Relationships with Students

I am learning about Evidence-based teaching this year.  I believe it is the similar to performance-based learning which we have been studying and working on since the days of Mastery Connect.  Evidence-based learning has many elements to it, and one of the most important elements of it is teacher-student relationships.   To forge excellent relationships with your students it takes time, energy, patience, and care.  You need to show them that you will be willing to go the extra mile for them, and yet you also need to have the highest of expectations for their success.

It seems that the growth mindset works for this concept.  It may be difficult at first to imagine that you can care for and know every student that you work with.  It may even seem overwhelming at first.  However, it takes perseverance, it takes asking your students tons of questions, it takes understanding where each one of them comes from, and it takes making decisions based on where they are, not where you think perhaps they should be.  It takes bringing them from the place they are at, to the next place, or to the place after that, wherever that may be.

I remember early in my career I came to see my principal about some behavior issues with one of my students.  He would just take things from my desk, without asking.  He was surly, and arrogant.  I complained to my principal about this, and he said words to me that I have remembered and thought about to this day.  "It is our job to take our students from wherever they are, to the next place, no matter where they begin.  It is not our job to judge where they begin, but instead to help them move forward from that place."  I have lived by that mantra with my teaching, since then, and I have often caught myself beginning to judge, but take a deep breath, wait and think again.  We must show that we care for our students first, and then we have to apply pressure to them, which is the same as having expectations of them, but without a sense of judgement as to where we think they should be.  This will only bring us frustration as teachers, and this will turn into apathy, aloofness, and eventually burnout.  My principal from the early nineties has helped me stay away from all these things, and I hope this will keep me going for as long as I am healthy, happy and well-adjusted enough to teach music, drama, and all the other things we teach in middle school!

Care and pressure, patience, empathy and seeing a student as a whole person are the most important elements of forging great relationships with your students.

Exceeds ideas

I have recently been told that Exceeds options need to be ONLY about the standard that is being assessed, and that it is not an exceeds if the student goes to the next year's standards to push himself to a higher level.  This seems to me like a very linear way to examine the idea of Exceeds.  It occurred to me in our discussions in our meeting with other arts related teachers, that couldn't exceeds be the way a student might take the standard and apply it in a different way towards another standard.  Here is an example of what I am talking about.  A student does a project in printmaking in art.  Then the student has a different project to do which addresses a different standard, such as creating a sculpture.   The student takes what she has learned in printmaking and on her own uses that skill while she is also creating a sculpture.  This is an exceeds, I believe, because it is a creative and new way of applying one skill to another newer skill.

Another example of this might be that a student has learned all the notes of the treble and bass staff.  What if they took that knowledge and applied it to a composition standard, and learned how to play a piece that they have composed as well.  Why are we not allowing school to mirror the world we live in more readily?  Just because it is too hard to calibrate?  Please!  If a student wishes to take an idea or a concept to its furthest level, it should not only be allowed, but also encouraged.  If we don't mirror life, then what message are we trying to send to our children about lifelong learning?

Also, why are we so rigid about next year's standards and the year after that?  If a student has met the standards in sixth grade, then can't that student just move on to the standards of another grade?  And why is that NOT possibly exceeds?  Why are we giving students a message that going beyond, is only staying at their grade level, when if they are truly gifted, they should very much be encouraged to exceed the standard by going to another grade level to do it.  Just my two cents for the third week of school!

Formative Assessment

What is formative assessment?  It is checking on understanding, it is helping students see where they are making mistakes and putting them on a more solid path to success with the standards.  It is creating "Do Nows" at the beginning of class to see where everyone is in the process, it is creating "Exit Tickets" to see how people have progressed through the class.  It is re-directing, re-evaluating, re-grouping, before, during and after larger assessments.  It is discussions in class about the material that has been presented, or about readings that you have been doing with your students.  It is homework, and how that relates to the standards, domains, and other possible important ideas.  It is anything that a teacher uses to help students along the way towards success, towards grasping concepts, towards realizing their persevering selves in the long run.

