1/31/2023
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Loryn Steele
|
During my years teaching Music I have had two students who were blind, one of whom was as adult who had sight until recently, and another, a first grade child who was blind from birth, but was beginning to learn braille. Both students benefitted greatly from kinesthetic learning, as well as individual ear training lessons. I used a phenomenological or emotional based ear training approach for both students to recognize their feelings associated with intervals and chords. We also used the key shapes and patterns on the piano as a kinesthetic method to identify and pair the sound/pitch of each note and to be able to find that note on the piano, and then pair it with the voice. This helped immensely with being able to initiate or begin a song or piece on the piano without their needing to place their hands on the correct keys to begin a piece, or to change positions on the piano. |
2/20/2023
Topic:
Tools And Strategies
Loryn Steele
|
In both the elementary Music classroom and Middle school I have used the mnemonic strategy such as the Letter Strategy to teach standard notation (notes on the staff) by teaching FACE for the spaces and Every Good Boy Does Fine. For teaching Piano I have also let students decide if they want to use Godzilla Brings Destruction For All or Great Big Dogs From Alaska to remember the notes on the lines of the Bass clef. Some students even like to make up their own mnemonic device which motivates and engages them to remember. I have also used cooperative group learning to put heterogenous small groups together in a lesson where students first learned the Music and story to "Peter And The Wolf" and how each animal or character is represented by an instrument or group of instruments and a motive or melody. The student groups use this concept to create their own short memorized melodies to a story such as "Little Red Riding Hood" and play separate instruments for their animals or characters. This lesson is done the second half of the year after students have had practice in the procedures for working together, dividing tasks and having appropriate social etiquette, and practicing on each Orff instrument. This differentiates instruction well because students can create a melody that they are capable of playing and memorizing individually and students in the group can practice reading fluency and comprehension and character development through the music and utilizing dynamics and tempo and the sonority of the instrument chosen to depict their character in the story. This lesson satisfies many lesson standards such as composing a melody, memorizing a sequence, and using dynamics and tempo to depict emotion in Music etc... |
2/26/2023
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Loryn Steele
|
I had a student with dysgraphia. That student was given the assessment for writing notes on the computer using note entry on
Finale and to participate in an activity I created using physicality I called "human notes." In fact most students in class enjoyed reading and writing music on the computer. We also created a sort of tableau in groups "human notes" where we created notes from movement and statues and practiced reading the so called pantomimed notes. These activities were received well and did not make a student with a disability feel singled out or embarrassed to notate music in a different way from pencil and paper. |