Weekly Blog Post #8

Earlier this week I was exposed to a great way to elicit student voice. My future cooperating teacher does an Individual Performance Assessment after each performance that the group has. Students are to fill out this assessment rating themselves on a scale of 1-5 in various categories. I really like this idea and will be incorporating this into my future classrooms.

The last few days of school are upon us and there is a noticeable change in atmosphere at my observation school; teachers are even displaying signs of the year coming to an end. This whole week of observations has basically been a wrap-up week. On Tuesday the bands turned in all of their music and concert uniforms. Today my cooperating teacher had all of the students clean out their instrument lockers and turn in their locks. They also checked in their method books and instruments if necessary. After they finished this task, they watched the movie “Drumline.” Personally, this movie is funny to me because of how dramatic and inaccurate it is, but very entertaining, regardless.

The students will be getting their yearbooks tomorrow, so Friday will be a relaxed day consisting mostly of yearbook signing. On Monday the students get a “Fun Day.” There are different activities going on around the school that students may partake in. There is a catch to this “Fun Day” though. Students are not allowed to participate in the Fun Day if they have any unpaid fines, and I believe there is a minimum GPA requirement as well, though I am not sure what that is.

On a different note, I met my new cooperating teaching for the Fall Quarter. I am really looking forward to working with him at this new school. I think this will be a really good match because he is in a situation that I want to be in the future.  He plays professionally in the symphony as well as has a teaching job, which is what I would like to do. The classroom that I will be observing in is very proactive with technology. They have iPads in the practice rooms for recording playing tests/auditions and he even uses a whiteboard APP rather than the real one. I am really looking forward to working with him. He said that we would basically be team teaching. I really like that he plans on utilizing me and giving me a lot of experience. I’m as involved in my current classroom as I would have liked to be.