3/26/2018
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
Heather Tillis
|
I have a 4th grade student with autism who is mostly non-verbal in her communication skills and almost constantly rocks and stares into space. At first I took this as an indication that she was not understanding or comprehending what was being taught since she did not sing or move along with what we were doing in the music.Throughout the year, I have found that she is actually quite tuned in to what we are doing and is willing and able to respond with instruments and scarves. Therefore, I now look for opportunities to incorporate various instruments into the lessons and shape movement lessons so that scarves can be used to show understanding instead of body movement. |
3/29/2018
Topic:
Tools and Strategies
Heather Tillis
|
The first strategy I immediately saw an application for in my class was "Differentiated Assignments". The example from the text itself, where they break down the steps of learning to read notes on the staff into 5 different assignments, I already see myself using with ALL my students that are struggling to read notes on the staff when we are playing recorder pieces. I also thought that this strategy could be very helpful in teaching my autistic students that are greatly struggling to play recorder along with their peers in class. Going forward I think that it could be beneficial to my autistic students, as well as all other students who struggled to understand how to play recorder, if I were to split the steps of playing the instrument into smaller assignments such as:
- Assignment 1: Learn how to place fingers in correct position to play the note B on the recorder. Then practice a variety of different rhythms playing the note B.
- Assignment 2: Learn how to place fingers in correct position to play the note A on the recorder. Practice a variety of different rhythms playing the note A.
- Assignment 3: Review how to place fingers in the correct position to play the note B and A. Practice moving from note B to note A, and then note A to note B. Have students echo 4 beat patterns using notes B and A to practice moving from note B to note A.
- Assignment 4: Learn how to place fingers in correct position to play the note G on the recorder. Practice moving between notes B, A, and G by echoing 4 beat pattern sung by the teacher using the 3 notes.
- Assignment 5: Review how to place fingers in the correct position to play the notes B, A, and G. Learn how how to play the song Hot Cross Buns.
The second strategy I could see implementing, especially for my EBD students, is centers. For instance, when we discussed instruments of the orchestra, each student or pairs could be engaged in different activities to learn about instruments such as:
- Below standard: Instrument bingo - student(s) work with teacher. Teacher calls an instrument name and student(s) find instrument and mark on card. Game continues until Bingo happens.
- At standard: Instrument sorting - student or pairs work to sort cards with instrument name and description into 4 families of instruments.
- Advanced students: Listening station - student or pairs listen to recording to aurally identify short sound clips of various orchestra instruments.
|
3/29/2018
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
Heather Tillis
|
I was evaluating whether students were able to demonstrate what they heard in selected music examples, such as melodic direction, tempo and dynamics. Since so many of my autistic students are non-verbal, I developed a checklist to quickly evaluate whether students were able to demonstrate these skills through alternative means such as moving a scarf up and down for melodic direction instead of singing up and down when a student is non-verbal and unable to sing. I continue to use this throughout the year, so that I can see students' progress. |