Monday, May 2, 2022
Social Emotional Learning in the Music Classroom
Getting Started
My ICDP focus this year is on SEL in the music classroom. Music programs naturally embed several aspects of the social/emotion end of education, however, the effects of Covid have really hurt students' desire to participate in band/choir due to various fears. Due to these concerns, our retention and recruitment has been negatively affected and we are trying to recoup our ensembles. Data will be taken from the Conditions of Learning survey, recent ensemble numbers, and qualitative feedback from students. Adjustments will be made to my teaching by additional research and experience implementing SEL lessons.
Resources
One of the best resources I received from the Iowa Arts Summit last summer. This gives examples and language in directly connecting the SEL standards to the national music standards.
Social Emotional Learning and Music Education: Now More Than Ever
This is an article by the leading researcher of SEL and music, Scott N. Edgar, giving examples of things music educators can do in their classrooms to further reach students in their social emotional learning. He explains the connection between the musical arts and the variety of ways we implement SEL on a daily basis.
Fostering Social Emotional Learning In and Through the Arts
Some good ideas, but the best part is the resource list at the bottom which includes a shared Google Drive with even more resources.
Teaching Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Through Music
This resource center includes a wide variety of videos from music educators with ideas of how to intentionally implement SEL into the music classroom at any level.
Music Education and Social Emotional Learning: The Heart of Teaching Music (student workbook) by Scott Edgar (GIA Publications)
Reproducible pages and ideas for use in music classrooms. It is split into the goal groups of SELF, OTHERS, and DECISIONS with teacher resources (including goal, learning standard, student skill set) and student worksheets.
This is truly just a work in progress as I keep finding new resources. I have been implementing a variety of voice and choice ideas within my ensembles while trying to gather informal feedback along the way. I have found that some ideas work better with 7th graders than they do with 5th graders and vice versa. I appreciate how students are willing to give feedback on which activities they enjoy and which we need to send back to the drawing board.
It has been rather validating to discover in some of the research several ideas I have been doing already as prime examples of connecting with students. It can feel overwhelming though with the amount of information and potential ideas/examples. I need to continue in small steps with the idea of a little at a time makes a difference.
Research Findings
In attending the Iowa Fine Arts Summit last summer, I gained several resources and examples of lessons or units I could potentially use in my classroom. One that I found very intriguing and tweaked to fit my students is a unit called What’s in a Name? For our winter performance set of music, I copied a song for the 7th grade band without the title or the composer at the top. The students had a packet to be completed along the way while we sightread and started learning the song. Several times the students were asked what title they would give the piece of music. After working on the song for several rehearsals, we had a ‘big reveal’ day. I asked students what titles they came up with, why they chose those titles, and general thoughts/feelings regarding the piece in general. I also had them look at photos of composers to other songs we had played in the past along with the composer for this tune and try to guess which person it was before revealing the actual song title. It was very interesting hearing student song titles and getting overall feedback on how we approached this unit. I will be doing something similar in the future with a few changes to the overall layout.
One thing I was more purposeful in doing in general this year with all of my groups was asking for more student input. This ranged from feedback on song choices to students ranking percussion assignment preferences to voting on which songs to perform for a concert. I also played a few songs for students as potential ones to pass out and learn and received great feedback on what to proceed with versus what they were not as interested in playing. Several of these ideas were very successful and ones that I will be doing again in the future (percussion assignment preferences and working on several songs but then voting on which ones to perform). Students gave positive feedback on having more voice and choice in these selections.
Lastly, there were several smaller activities or parts within lessons that I discovered in the Summit last summer or in my other research that we implemented in class. We continually change up how we do Good Things (question of the day, would you rather, 2 truths and a lie, get to know you questionnaire, fist to five, favorite….). I have had students conduct a warm-up, help with being music librarian, and help teach new-to-band students on their instrument during rehearsals. We ranked ourselves using a preparedness chart on the marker board (sightreading - familiar - comfortable - confident - performance-ready). We also discuss perseverance and working through the hard parts of music being like tackling obstacles in life. Finally, setting small goals rather than large ones makes them less overwhelming and gives us points of celebration along the way.
