1/3/2017
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Jennifer Edelblute
|
I currently teach a student who suffered several strokes just after birth. She is disabled on one side of her body. Her left hand and leg work however there is delay and her arm is very stiff. When we play instruments or do movement activities I encourage her to use as much of her range of motion as she can, however she and I have a non-verbal system of communication established. When an activity is going to push her past her abilities I give her a modified movement. As she gets older and the curriculum gets more involved the differentiation is also more deliberate. As a kindergartner and first grader the mobility required to play melodic instruments is not as intense as it will be when she is a fourth or fifth grader. |
1/3/2017
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Jennifer Edelblute
|
One strategy I can use in my classroom would be to tweak the current self-reflection process we have in place. Allowing students to choose the criterion they reflect upon before we create the rubric. Keeping these procedures consistent will help all learners be more effective.
The second strategy I could implement in my classroom is the cube. This will allow for guided choice when completing tasks like aurally analyzing a piece of music. |
1/3/2017
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Jennifer Edelblute
|
I have numerous students with autism. One of my first graders with autism immediately blossomed when he started music class. He expressed an interest in playing the piano, so I put his parents in contact with a teacher who specialized in piano lessons for students with special needs. Since then he has grown by leaps and bounds. He gets easily bored in music class so his instruction has to be very rigorously differentiated. As my other students were working on long and short sounds utilizing shapes such as hearts or starts he was using traditional notation with time signatures. He was still achieving the objective of describing long and short sounds in music but doing it in a way that fully engaged him and showed his successful completion of the objective. |