Note: Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.
On April 9th, I completed a practicum at Northwest High School with Mr. Wheat. The school day consisted of two piano classes and a music technology course. In the piano class, students were preparing for a recital, so they were just practicing their pieces for the majority of the class time. I walked around and listened to students through headphones and then provided some bits of feedback to them. It was cool to see how learning in class could be easily differentiated between students – some were playing pieces by Chopin or Gershwin, others played pieces they had composed, and some students played from a basic beginner piano book. Mr. Wheat mentioned that it is okay to just say good job to a student and not give critique because sometimes the student is not in the right mood to talk about it further and it is good to just hear a compliment sometimes. He was also excellent at gauging where each student was; he would ask questions like, “On a scale from 1-10 how are you all doing (show me using your fingers)?” and “How squishy are you feeling about this project?” In one of the piano classes, they had a jam session where they used a chord chart. Again, differentiation was key – if a student just wanted to play the bass note of the chord they could and if they wanted to improvise the whole time, they had the freedom to do that too. Mr. Wheat also did smaller group assessment during this jam time. For example, he would tell students who wore a certain color t-shirt to play. The jam session was fun, engaging, and allowed students to be creative and still comfortable. In the music technology course, students were working on a project called “New Skills” where each student co-designed a project with Mr. Wheat that would help them identify and fill in gaps in their musical skill set. The students would scatter around the music hallway and in practice rooms and work on their individual projects. I went around to different groups and asked what they were doing, listened to some of their work, and gave them ideas and feedback. You could tell this project stretched the students’ abilities because they did not enjoy it as much. I was amazed at their abilities to write songs, play multiple instruments, and use recording technology. A lot of the feedback I gave them was on how to make the music more interesting by changing up the harmonies and varying rhythmic ideas. Overall, doing a whole day practicum at Northwest High School taught me how strenuous, yet exciting, teaching is. The teacher always has to be on their toes and thinking of ideas and ways to help their students learn best according to their needs and abilities. The teacher also had to have a wide breadth of musical skills to be flexible and differentiate according to each individual students’ interest. It was a great experience and showed me what a music classroom that was not band, orchestra, or choir could look like. Comments are closed.
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Davina MiawHere I will share experiences of my engagement in community. Archives
December 2019
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