and this was a new challenge for me. We had to take control of their behavior in a respectful and easy-to-understand fashion. In addition, we had several very shy students. In order to include them, Codey changed up our plan a bit and introduced the idea of each student getting a chance to play "Simon." This solution worked, and the students were very excited to be Simon for the entire group and to improvise their own drum patterns. 
     Our second group of students introduced a new challenge for me: students whose first language was not English. This was interesting, mostly because for each student in this group, English was a second language. Even with this challenge, the students understood the game. This group was all girls, which created an interesting dynamic shift from the previous group. These girls bonded quickly and were very good at the game. It seemed that the girls were getting bored quickly, so we switched to letting them each be Simon and improvising their own beats. This got them interested again. Sadly, by the time they were laughing and learning again, it was time for them to switch stations.
     If I were to revise this experience and repeat it, I would plan more activities. The second group showed me that some students learn and adapt quicker than others. These students need to be challenged in order to learn and enjoy their learning. We underestimated the capabilities of some of the students, so next time, I would plan several different variations of the activity in order to include all possible levels. I would also design the experience so that it's less centered on the game of Simon Says. This was a great way to introduce drumming, but as we moved up to the more difficult rhythms, this game made it difficult to assess whether the students were playing the correct beats or simply playing a drum. We were listening for accuracy, and the students were correct most of the time, but I would like to have been able to have students play individually to check their accuracy. Overall, I think that this was a successful experience, and I believe that the students enjoyed themselves and learned all the while; however, plans can always be improved, and if I were to re-do this experience, I would certainly make these few changes.

     I was successful in leading this experience in that everyone was involved, having fun, and learning at the same time. By virtue of this experience being a game, it allowed students to have fun while being productive in their learning. This experience had to be adjusted a bit to fit the new lesson plan of the class; so, we were not able to use a blackboard or whiteboard. Therefore, my students each had to take a notecard that I provided for them and write on it the rhythm that I clapped for them. Because of this, each student was engaged 100% of the time - when I clapped, they listened, then they thought about the rhythm for a moment and wrote it down. Whoever had the rhythm first raised their card to be checked by me, and whoever had the correct rhythm first won that round. This encouraged those who either didn't get the rhythm quickly enough or those who got the wrong rhythm to listen more attentively and really think through their response for the next round. I could improve my leading for next time by being even more encouraging of all students and making sure to always let them know what they've done well. I would also improve this experience for next time by including more rhythmic patterns.

My Self-Evaluation:
Musicianship: 5 points
     Each of the rhythms that I clapped for my students was accurate and an appropriate tempo for our exercise.
Leadership: 4 points
     Overall, I think that my leadership was engaging and successful, but I think I could have used just a bit more energy when speaking.
Preparation: 5 points
     I came in very prepared, with a plan, and I believe that I executed my plan successfully.
Facilitating the Experience: 9 points
     I think I did well in my pacing, flow, and transitions. I also think that I was very clear in my verbal instructions. I do, however, think that I could have given more feedback to those students who did not win the round.