In Ontario, elementary report card marks and comments are due this next week. Sometimes, students feel they shouldn’t have to do anymore work because it won’t “count”. Education isn’t just about what counts for marks though!
The last three weeks of school are the perfect time for reflection activities. One of the Overall Curriculum expectations in the Arts is actually about reflection and growth, but that is often an easy worksheet after a performance, presentation, test or assignment. It can give some insight into students, but often doesn’t directly impact your teaching.
What if you could have students reflect on their year, and use it to help you reflect on yourself, and plan for next year?
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This double sided end of year activity includes questions about how students will consume music over the summer, as well as what they enjoyed this past year and what they’re looking forward to next year.
Of course, we can’t always just eliminate what students didn’t like! However, if you notice a re-occurring idea, then maybe it’s time for you to reflect.
Self reflection is important at all stages of our career. Maybe you’ve done a particular unit every year for the last 10 years, but you notice students don’t seem to be as engaged as they used to be. It’s okay to be critical of yourself as long as you’re using that new knowledge for change.
When I started my new position in January, I knew the students hadn’t had much consistency with their music education. I was all revved up to get them up to grade level and had a plan! Of course, I was starting with an assessment though.
That assessment failed because they didn’t listen to instructions and knew how to “cheat” at Google Slides. Oh well, I learned and made changes to the Slides for next time.
But I plowed ahead with my plan, and week by week, less and less work was getting completed and fewer students were participating. Behaviour problems were happening. We were getting further an further behind my plan.
My plan.
These are grade 7 and 8 students. For the grade 8s, most (if not all), were not going to take music in high school. Did they really need to learn about how to make a scale and key signature, even though it was supposed to be part of the curriculum?
Finally, I set the plan aside and made each class its own “unit”. We’ve done a hip hop class, a rhythm activity class (which they are really good at), a song analysis class, and a note naming class using hand bells and Kahoot. I saw a lot of light bulbs start to turn on during that one. We did note naming earlier in the year but it wasn’t as successful as I would have liked. This class went much better. We’re also going to do a history of recording technology (they have been fascinated with my mystery items and learning about turntables during the hip hop class), and drum machine programming.
We're so close to the end of the year now. I'm looking at each class, one at a time, trying to create an engaging lesson that will also lead to learning. I've learned so much from this class, maybe more than some learned from me!
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