Name: Najee Lee

Email: Nlee029@fiu.edu
Name of School: Florida International University
Town: Miami
Name of Teacher Observed: Mr. Dejesus
Class: Middle school Grades: 8-9
Observation Date: Oct. 6th Time: 9:30 Date submitted: 0ct. 7th
The teaching environment is very active. The children range from 8th to 9th graders. The teacher is an FIU
graduate who has been teaching with Zelda middle school for four years. The school environment impacts what
happens in the classroom because it is a beautiful and very arts based school. This transfers and there is that
same sense of urgency that they must work hard like the other programs at the school.
The teachers goals for the class/ensemble and program over all were to get the good ratings but also to get
better every year. Although he did not say it his goal was also to educate the students. It was also evident that he
did based on the accomplishments and feedback from the students. He acted upon it by having certain strategic
scheduled times of rehearsal and sectionals to individually rehearse parts.
We did not get to see his rehearsal strategies in an concert band or orchestra setting but his strategies in
sectionals were very effective. He has a lot of trust in his students to work by them, but he also floats around to
every section to see how they were doing and help any of the sections with problems that they have.
What I would do differently is that I would some days have sectionals but use that time to work with one specific
section for half the time, and then float around to the other sections because your program is as good as your
weakest section. Then one day I would have maybe the woodwinds in sectionals and then work with the brass,
and vise versa. Some days I would pair not necessarily sections but people who have harmonies and melodies so
they could know what to listen for.
The evidence that learning goals were met were the responses that the students would make to certain
questions we would ask. Also the level of ability these students had were phenomenal, and surpassed many
other middle school students. Also the ratings of superior that they would get and in all areas were outstanding.
The evidence of critical thinking would be from when we asked our saxophone section certain questions such as
what is the pyramid of sound. Also what emotions does the pieces convey? The detail in the answer we would
get and the background knowledge they had were outstanding

Students engaged in the classroom very swiftly and diligently. They were very focused and sopped at nothing to
get their parts down. When they were focused usually you would see their head buried in the music and they
would loop a certain part they could not play.
A Teachable moment that I witnessed was when a young alto player was giving the Bari sax player pointers on
articulation and where you should place your tongue on the read for certain articulations.