As a music teacher, I am constantly using formative assessments in my classroom.  I have a "Do Now" on the board every day.  I give students time in class to create rhythm pieces, or create songs, or practice pieces that are from books on the piano.  As they are working, I go around and check on their work, and this is formative assessment.  I work on rhythm combinations that we clap or speak out loud, and when they are doing these, I listen for those who are not getting it, or who are not clapping or speaking the rhythms along with us.  I ask for volunteers to do rhythm solos, and this helps my students to try out their combinations by themselves and perform these for the class without the high stakes of knowing it is for a "grade".  However, if we are really using the formula of standards based reporting correctly, there really is nothing BUT formative assessment, because the end result is no longer to have a "final grade", the end result is for the students to have reached and mastered the standard.  So- in "PBL" as it has been named, all assessment should really be understood as "formative" rather than a "final" or "summative" assessment, otherwise we are not helping the students to reach their potential in every subject.  As there is always more music to learn, more rhythms to play, more ideas about music to "master" there will be no end to "formative assessment" in music class at York Middle School!

Here we are reading and learning at Gma's house, formative assessment is the best way!! ⇪

I took the summer off from my blog, and I read, and taught classes at the recreation department, and I spent several days at the beach, hiking, on an island, and enjoying the time off to regroup, revitalize, re-evaluate, and re-visualize my world.  It was a great time, and it is always a little bittersweet to begin the intensity of the schedule again.  I am excited always, though, about the new school year, and I have students I have had all last spring so I know them, and already have a relationship with all of them from the spring before.  It helps to hit the ground running, because I already know them all so well.

This year our school is thinking about three very important ideas:  Formative assessment, feedback, and differentiation.  In the next few posts, I will be blogging about these three subjects, as a way to think about my teaching at the beginning of this year.  At the end of the school year I will then blog again about these three subjects, and see how my thoughts have metamorphisized. (maybe not a word, but you know what I mean.)  I look forward to this exercise and to sharing my thoughts with the reader, which may only be me, but will be helpful in moving my teaching to a more advanced level.

I am excited about the new year, and this is all I want to say for today, but will write again after the year begins to see where we are.  Happy Fall everyone, and happy Labor Day Weekend!

Reflection on personal SMART goal 2016-2017

Final Reflection on my personal goal

I have always seen music as a vehicle to teach every subject, from math to social studies and history and art.  I do not always agree with my colleagues, who believe, most of them, that music is a language that should be taught, and taught exclusively, as a separate and distinct subject, without combining it or connecting it to anything else.  That makes sense, perhaps, (although I still don’t agree) in a vocal performance class or an instrumental class, but in a class that has been titled “general music” it is unfair to believe that music is unconnected to all the other subjects, or should be separated from them.  

I share my opinion here, because although all my SMART goals this year reflect my opinion on this subject, and reflect the school-wide initiatives of asking and answering questions, and reading and writing across the curriculum, I have felt pressure, intense and uncomfortable even at times, from my colleagues, who believe I am “diluting” my program.  They do not support in any way my projects that include writing about Aaron Copland’s life and his role and requirements of a musician, despite the fact that it is one of the Maine learning results.  They do not support my longtime, ever-changing, complex and all-encompassing opera project, that creates a place for many types of learners, and allows creativity to work hand in hand with music technique, and allows for cooperation with a partner, and for imagination as well as history, drama, art, dance and language, both English and musical literacy.  I do not complain about this, but I feel pulled and splintered at times, and wonder where my focus SHOULD be.  I believe I am exciting and engaging my students, and I believe they are getting what they need to be successful in the next years of their classes, both in music and other disciplines.  On the other hand, in several meetings in the last many years teaching at this school, I have been challenged and, recently, berated about my work in these areas.  I used to do so much more writing, I want to tell them, I used to have music journals that I read closely, and graded on their thoughtfulness and use of musical language.  I do not have the time now, and I let those go, because I was pressured into doing more music theory, note learning, and rhythm assignments.  

