Week 8

This week we learned why it is important to use musical instruments in education. We learned the different ways in which the instruments help the student's learning and development. We also learned a new note on the recorder, which is the F#. We also talked about the benefits of creativity to children, especially when incorporating music into the classroom.

The benefits of creativity can range across many different spectrums. For some it can help them learn better than just listening to the facts spoken and for others it can create a sense of self that they may not have had before. In music students can express their emotions without retribution from others. Music can help children use their imaginations more over time as well as learn a new and exciting release for their feelings and thoughts. Music can help children understand the use of composition in everyday life and encourage them to write songs and pieces of their own to show their family.
For my multicultural project I will be doing a unit on Ireland.


Emilie

Self Evaluation: Week 6

This week we taught our lessons to half of the class so that we could get them all done in the three hours. I think my presentation went pretty well despite a few mental blocks from cutting a different things from the lesson. I sang in tune and in my head voice very well. I also kept the tempo of the song well; the phrasing of the song was more difficult than some but was no problem for me to figure out. I was prepared for teaching the lesson and did not use any extra materials or instruments in the lesson. I captured the classes attention and worked on sequencing the steps of my lesson according to the time allotted to me. Toward to end of the lesson, the flow got a little off due to the cuts that I made to the lesson to meet the time constraint. I should have gone over the French words of the song a few more times to ensure that the students were pronouncing them correctly.
What I found most difficult about presenting my lesson was getting over the nerves of teaching for the first time in a school setting in front of a group of my peers. Though I asked them to, the "students" did not sing after me when I introduced the English words to the song. I also could have had the dance the students performed involve t circles which moved opposite each other on the repeated phrases of the song. This is one of the things that I did not do well during the lesson. The "students" did very well at learning the dances and words of the song. I believe I did well at keeping the attention of the students and motivating them to perform the song many times.If I could do this lesson again I would change the way the dance is performed. I would also work more on the French words with the "students" to improve their pronunciation of the words.

Emilie

Week 5 Flew By

This week in class we worked on our lesson plans for our first teaching presentation of the semester. We worked on the lesson plan in groups of three with each of the groups having a leader who helped the other two with any problems with their lessons. We looked at the criteria of the lesson presentation and were told the consequences of missing a day of the lesson presentations. We also worked on the recorder more on Friday. We learned the note "D" on Friday as well as the formula for the major scale.
We learned the way of writing a lesson plan last week but this week we were taught by each other as well as our professor. We worked together to perfect our lesson plans while we also thought of different dances which would work well with our song. We also looked at the criteria of the lesson plan presentation which included many things from the flow of the lesson to the musicality of us as teachers. The musicality refers to our voices and the pitch with which we are singing. On Friday we worked with the recorder again, learning a new note "D". After learning the new note we looked at the formula for writing a major scale which is that the 3rd and 4th notes as well as the 7th and 8tyh notes must be a half step apart.
It is important for us, a students, to learn the fundamentals of music so that we can understand the difference between the music which is appropriate for young students and that which is not.. It is important for us, a future educators, to learn the fundamentals of music so that we can use this information to teach our respective subjects with an intonation of music which can help students who learn differently. The use of the recorder will remind us, as students, that not everything is easy for others. This puts the abilities of others into perspective for those of us who do not struggle with musical concepts and skills.
It is important for children to learn the concepts and skills which are written into our lesson plans so that they understand the different ways in which music can touch the lives of students like them. The use of recorders in classrooms will help with the psychomotor skills of young students as well as those of older students, especially those in high school. It can be important for older students to learn the way a lesson plan is written so that they are able to understand why the music classroom is structured the way that it is.


Emilie

My Music History

My name is Emilie Mann and I am a Junior at Northern Illinois University. My musical background goes back to riding to visit my grandmother in Indiana and listening to the radio when I was younger. When I was in fourth and fifth grade I was taught how to play the recorder and I was in choir with the other kids who decided to give up recess to learn how to sing. at the end of fifth grade we were allowed to try instruments both for the band and for the orchestra. By the end of that day I had decided that I wanted to play either the flute or the alto saxophone. In sixth grade I started in the band with the clarinet just until my saxophone was ready. I have been playing the saxophone now for almost ten years. In middle school I also sang in the choir and by the end of my eighth grade year I was singing solos with some of my best friends. In high school I sang in the middle choir for two years before auditioning into the Chamber Choir, the highest choir besides the Show Choir. During that time I was also playing in the Symphonic Band and often spliting my time between the Chamber Choir and the band. I was also spending most of my time in the after school bands like the Marching Band, the Pep Band, and the Jazz Band. While I was in Choir and Band, we went to contests and often were scored highly receiving either a I or a II in all of the contests but a few. For the choir we sang a wide range of songs in many different languages. Among the languages we sang in Hebrew, Swahili, Latin, German, and Spanish.
In the first two days of classes, I found the activities refreshing since most my classes are serious and would not allow us to act like children. I thought the name learning game was a great idea especially when working with younger children, as I plan to do. I also found the activity we played on the first day a good way to make younger children comfortable when they are first starting school. The way we learned the activities was also well thought out and made the memorization of the songs easy. The use of movement in the song also would help focus the children and release their excess energy. These activities could help to keep the children from fidgeting during the regular class sessions while also helping them focus on the tasks at hand.
Emilie