Ok! Update time!! So last Friday I went in and taught my first lesson. As a reminder I am helping teach a 3rd grade class and let me just say that they are just the most adorable little angels. I'm not kidding, this group is the most well behaved 3rd graders I have ever met in my life; and yes I realize that it will not always be that way. :P Anywhooo, the kiddos were working on triple-digit subtraction and I confess that I was having a hard time coming up with ideas for that particular subject, so like the good Arts Bridge Scholar that I am, I contacted my mentors so that I may partake of their wisdom. I started by contacting Dr. May because she is over my specific emphasis of my major (general music) and she is positively fabulous. She came up with a clever idea of putting problems on a board and doing some percussive stuff. She later got me in contact with the blessed Emily Knell and we kind of fine-tuned the idea and I came up with a lesson plan! Suffice it to say, the lesson went great! My 45 minutes went by so fast!
So I'll post the lesson plan on here but I'll explain it first because I have never been good at putting my ideas on paper. I have found that, for me personally, the more rigidly planned a lesson is, the less smoothly it goes. So to put it in as few words as possible, I started off with an introduction and setting up some ground rules to get them quiet. My favorite thing to do is say, "1, 2, 3 eyes on me!" and the kids shout back, "1, 2 eyes on you!" and they know that when they say that, mouths have to be quiet and eyes are on me. I learned that from my summer camp job at AMYS martial arts and it is so super effective! I then put up five 3-digit subtraction problems. I made sure to let kids pick the numbers. This ensured that they could quickly identify what numbers were smaller than others and then had them identify the ones, tens, and hundreds places. I also got volunteers to solve the problems and went through with them to make sure they understood how the students got the answers. We then assigned an action to each place, so for example, if the solution to two numbers was 231, they would pat their head twice (hundreds), clap 3 times (tens), and stomp the floor once (ones). The class was perfectly divided in 5 sections so each section got their own problem to do the actions to. We then practiced doing the percussive actions altogether, separately, and in various ways. It's kind of difficult to explain but the kids seemed to have a lot of fun and it went pretty smoothly, so I'm happy!
Some things that could have been better was the fact that there was a period of time where a bunch of kids were kind of just sitting while I was working with a specific group and so I could have done better at engaging the whole class as much as possible. Then I have this habit where I ask rhetorical questions like "got it?" and stuff like that, (which Dr. May has been critiquing me on for the last year) and so I need to stop doing that. However, in my defense, I ask them wanting a legitimate answer because that's something dance teachers do when teaching dance classes. I do it all the time when I teach hip hop and that's because I actually want them to answer so that I know that they are understanding the moves and what not. I've also had dance teachers do that same thing for me but it's a little different in a regular classroom so I need to work on that. There are other things, but this post has gotten long enough and I don't want to lose the only 5 followers I have. ;P
This was a super fun experience and I can't wait to post some pictures and improve! Shout out to Dr. May, Emily Knell, and Nik Dorsey for their excellent guidance and utter fabulosity!! I sincerely, appreciate all the help and support! it is an incredible privilege to work with all of you!
PS. I know my lesson plan writing needs work but like I said, the more I write out every little detail the less smooth it goes so that vagueness actually helps me even though it might not be that easy for someone to replicate it. I'll work on it though.
So I'll post the lesson plan on here but I'll explain it first because I have never been good at putting my ideas on paper. I have found that, for me personally, the more rigidly planned a lesson is, the less smoothly it goes. So to put it in as few words as possible, I started off with an introduction and setting up some ground rules to get them quiet. My favorite thing to do is say, "1, 2, 3 eyes on me!" and the kids shout back, "1, 2 eyes on you!" and they know that when they say that, mouths have to be quiet and eyes are on me. I learned that from my summer camp job at AMYS martial arts and it is so super effective! I then put up five 3-digit subtraction problems. I made sure to let kids pick the numbers. This ensured that they could quickly identify what numbers were smaller than others and then had them identify the ones, tens, and hundreds places. I also got volunteers to solve the problems and went through with them to make sure they understood how the students got the answers. We then assigned an action to each place, so for example, if the solution to two numbers was 231, they would pat their head twice (hundreds), clap 3 times (tens), and stomp the floor once (ones). The class was perfectly divided in 5 sections so each section got their own problem to do the actions to. We then practiced doing the percussive actions altogether, separately, and in various ways. It's kind of difficult to explain but the kids seemed to have a lot of fun and it went pretty smoothly, so I'm happy!
Some things that could have been better was the fact that there was a period of time where a bunch of kids were kind of just sitting while I was working with a specific group and so I could have done better at engaging the whole class as much as possible. Then I have this habit where I ask rhetorical questions like "got it?" and stuff like that, (which Dr. May has been critiquing me on for the last year) and so I need to stop doing that. However, in my defense, I ask them wanting a legitimate answer because that's something dance teachers do when teaching dance classes. I do it all the time when I teach hip hop and that's because I actually want them to answer so that I know that they are understanding the moves and what not. I've also had dance teachers do that same thing for me but it's a little different in a regular classroom so I need to work on that. There are other things, but this post has gotten long enough and I don't want to lose the only 5 followers I have. ;P
This was a super fun experience and I can't wait to post some pictures and improve! Shout out to Dr. May, Emily Knell, and Nik Dorsey for their excellent guidance and utter fabulosity!! I sincerely, appreciate all the help and support! it is an incredible privilege to work with all of you!
PS. I know my lesson plan writing needs work but like I said, the more I write out every little detail the less smooth it goes so that vagueness actually helps me even though it might not be that easy for someone to replicate it. I'll work on it though.
Excellent job taking on a tricky subject to integrate! I'm a math educator and dance educator so I have a lot of experience with integrating mathematics with the arts and if it has taught me anything it has taught me that it is not easy!
ReplyDeleteI found your reflection very interesting! Thank you for writing out the challenges and success. As a dance teacher and math teacher I related with the challenge of using passive language in class. I think direct language is good teaching practice for a lesson on any subject. Even in a dance class I would avoid asking "Got it?" because I could say "Show me what you know (or the last 8 counts, etc.)" and that active instruction answers the question "Got it?" for me while raising student engagement. "Got it?" as as question allows some students to check out and not respond (unless you've trained your dancers to verbally answer, but even then they could respond "yes" even if they don't "got it.") I would continue to apply the wise wisdom of Dr. May :)
Great work! I can't wait to read more about your experiences this semester!
When you discussed what your lesson was going to based on (subtraction), I was super interested to see what you would do! I know that math and music are related in some ways, but it is hard sometimes to think of what would be a help to their learning rather than a hinderance. I love the idea of different places to do body percussion based on the ones, tens, and hundreds. I may borrow this idea from you someday!
ReplyDeleteGreat lesson, Tiffany! Also, way to use the resources you have with your mentors and faculty. You did a great job integrating a tough subject. I also loved your self reflection. That is such a great skill to have so you can continue to improve as a teacher. Wonderful work!
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