I share all this because I want to know from the administration where their philosophy begins and where I can find a more comfortable place in my work.  I want to be continuing the support that I believe is essential to the other disciplines, because if a student can write about music, that student can write about anything.  I want to continue doing dance projects that utilize a student’s imagination and get them moving around the room, and I want to continue having students work together on creating a story that could be turned into a musical play.  I don’t want, on the other hand, to create animosity with my colleagues, and I don’t want to be in a confrontational place with any of them.  I am hoping there is some kind of happy medium where music teachers feel so secure about their work that they can see the connections between what they do and what all the other teachers in this school do.

Aaron Copland Essay another one for your comparison..

A few things that contributed to Aaron Copland’s success as a musician are when he went to concerts in places such as New York City and Brooklyn. Also, when he learned he was a naturally gifted musician, he might have thought that he would be a great composer when he was older.

Some things that Aaron Copland had to do to get to be a composer was to try really hard to do his best and to impress and teachers or composers that he saw around. Also, he practiced really hard to become a famous composer.

Some things that people did along the way to help Copland is his parents (after a lot of begging) let him have music lessons. Another person who helped him is Nadia because she taught him a lot of things he had to know when he was a composer. Koussevitzky always supported Aaron Copland. Aaron Copland’s sister taught him how to play the piano when he was around the age of 12.

Those are some things that contributed to Aaron Copland’s success as a musician and people who helped him come to be a composer. They encouraged him throughout his life. When he was older he helped encourage many other young composers with their music career. He was a great inspiration to many people. Something that I think that I have been successful with is in soccer. I think this because I am pretty good at defence and goalie. Ella Hickey says, “You can play any position that the coaches put you in on and your best positions are defence and goalie.”

Changes to Aaron Copland Project from last year

Last year I used information that was written for middle school students, but it was clearly not accessible to my fifth graders.  I re-wrote it, so that it would be in language that my students could understand.  I also re-wrote the questions that went with the information.  These questions scaffolded better the essential question in the end, that the essay should be based on.  I introduced rubrics, like the funnel, the hamburger and the RACE model which the students were already familiar with.  They knew how to create a five paragraph essay already using these models, and they knew how to use information in a way that would not cause them to plagiarize.  They have learned how to quote from the text, and they have learned already how to back up their statements with details and quotes from the text.

Students this year have much more experience with the informative writing than they ever had before, so this work so much better than last year.  They just had not had any practice in informative writing last year and they weren't familiar with any of the rubrics or important mnemonic devices for their organization.  All of the organizational tools they are using work perfectly with my project on Aaron Copland.

I spent the first day when I was introducing the project discussing the idea of "influences".  I had students discuss the meaning of the word, and talk about the influences that a musician might have which would cause them to be successful.  Some influences might be places or situations or ideas, and some of the influences might be people.  Sometimes we need help with success, but success can never happen without essential things that we would do to help ourselves, like practice, and perseverance, and listening to our audiences.

I would check the first answers to the first nine questions, and that made a difference when the essay was going to be written.  I could make sure that all the answers were correct before they used these notes to create their essay.  I re-iterated several times the importance of solid, longer, more detailed answers to the first nine questions to make the essay that much easier to write and better for us to read.  I also re-iterated the importance of answering the original essential question, "What contributed to the success of Aaron Copland?" not just taking the answers to the questions and putting them into the essay.  Creating questions that support the final essay is also a key element in the success of the students.  This made a huge difference from last year as well.

This goes to show you that if you introduce writing in all the classes, not just ELA, it will always help students become better writers all the way around.  You can also assess the standard in music as well as have students write using the correct style and rules without taking that much away from the importance of the music standard.  I would like to not be torn in my pursuit of excellence across the curriculum, and I would like my music colleagues to understand the essential nature of writing in the discipline, not just teaching notes, rhythms and other disciplinary literacy standards.  More on this in another blog!!