12/5/2018
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Jason Thomashefsky
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I have a class of students, mixed grade level, in a social emerging class. This class was created when most of the students entered kindergarten. For many years I have done a combination of push in and inclusion type music lessons with the students. Many of which are on the spectrum and auditory stimuli bothered them to some extent. Working with their speech pathologist, we developed a system of motions and rhymes that we performed on a consistent basis to bring them to the classroom. While in the classroom we remedied the noises by creating a social story to accompany them to the classroom. Through patience and practice, these students come and immerse themselves in the classroom. One student in the classroom enjoys music quite a bit and has a great sense of relative pitch. They have the ability to recognize large chunks of tonal and rhythm patterns. An issue arises with this students disability is the ability to focus long enough to do anything with it. It seems like with this student, their short-term, working memory ability to code new information has been hindered by their disability. I would love to learn more ways to help this student become more musically successful in my classroom. |
12/5/2018
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Jason Thomashefsky
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A group of students in my school that pushes into my general music classroom is part of the social functioning unit of the school district. They have severe physical and medical disabilities and many of the physical activities of music are not appropriate for students such as this. However, I firmly believe that their inclusion in my classroom is beneficial. To help with their success I implemented an open-share software developed by a colleague of my mentor teacher. EMAIR is a program that turns common electronic equipment such as video game remotes and laser pointers into musical instruments. I was able to help students of the functional skills classroom work for my beginning band by simply holding a laser pointer and guide their hand towards the direction of a camera. EMAIR then translates the laser pointer light into actual musical sound. It makes sounds of real orchestral instruments. As they move their hand to the right, it goes higher in pitch and down in left. Other electronic equipment can be calibrated to create sounds just from the push of the button giving students with severe physical disability the chance to make meaningful music. |
12/5/2018
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Jason Thomashefsky
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As a form assessing students aptitude for music I administer the Primary Measures of Student Aptitude for my K-4 students. This test is given at a fast-paced by design. This does not give a student who needs additional think time to have a chance to show what they truly know. to give students with a general intellectual disability an opportunity I made to modifications to the assessment. In addition to giving the assessment in small groups, I played each pattern on a keyboard to slow down the presentation of the assessment. |