Phil Kleven Week 9

The 9th week has come and gone. This was supposed to be the last week in my first placement, but I'm fortunate to be staying in my current school through the end of the semester. I've learned a lot so far, and I'm happy to be continuing with the same teacher and students. Compared to last week, this week was pretty calm. Our concerts at the high school are done, and now we are preparing new music for the next two performances. I can tell the students are starting to lose focus and are starting to stress about upcoming AP tests and finals. Spring break will be a nice time for them to recharge. I'm still busy as ever at the middle school. We have a concert next Tuesday and a contest next Saturday. The stress of these performances has really helped the kick the students (and instructors... haha) into high gear.

This week, I had the opportunity to work with students in small group sectionals by playing along with them. This has been extremely helpful at the middle and high schools, and my rapport with students has grown because of it. When we work in sectionals, the students see me as a leader working towards the same goal as them, rather than a boss barking commands at them all the time. I allowed different students to lead the sectional, and gave them time to make suggestions for improvement. This setting gave me insight into the power of student lead activities. They took ownership of their performance abilities and worked together to improve the sound of our group.

I also learned a new strategy this week as I introduced new music - less is more. When starting private students on new music, I tend to give them an overview of the entire song. This doesn't work with 70 kids in a class. My cooperating teacher suggested working on 8-10 measures of music and then stopping the group. This strategy helped me give simple commands and gave students short opportunities to practice them. We played one phrase of music and fixed it, and then went to the next and did the same thing. Soon we had roughly 30 measures of the song under control, and it was beginning to sound like music.

In the week ahead, I hope to gain insight into the mental and physical preparation for contests. We bring the middle school students to their contest in the next week, and this is a new experience for me and for some of the students. They aren't competing against other schools, but against themselves. We  will be scored by a panel of judges in the areas of rhythm, tuning, articulation, and stage presence, to name a few. This type of contest helps students see the reason for all our preparation, and how we are working towards a common goal.

Given the nature of the upcoming week, I chose to focus on standard 7 - assessment. "The competent teacher understands and uses appropriate formative and summative assessments for determining student needs, monitoring student progress, measuring student growth, and evaluating student outcomes. The teacher makes decisions driven by data about curricular and instructional effectiveness and adjusts practices to meet the needs of each student". With our big assessments coming up, I will be able to monitor student progress, measure their growth, and see the effectiveness of my instruction. Teaching music is truly unique - we put our students on a stage for their summative assessments. Parents, administrators, students, and community members all come to watch. It can be frightening for some of the students, but I believe this shared experience is what creates friendships between students that last though high school, college, and beyond.

Goals for the upcoming week:
- Have a great middle school contest and concert
- Finish edTPA
- Remain focused for remaining concerts
- Practice excellent teaching