Ottobine Elementary Observation #5

Instructors Perspective

Keeping students organized and focused

Continued familiarity with classical music through motions
Reviewing movement patterns/phrasing
Introducing new movement patterns
Relation of movements to lyrics
Frustrated with students not paying attention
Spend time separating students
Review previous material
Play CD without other voices so students can sing alone
Sing along with them when they dont know the music
Asks questions about the piece what does he want for Christmas
Punishes and reprimands bad behavior
Allow students to create rhythms
Try to keep all students engaged in material

Learners Perspective

Slow movements getting better, but still boring

Talking to other students playing with things around the room
Excited to sing song, rushing through words dancing to rhythm
Unable to sing without teacher singing along
As long as the words are right, the song is right
Why arent we doing anything right now
I want to do the motions too, why do we only get to watch?
All my friends are talking so I want to talk too
Reading rhythms- Exciting
Why dont we do anything new?

Content/music

Warm up movement sequence (same as previous 4 classes)

o Phrasing
o Classical music exposure
o Attention focus
New movement activity
o Watch before imitating
o Going phrase by phrase (micro)
o Putting it all together (macro)

o Correlating word meanings to movements

Review song Under the Tree
o Without sing a long track to encourage students to sing
o Singing along with students to help remind them of words
Review song I want a kitty for a present
o Asking questions about the song
o Clarify format of call and response style
o Highlight words that the students sing
o Give several run throughs to help familiarize lyrics
Heart Chart
o Allow students to make up rhythms
o Read rhythms while playing on instruments
o Point out similarities in patterns

Milieu

Sitting in rows
Fairly clean
Focus on the smart board very little change in location after first activities
Hard to maintain student focus
o Very tense atmosphere
o A lot of distracted learners
o Negative reinforcement
Instruments off to the side not in use
Point system for good behavior , two point taken away
o Talking
o Touching things
o Moving around
o Not paying attention
Singing together but often with inaccurate pitches or lyrics
Excited to participate but not given many opportunities
Lots of down time in between activities
o Mostly attentive during breaks- waiting patiently
Questions are discouraged

Pedagogical Strategies

Movement warmup with classical music same as before(establish continuity)

Connect movements to musical phrases
Expose different genres of music
Listening to and singing along with recordings to help accuracy
Showing new material before students engage in it (doing movement
sequence alone)

Segmenting the movement sequence to make it easier to understand

Asking questions pertaining to the song (What does the little boy want for

Christmas?)
Heart chart rhythm reading
Steady beat like a heart
Allowing students to create the rhythms
Assigning ta and ta-ti to rhythms while clapping
Negative reinforcement for off task behavior
Selective attention to continue class without too many disruptions

The techniques used this week were very similar to two week before. There was
more negative reinforcement and in turn a lot more time was taken away from class
to correct behaviors. The only new technique was showing the movement sequence
before the students were allowed to learn it. This allows for them to learn it properly
with the teacher and to avoid mistakes later on. I think this is a good approach but I
dont like that she then stopped the students from participating in the movements
when they were excited to do so. I think there are ways to include them at the
beginning while still ensuring accuracy.
Questions

How do you decide when an issue or distraction needs to be addressed

and when it is okay to ignore a student?

In what way could you have included the class during the first introduction

of the movement sequence?

What would help to minimize down time between activities? Are there
games or cross over material between the subject that could be used?

The class today was very poorly behaved. It was blatantly apparent that the teacher
was annoyed and frustrated with her class. Because of this much time was spent
correcting behaviors and in between activities. I think by incorporating more hands
on activities these higher energy students would have other places to put their

energy and be less of a distraction. I would like to see simple transitions like
clapping the rhythm of the song they just sang while the teacher is pulling up the
heart chart to do rhythms. I also think that having the students stand up or move
around more would help with focus. It is easy to become distracted when behind 3
rows of other students for 40 minutes. I think these students need more variety in
their lessons. The material she is attempting to teach them is valuable and
presented clearly but the students arent always focused enough to get the value
out of it.