Arianna Canal

Professor Dominick Ferrara

Secondary Classroom Methods and Materials

December 13, 2022

This semester I had the privilege of observing Mr. M’s class at Eliot School.

I was welcomed into his classroom with warmth and kindness, which was an

overarching theme throughout all of his classes, and interactions with the

students. The environment in the classroom was very energetic and fun. The

teacher greeted the students with a smile as they arrived, and asked them how

their day was going. It was obvious that Mr.M had some sort of relationship with

each of the students which made the environment very welcoming and

comfortable. In between lessons/playing instruments/ singing there was a very

fun and joking around type of vibe, and even during most class activities the

students’ demeanor remained consistently happy and positive. The class is light

hearted and ensures an enjoyable experience so that students can really feel

comfortable, and associate music class with good feelings.

One of the most striking aspects of Mr. M’s classroom that I noticed almost

immediately was how engaged and excited his students were during all of the

classes he taught. The students were eagerly participating in class discussions

and were outwardly excited about what they were learning. For the most part

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they were focused from the beginning to the end of the class, which can be pretty

hard to do especially towards the end when the students usually begin to get

bored, or antsy, or struggle to pay attention.

When a student was distracted or disengaged he handled it very well in

my opinion, which is one of the biggest things I learned from observing. For

example, there was an instance where one student seemed to struggle to pay

attention more than the rest.

The student started off well in the first 5 minutes of the class, she was

energetic and seemed happy to be there. About 7 or 8 minutes into the lesson

the student began to become distracted from the lesson; she got up from her

spot and began walking around the classroom, looking at posters on the walls,

playing with the pencils on the teachers desk, and was over all disengaged from

the lesson. The teacher politely asked her to sit down, and she reluctantly sat in

her spot. 15 seconds pass and she is right back up, walking around the

classroom, and this time she is calling out and making jokes to the class; the

other students laughed and it was beginning to become a disruption of the

lesson. Mr. M politely, but slightly more sternly, asked the student not to call out,

and not to discuss things other than what they are doing in the lesson. The

student couldn't help it and still continued to disrupt the lesson.

Instead of wasting more time to pause the lesson to reprimand the student

he just continued on with the lesson; after a little while, when the student was no

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longer receiving a reaction from the teacher or her peers, she began calling out

less and sat down in her spot. Although she was still a bit distracted at some

points throughout, she was no longer distracting other students and was overall

much more focused than before. Although this is not exactly how things will play

out with every student who struggles with focusing, but It was interesting to see

and it really made it even more apparent that creating relationships with your

students is extremely important.

Getting to know your students' personalities, and struggles is how you obtain the

tools used to create the environment and structure that they need to succeed.

There were several teaching tools/activities that I really liked, one of which

I even used in my unit plan/lesson plan as a learning activity, which is the

“Gallery Walk”. The idea is that the teacher comes up with a few questions,

(these questions should be aimed towards the topic being learned at the

moment) , to write on posters around the classroom. The teacher gives the

students 5 minutes (or however long they need/want) to walk around the room

and write an answer to each of the questions in their own words, on the posters.

After all the answers are written the class comes back together and the teacher

may ask students to read the answers on the posters aloud to the class. Then

the class will have a group discussion on whether or not they agree or disagree

with the answers, and what the correct answers actually are. In my case my

gallery walk questions were: “What is music composition?”, “What is music

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technology?”, and “What is music production?”. The meanings of music

composition, and music technology, are meant to hopefully lead the students

towards understanding the meaning of music production. This gallery walk was

used as an opening learning activity in my lesson to set up the rest of the class

where the students will have an introduction to music technology.

I loved this activity because not only is it useful as an activator, and as a

learning tool, but it prompts group discussion and the feeling of all learning

together which is a much more enjoyable way of learning for the students.

This brings me to my last point, which made me hopeful and excited to

become a teacher. Observing Mr.M’s class showed me how possible it is to

create an educational environment where all of your students feel safe, and

comfortable. Where the classroom feels like a community, and a place where the

students feel they can make mistakes and learn from them. Where students of all

different learning styles, abilities, and personalities can thrive and receive the well

rounded education they deserve.