Posted by jrt002
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Friday February
26, 2009 1:00pm to 1:45pm
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For my first
visit to my host school I observed a high school “Understanding
Music” class. This class is a music appreciation class designed
for high school freshman to get an idea of the music classes that
are offered at the high school and hopefully get them interested in
music at the school. For the first half of the class I observed
watched Mr. Siegel teach the class. The second half of class Mr.
Siegel and I discussed the whole purpose of the class while his
students had time to work on rhythm projects that they are doing.
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What I observed
was a class students who were very eager to learn about the subject
because the had a teacher who was very eager to educate them on the
material. Mr. Siegel's class plan was very clear to me and for the
students he outlined at the beginning of the class what they were
discussing and doing in class that day and how long they were going
to spend on each topic. The first part of class was a review of a
small part of the chapter that he felt was important for the lesson.
He selected students to read small parts of the chapter so that
they were all involved in the reading and paying attention. Since
the chapter was about tempo, rhythm, and pulse he explained terms in
the reading to the students such as tempo terms and what type of
tempo they describe. He would also ask the students what the
meaning of terms were that they had previously learned to make sure
the students were actually learning what they were reading. After
the reading Mr. Siegel then had the students listen to an excerpt of
Handel's Water Music. Before he played the music he told the
students he wanted them to listen for components of the music such
as meter and tempo. The students each have listening journals in
which they write all of these things that they observe about the
music. After listening to the music three times he gave the students
a minute to write what they heard and reminded them of the type of
things they should be writing. He then asked each of the students
about what they wrote in their journals. Each thing that the
students wrote in their journals was then elaborated on by the
teacher to provide a better understanding. The next thirty minutes
of class were spent with the students in their two person groups
working on their rhythm projects. For these projects they have to
make a short compositions that are on percussion instruments that
use different rhythms. During this time Mr. Siegel would take a few
minutes to set up the instruments that the students wanted to use if
they didn't know how to set them up and then would make suggestions
or assist the students with issues they were having. When the class
ended Mr. Siegel had the students clean up the room by putting the
instruments back where they belonged.
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What I observed
was a very organized teacher teaching a class to the best of his
ability. Mr. Siegel obviously is very comfortable with his students
because he shows it when he teaches. Although he keeps his
professionalism he connects with the students on their level by
finding things that they have in common. I feel that the class was
taught in a way that the students could grasp the information very
easily. Difficult subjects were broken down and explained to the
students when they needed even more help also. The class was an
inclusion class which I noticed because there was a student in the
class room who had a person there with her. The person who was with
her knew a lot about music and was very helpful in the class without
taking the students attention away for Mr. Siegel.
The idea of having
the project work time at the end of the class made a lot of sense to
me because by the time it was to switch to their projects the
students were obviously losing some of their focus. Although he went
around and did a really good job at keeping the students on track
and helping them he did have some students who would stop working on
their project and just fiddle around on the instruments. He did not
really have closure to his lesson either because at the end of class
when the students were leaving they were focused on leaving more
than listening to what he had to say.
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How much are
the students actually getting out of a class when they spend most of
it working on a project that had little teacher involvement and a
very open focus to it?
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What I learned
from this class was that all students have some sort of musical
talents despite their prior musical experiences. I also observed
that the students learn at different paces that each other based on
how they understand the material that is being presented to them. I
really like the idea of a music class for students that are not
musicians in the music program at the school. It was very nice
seeing how these students retained the information and applied what
they were learning in the class to their projects. Two of the
students in the class are in a band outside of the school and for
their projects and so the type of rhythms that they were playing had
more of a rock and roll feel to them compared to the students who
had no previous experience who were playing rhythms that were
similar to the music example they listened to in class. The way
that Mr. Siegel let the students access to all of the percussion
instruments in the room really let the students use their
imagination to its' fullest and be creative in ways that I feel are
necessary in musical learning.
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