SANDRA WANG
Practicum
20 April 2017, P1 DL, 10.25 am
Strengths of Lesson
Teacher started by discussing class rules. This includes the use of 6 inch voice and raising hands when pupils have questions. She gave very clear instructions and modelled the expected behaviour. She also spelt out clearly the consequences. Explanation was rightly pitched to pupil profile. Pupils were focussed during the discussion and showed that they understood.
Walt was to sing a song “Simama Ka”. Teacher talked about the origin of the song and the
Swahili language in which it would be sung. She encouraged pupils to appreciate the song even though they may not be familiar with the language. At one point, teacher did well by engaging a pupil’s point about language and encouraged the class to sing in languages other than their MTL.
Teacher modelled the singing for pupils. She has a very good voice and sang melodiously.
Pupils followed and sang enthusiastically. They picked up well and even when teacher removed the lyrics, pupils could easily sing the song.
To enthuse them further, teacher played a game with them called the Magic Train where she acted as an engine and pupils acted as carriages. She encouraged pupils to sing loudly and clearly and linked their singing to energise the engine. Pupils were observed to enjoy the activity and sang well in response to teacher’s story. The game continued with clapping actions to emphasise the rhythm of the song. Teacher was skilful and creative in her approach to let pupils learn various aspects of music through a game.
There was very good pupil engagement. Teacher projected a caring image but was at the same time firm in ensuring that pupils do not disrupt the lesson unnecessarily. She was also encouraging. Classroom tone was very positive and pupils were enjoying the lesson.
Possibilities for Improvement (if any)
As teacher felt the need to set classroom expectations on behaviour, she took quite a long time in going over the rules. The lesson tempo was thus quite slow at the start and actual discussion on walt started only after 10.32 am.
In enforcing the 6 inch voice rule, teacher will need to exercise some flexibility. Pupils are just exuberant and over enthusiastic and tend to shout out their responses. As such teacher need to balance the need for rules and encouraging spontaneity and enthusiasm.
It was observed that teacher did not find it easy to be consistent.
In relating to the class about Africa and Kenya, it may be better to show on the slide a world map and point to Africa (in relation to Singapore) and pictures of Kenya rather than attempting to scribble on the board.
T3W3
12 July, P2 RP, 7.50 am
Strengths of Lesson
Teacher started the lesson joyfully with the Welcome song. As the piano was not available for use, she introduced a new musical instrument to the pupils: a ukulele.
Teacher encouraged thinking by asking pupils how it compared to a guitar. She used ice cream sticks to pick pupils to answer the questions. Pupils gave some good observation and shared their views willingly.
Teacher played the ukulele while pupils sang the welcome song. Teacher was alert and when she observed several pupils not singing, she understood their concern and showed the lyrics. As part of the activity, pupils went around shaking hands with their classmates to welcome them. Activity was joyful and good for tuning in.
Teacher leveraged on teachable moments to talk to pupils about character. She encouraged them to be purposeful in all they do. When she returned the quiz papers, she commended pupils with full marks but also encouraged pupils who did not get full marks to improve.
Teacher took some time to review the quiz questions.
Possibilities for Improvement (if any)
Teacher indicated to pupils a few times that she was running behind time for the day’s lesson. If this were the case, my suggestion is not to take too much time with tuning in activities and to cut out some activities eg either do the ukulele questions or do the shaking hands activity but need not do both.
When reviewing the quiz, teacher should not squeeze the diagram when explaining the do re mo re do question into one small corner of the board. Use the wide space so that the difference between the pitch sounds can be better illustrated.
T3W7
7 August, P2 CA, 8.15 am
Strengths of Lesson
Teacher reviewed with class their learning from the song they had just sang in terms of the music notes. She also conducted a short quiz to check for understanding. Teacher used the ice cream stick method to select pupils randomly to answer her questions.
Teacher has shown improvement compared to last lesson walkthrough with clear illustration of the notes this time on the board. She engaged the pupils on their reasoning on what the dots represented.
Pupils were very excited about singing of National Day songs. For the song “Heart” ("Because it's Singapore"), pupils were observed to be actively singing and dancing. They were not inhibited or shy. Teacher also joined the pupils in the singing and dancing.
Teacher gave feedback that while the dancing was good, the singing was not as good. She then proceeded to get pupils to sing without movement
Teacher took the opportunity to reflect on how the song made the pupils feel. She also tried to get the pupils to contrast “Heart” to the song, “Home”. After pupils sang the song, “Home”, teacher got them to reflect on their feelings about the two songs. Pupils were able to express feelings of being happy, sad and touched.
Teacher proceeded to explain the lyrics and story behind the song “Home”. She was able to engage pupils on the story behind the song.
Despite the pupils being active and vocal, teacher showed good classroom management without being too oppressive. She engaged Daniel and Travis satisfactorily.
Possibilities for Improvement (if any)
Teacher may want to improve further on classroom routines to ensure pupils take turns to speak.
