Kelsey Georgesen

25 October 2015
Student Teaching at Fall Creek Intermediate
Unit 3 & 4, I-F Rotation
This was a shortened week, with Monday being the end of Irotation and the end of Unit 3, and Tuesday being the first day of Unit 4
with F-rotation. Thursday and Friday were Fall Break. On Monday I
taught the dubstep lesson for the last time and had a lot of success
with pacing. The revamp of the lesson proved to be successful as
almost all of the fifth graders were able to submit their completed
worksheet and recording to me. As I am correcting some of my own
errors in teaching that lesson to the first rotation of students, I am
learning how vital it is to plan projects so that they can be completed
within one unit. (INTASC 9) It was difficult to arrange an appropriate
time for all of the projects and goals to accomplish within one week,
but I know that if I were going to do this again, I would put the project
at the beginning of the week so that I could ensure everyone could
complete it during that time. (INTASC 7) As the teacher, dragging one
project out for two units means additional weeks of review, instruction,
and grading. I am also learning a lot about accountability as I am going
through and grading the worksheets and recordings. (INTASC 6) I am
having to make executive decisions about students who showed up on
the last day of the project, or how to modify expectations for students
with IEPs and how to be able to show this to administrators or parents.
Monika and Jen teach about decades of music to 6th grade
students during different units throughout the year. On Tuesday and
Wednesday, we began the decades lessons with the 20s and 30s, and
combined the two music classes. I have learned a lot from the lessons
like this- tried and true, taught to large classes- by jumping in and
teaching the material from different parts of the lesson. (INTASC 10)
These lessons focused on how social change and music influenced one
another, and the students learned dances from each decade and talked
about how the dances and music were changing during these times. I
taught the Charleston, and in explaining why this dance was so radical,
I pointed out that women had to start wearing shorter skirts in order to
be able to move around and dance at faster tempos with partners.
(INTASC 5) I had a lot of fun learning the Charleston and the Swing
Dance that we are using in class, and the students did too! One really
cool moment was when a student with mobility impairment chose to
learn the dances along with the rest of the class- we gave him the
options of learning the arm motions while seated, or moving to the
next room and working on keyboard levels during the dancing, or
trying the dance moves. His dad is his aide, and encouraged him to try
learning the whole dances, while he spotted him. I was so impressed at

how much of the dance he was able to do, with the two of them
working together! It was really cool that he was able to participate
completely, and was comfortable enough to try all of this in our
classroom. (INTASC 2) While I was teaching a dance to a room of 60
students, I learned a few things. One is that you have to navigate line
of sight- which means when I am modeling complicated moves,
everyone needs to sit down so the students in the back of the room
can see me. It was nice to have Monika and Jen available to model to
moves in different parts of the room, especially with so many students
in there. Line of sight goes both ways, and it was neat to watch Jen use
proximity as a behavior management tactic while she was teaching the
dance- she just stood right next to the girl that was acting out, and
modeled the dance right next to her. All eyes were on the teacher, and
the girl sat very still and stopped talking when the teacher was right
next to her. I have a few students in mind in the next rotations where
this use of proximity may be necessary. (INTASC 3)
I am teaching all of the 5th grade lessons this unit, and will
probably take over all of the 6th grade lessons within the next rotation.
In fifth grade, I am working on making connections between solfege,
note reading, and recorder playing. The 5th graders have a big aha
moment when they realize that all of these notes are the same, and
serve the same purpose. The notes that they sing sound the same
when they play them on the recorder or the keyboard. On Tuesday we
did echo activities with voices and recorders, and then did sightreading with voices and recorders. (INTASC 8) My pacing was glacial
the first time that I taught this I had a double-advanced class that all
come from elementary music programs that used a lot of recorder, and
did not need to spend as much time reviewing basic notes that they
were already succeeding on. My next class could benefit from extra
review and practice, but requires a lot of activity and engagement, so I
still felt like my pacing could have been faster. I felt satisfied with my
pacing by the third fifth grade class. We added a mystery song at the
end, which was really interesting. The song was Watch me Whip,
which they all know (we have given each class a dance break with this
song, and they seem to be singing and dancing it EVERYWHERE). Even
though they knew the notes and rhythms, and know the song, making
the connection between what they were reading and what they were
hearing was really difficult for them. I have only played this kind of
game with other musicians, so it was a realization for me that
matching a new sound to previous contexts is a learned and practiced
skill.
Monika and I happened to be in the hall when a student with
severe autism had a full physical meltdown. This was hugely
educational for me, as I watched it begin and spiral out, and learned
how the other teachers responded. It began because he is on a new
behavior plan. The reward system was not working entirely for him,

because he could act out with no consequence. His meltdown began

when he made a decision to leave the class line and run towards the
lunchroom on his own. Using if, then statements, the teachers
reviewed his expectations with him. They started the statement If I
run away from my class, then and this student confirmed that he
knew what he did and what his expectations were by responding with
then I have to sit in time out. After he finished the statement, he
began to throw a temper tantrum. When he threw himself on the floor,
the resource teacher disarmed him by taking away his pencil- he uses
it to make stabbing motions directed at himself or those around himand then explained to him what his consequences would be if he
began to kick her. Then he kicked her. This meltdown involved this
students homeroom teacher (the homeroom watched from down the
hall, and another teacher was already in place to walk them to the
lunchroom), the resource teacher, the assistant principle, and Monika
and I ended up holding all of their keys and walkie talkies and papers
as they diffused the situation and walked this student to the resource
room. Observing this situation where the misbehavior and
expectations were confirmed by the student, and then once the
meltdown began, the student was appropriately disarmed and warned
of the consequences for his behavior, gave a model for how to
communicate with him and what steps to take if things ever get out of
control. We have tried using the if, then statements with him, but
watching him complete the statements made it clear to us that
understood his actions and his expectations. (INTASC 1) This is a
consistent communication tool I can use with him in class.