Committed to Diversity

 Effective urban educators are committed to meet the needs of a diverse population 

Practicum Student Teaching/ Student Teaching

School Statistics: Duvall Elementary

I spent my first semester of student teaching in west Dearborn in an elementary school of 272 students. Compared to other Michigan elementary schools, the school is considered small. The student-to-teacher ratio is 16:1 which provides the opportunity for students to receive extra attention. 54% of students are male and 46% are female. Of these students, 86% identify as Caucasian. 30% of students qualify for either free or reduced lunch meaning their parents have a combined income of less than $21,600. This Dearborn school is a school of choice with teachers having children of their own attending. 

School Statistics: Brownell Middle School

I spent the Fall semester of 2018 at a middle school in Grosse Pointe Farms with 671 students. This is one of three middle schools in Grosse Pointe and educates 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. Similar to Duvall Elementary, Brownell has a 17:1 student-to-teacher ratio. However, this school statistic is not accurate for the music classroom. The choir classes have anywhere from 34-52 students enrolled. Schoolwide, 49% of students are female and 51% of students are male. Again, this statistic is not accurate for choir classes which see a higher population of females than male. 85.5% of students identify as Caucasian and the remaining 14.5% identify as either African American, Hispanic, Asian, or multicultural. Drastically different from Duvall, Brownell Middle School has only 3% of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. Students must live within the pre-set drawn lines in order to attend the school.

Diversity in the Music Classroom

At Duvall Elementary, I taught grades K-4 with ages ranging from 5 years old to 10 years old. One of my kindergarten classes was a K/1st split class with only four 1st graders. In that same class, I had a child with ASD who spent the first six weeks without a para-pro after having one the semester before. In the other kindergarten class, I had a disruptive student that often spent his day with the principal or social worker. The behavioral issues were thought to be rooted from home. In the 3rd grade, I taught a girl with cognitive delay issues. I taught three sets of twins and each set were in the same classroom. At this age, parents like to keep their twins together.

When we felt the boys were breaking the contract there were four questions that would be asked. What are you doing? What are you supposed to be doing? Are you doing it? What are you going to do about it? This was a moment for the boys to check themselves and think about their actions in class. If one student felt another student was breaking the contract he would give the other student a two-handed stop symbol. If the behavior did not stop, the boy would raise his hand and say "I need help." This created a safe and trusting environment where the students can handle problems themselves. Every day as the students walked through the door, I would shake their hands, look them in the eye, and ask them how their day was going. It was strange for them at first but by the end of the semester, the boys had their hands ready for a handshake before they walked in the class.

I Am Committed to Diversity

When I say I am committed to diversity, I do not just mean diversity of skin tone or ethnic background. While the ethnic background of my students is important, and definitely touched upon, I am more concerned with teaching in a diverse way in order to help all of my students no matter their background or learning abilities.

The trip to the Dearborn Symphony Orchestra

Every year the Dearborn Symphony Orchestra donates a concert to every single fourth grader in the Dearborn district. In February, my fourth graders had the opportunity to see a live performance of content being taught in class. This real life experience helped motivate my students to learn in class. I told them weeks in advance that we were going to see the orchestra and we prepared by learning about Beethoven and Chopin. We used visuals such as listening maps and pictures in books. We listened and used our aural learning to become familiar with the pieces. The students had kinesthetic experience with the songs from multiple movement lessons we did. It helped other students learn when we used group and class discussion for learning. The students had the opportunity to talk with their peers about things they liked or did not like, what they understood and what they did not understand. All of my students were prepared for this symphony performance because of all of the different types of lessons we did.  

One thing I thought was a great way the students connected culture with learning was the symphony's performance of Jidi Wa Hamar, a traditional children's folk song from Lebanon. The song was about everyone driving a car but grandpa riding a donkey. An arrangement was written by a fellow Dearborn teacher and is played every year. As the symphony played, the children could hear the cars zooming by and grandpa on his donkey. They could hear horns honking and the policeman's whistle. This song was a hit for the children and encouraged learning in those who may not have been interested in the orchestra.

Use of Universal Design for Learning

By using the Universal Design for Learning, I made sure all of my students were learning. Not all students learn in the same way. I had to make sure my students were actively engaged in the lesson, had multiple means of representation, and had the opportunity for action and expression. 

Engagement is key for elementary students. They lose focus so quickly and need to continue physical movements and brain work. That is why I started every lesson for each grade level with a movement activity. The students spend much of their day behind desks writing on paper. In music class, they are given the space to move and stretch their legs. Decisions on movement activities depend on the grade and lesson following. The younger students will do much more tapping to the beat and movement sequencing while the older students play more motor skill heavy singing and movement games. I keep students engaged during the lesson by offering pair and share time, playing instruments, and moving quickly through activities to prevent students from getting bored. In our lessons where we take turns doing something, for example playing an instrument, I will often ask, "What should you be doing while it is not your turn?" Students would reply with answers like the following: sing along, practice the movements, or watch the person who is playing. Giving this autonomy to the students, the decision on what to do during downtime, keeps them engaged and often results in more activity and learning in the classroom.

My students have multiple means of representation in each activity of every lesson. Many of our lessons get transferred to instruments. To be successful with this it is important to set the students up. Body percussion is a great form of kinesthetic learning that prepares the students for instruments. When using xylophones, we usually begin with bilaterally patting our legs to make the bilateral motion of playing two notes at once with mallets. When transferring to drums, we often use alternating hand movements so when the drums come out, students know to alternate hands. I represent content visually with flip charts on the Promethean board or with listening maps. The listening maps are a good way to have visual and aural learning. Many of our listening maps are interactive and students are able to visually see the sound they are hearing. The first example below is a listening map of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, an activity done in the fourth grade class to prepare them for their trip to the symphony. The second listening map is of Chopin's "The Winter Wind" and shows a person walking through the form ABA. The Polish flags show up every time the rhythm presented in the upper right corner is heard. My students were able to predict this even before I played the listening map.

The transition from elementary school to middle school for 6th graders was a shock when it comes to choir class. The students were familiar with solfege when entering middle school but had never had to follow a voice part while the instrumental part was displayed. This realization brought me to prepare the music for the 6th graders differently than for the 7th and 8th graders. Below is an example of how I marked the music before handing it out to the students. I placed an arrow next to the voice line for every system on every page. I made sure to translate all of the Italian words into English on the voice line so when they read the music, their eyes could stay on one line.

I create room for action and expression in my classroom on a daily basis. I keep my students motivated by giving them choices and a feeling of self-accomplishment. I use guided questioning in my lessons to help the students discover on their own. To do this discovery, I allow for pair and share time where the students turn to a neighbor and discuss ideas. Some lessons include original compositions of ostinati, melodies, or rhyming poems. The students enjoy choosing instruments they associate with certain characters or sounds from books. In one lesson, the students created poems to accompany each character in the book Hotel Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins. After creating their eight beat poem, the students picked an instrument they thought represented their character best. This form of expression engages students in critical thinking and helps them apply musical characteristics with an image or idea. Below are pages out of Hotel Bruce with the poems and instruments selected to accompany the characters while reading through the book as a class. To see the full lesson see the Word Doc attachment.

ASD students in the classroom: I had a kindergartner who was on the spectrum and often created disruptions that made class difficult to teach and learn in. His classroom teacher gave me a set of picture cards to use. The student could not process a long stream of words and therefore had a difficult time following directions. With the picture cards below, I was able to run the class more smoothly just by showing him instructions instead of telling him.