6/23/2018
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Barbara Sullivan
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I have taught a student over the past 6 years. This student was diagnosed with a degenerative muscular disease at a young age. He has progressively regressed and as a fifth grader this past year was in a wheel chair with an aide. I have accommodated his disability in music in many ways.
Three years ago we began to see his balance become a concern. I assigned him a buddy of his choice. If he needed help learning dance steps, he also allowed to ask the buddy for help. I also made sure he could stand next to a table and use it to steady himself.
This past year his recorder playing was a challenge. I gave him repetitive songs (B and A) that only used his left hand. When we were playing a xylophone piece, I gave him a bass bar part and one mallet. Since he was in a wheel chair, I placed the bass bar on a chair so he could easily reach it. He was able to participate successfully. |
6/23/2018
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Barbara Sullivan
|
I teach in an elementary music classroom. I have used technology in many ways. My first "smart board" was a Mimio. There were very few music lessons created for this type of technology. In the course of 5 years I had created over 125 lessons. In this type of assisted technology, you could use a pen to manipulate objects on the board or a tablet with attached pen. I had a student with disabilities in a wheel chair. She had use of both hands and arms, but she was better with one side vs the other. Her adult aide held the tablet. She was able to use the tablet/pen to answer questions in class and participate. Her success was evident as she would smile and laugh when she was able to find the correct answer. |
6/23/2018
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Barbara Sullivan
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I have a student with a speech disability (and we thought low cognitive function) who is currently in a self-contained class. His vocabulary is very limited, but he is able to answer short one word phrases with "yes" or "no." This student has attended my music classroom for the past 4 years. One day I was teaching students how to read music notation with "Ta" for quarter note, Ti-Ti for 2 eighth notes and to say the "rest" for quarter rest. I have encouraged him each time he came to music to read the notation from my music flash cards. To accommodate him I held up the flash card and pointed to each note. After much practice (about 2 years later) he is able to read music notation. His favorite part was saying, "Rest." One day his mother was visiting the class when he came to music. I was able to show her how well he could read the music notation. She was shocked.
This simple assessment was successful because it used:
1. Oral Expression. It is easier for students to use a syllable like "Ta" rather than saying "Quarter note."
2. Visual Representations: I used rhythm flash cards that showed the actual music notation
3. Visual cues: I pointed to each note (beat) on the rhythm flash card as he recited the rhythm aloud. |