Monday, November 22, 2021
Independent Reading Stations
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| Image by DavidRockDesign from Pixabay |
This year I have decided I want to work on my independent reading stations. I have looked at the quality of work and challenging task I have gave in the past to keep them engaged. I have noticed some children have a more difficult time focusing and getting work done. I want to make student's stamina stronger to be able to stay focused and engaged the whole 20 minute stations. The data I gather was observational and anecdotal data through the years. I see this as a focus because students need to learn the routines better to eliminate wondering, focus, and quality of work. My hope is this topic will enhance the support and student learning by building stamina and giving them more challenging task to then help their word work and reading scores at the end of the year. I will be using the Jim Knight book, Jen Burns, and other staff members to help me this year.
Monday, October 18, 2021
Effective Literature Circles
I am focusing on literature circles in the classroom for my ICDP. I want to focus on this area because we utilize them in the Language Arts classroom and they are not as effective as we would like to see them be. Currently, students are given directions on lit circles and expected to complete their assigned role, but there seems to be no additional learning taking place. Creating plans that will assist in student growth and using methods that have been researched should increase student engagement and understanding.
At the moment, I have one book that discusses mini lessons in lit circles. I plan to use the AEA library and experts in reading for my resources. I will know that I have improved in this area with student growth. The evidence will come from their papers/projects that show an increase in understanding.
Learning after Trauma
I am going to focus this year on trauma and school. I am finding more and more that my students are experiencing more trauma and they do not have ways to cope with it. In a day and age of technology, kids often turn to the computer to find the information and that can lead them down some very shady paths if not done correctly. By learning more about how to help trauma and coping with today's issues, I will not only be able to help my own students but I will also be able to help the population as a whole in the building.
Learning to handle trauma will help my students be more successful in their daily lives not only in my classroom but long after they are gone from these walls. Unfortunately, trauma is becoming a bigger issue each passing year. As we know now, no student has had a normal school year in awhile. The last time my 8th graders had a normal school year was in 5th grade. That was their first year with me. The rest of the kids in this building have never had a normal school year in this building.
Literacy Footprints with Guided Reading
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I will be doing my ICDP on using the Literacy Footprints Kit so that I can be a better with Guided Reading teacher.
Being consistent and more intentional about using the kits will hopefully allow our students to make more growth in Guided Reading.
I will be more intentional about taking notes during Guided Reading groups, I will be more consistent about seeing each of my groups and I will be intentional about using shared reading strategies. I believe this will allow students to grow.
My plan to use some of the shared reading ideas that we learned from Jennifer Burns will also be beneficial and allow our students even more growth. EK now has the goal of getting students to a level C by the end of the school year. Last year our EK data showed that we had only 34% reading at a level C. The goal is to use the kits for the entire time we are doing our Guided Reading groups .
My research will be focused on improving student achievement by using the Literacy Footprints kit to improve student achievement and prepare them for kindergarten. I will also use strategies in Jan Richardson's book in conjunction with the kits as well as shared reading strategies from Jennifer Burns. Using the books "The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading and "The Next Step Forward in Word Study and Phonics", the Literacy Footprints kits and information from Jennifer Burns will improve my teaching.
I will know growth was made by using our leveling information from last year.
To be successful with implementation of all strategies our leveling data will improve from last year to the end of this year.
Alternative Assssments
For my ICDP I want to learn more about tying the essential elements to alternate assessment tests and how these assessments can be illustrated in my student's iep goals. Teresa Kaloupek is the master of this, and I'd like to learn more on how to tie these all together. We give these alternate assessments, and currently they seem to not reflect the topics we teach or progress is not reflected on student iep goals. When essential elements and alternate assessment are used together, they can drive our iep goals for our students. Current practice leaves these three pieces jumbled and confused.
My learning into the essential elements has been progressing this past year as I've taken the elementary life skills sped position, and I have more to learn on how to adapt these to students. I've worked on looking at curriculum, student needs, and progression for teaching. More work needs done in this area, as well as incorporating alternate assessment into this mix. My learning will come from studying with Teresa as well as researching trainings from the internet.
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