With regards to the pupils’ insistence that teacher promised to show them a video, teacher would need to reflect on what caused the misunderstanding and if there is a need to improve communications.
Post-Ob Reflections
T4W1, P2 DL
1. What has worked well?
1.1 ‘My Body Is A Note’ game
This game worked well for a few reasons- I was able to identify how certain students derived their answers, and more importantly, I was able to repeatedly model how the correct answer is derived i.e. after they ‘answered’, I would check their answers by counting from ‘do’ and moving up. Because the class would wish to know if they got the answer right (since they have ‘invested’ by turning their thumbs up/down, they would be watching as I counted.
1.2 ‘Plickers’ game
Although we were running out of time, I wanted to spend some time on this after going through ‘My Body Is A Note’ because I felt the students needed to apply the counting to the actual notes (i.e. how we see it in everyday life). The students showed significant improvement in getting the right answers.
1.3 ‘The Sound of Music’ clip to introduce the pitches of Solfege
I felt that it would be good to use a video to get the students excited about learning the pitches of the solfege as 2DL tends to be more reticient in singing as compared to some of my other classes. When I played the video, some students actually sang along- to me, that meant that they were engaged and interested! (:
2. What did not work so well?
2.1 Unexpected Time-Wasters (prior to actual lesson content)
-P2 DL ended their class late (which has not happened before!) as students were finishing up a worksheet.
-The students forgot about my rule to ‘go to the toilet before/after music lesson’ (because we only have 1hr a week for music and we do many things within the 1hr) and 2 students begged to go to the toilet, which required me to address the issue with the class. This led to the class taking a longer time to reach the room.
-I did not know that the students would be reshuffled and all the groups would be changed, which affected ClassDojo. Because the students were very invested in their points, I felt the need to address their concern instead of brushing it aside to continue with my lesson. This also led to a longer time taken.
2.2 Hand Clap as a signal to keep quiet
This game ‘My Body Is A Note’ was just introduced in T4W10, and I noticed that it got the students very excited. Therefore, I decided to introduce a routine (i.e. the clapping of hands) this week so as to remove the need for me to scold the students every few turns. However, I realize that the hand clapping might be too inaudible over the level of noise that the students were making.
2.3 General Class Discipline
Frankly, the ClassDojo app works with 2DL like a charm- so when the groups were reshuffled and I could not really use ClassDojo for the lesson (usually I would intermittently flash it on screen, or even just let the students hear the sound of points being added/removed, which would keep them on their toes and on their best behavior. Thus, the inability to use that today, coupled with the excitement of the game, made discipline more difficult.
3. What might I do differently the next time?
3.1 I would allocate more time with regards to the ‘administration’ section if it is the first week of the new term to cater for the potential issues as mentioned in section 2.1
3.2 I would change the hand clapping to a more piercing sound e.g. whistle.
4. Follow-up action
4.1 Change the students as per their reshuffled groups and add points accordingly so I can continue to use ClassDojo
4.2 Settle the parental access to ClassDojo by next week so that parents can see what their children are learning in music.
4.3 Replace the hand clapping with a more piercing sound e.g. whistle and practice it with the class
5. Other comments
I would love to have more routines that I can set in class. However, I am not sure what other routines would be helpful… suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated!! Also, any other advice on how I can improve would be very helpful :D Thank you!
General Comments By RO
1. Keep on refocusing the lesson- although the students are asking questions that they are interested in, it wastes time and the teacher will be unable to complete the lesson.
Examples of what I can say: "Everyone, hold on to your questions okay? We have to carry on with the lesson because I have so many interesting things to do with you!"
2. Take note of the exact few questions that most students get wrong- use the feedback to teach better.
3. Provide VISUALS especially when giving instructions e.g. Game Instructions
For P2s, ~2 steps per slide with pictures
4. Immediately stop and deal with the 1 person who is talking- make use of points
5. Say negative things in a positive way- "I want to see...", not "I don't want to see..."
Thoughts: Is it true all the time? Would there be times where it would be helpful to provide a negative example as well? I.e. What you want to see AND what you don't want to see?
Strengths:
Class Dojo-
Use of class dojo to excite pupils
Point systems-very effective as pupils will behave, immediate points given
Good rapport with children
Children enjoy music lesson
Lesson:
-Revised the solfege on the board- good form of recap
-mat want kids to sit in circles around the room. This way kids can face each other to discuss.
-After instructions on the cards, may want to let kids know that they can discuss with their group members before deciding on the answer.
-show groups that are wrong the mistakes so that they learn from it
-group activity would be good for the kids
-very good lesson on recaping the solfege-effective use of ict (Active learning)
Plickers-effective in giving immediate feedback-formative assessment
AFIs:
Switch off front lights
May want to spell out the off task
May not want to dwell so much on class dojo
Instead of getting questions from kids, good to set the task