Standard 1 Learner Development
The teacher understands how learners grow and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.
Reflection
An effective teacher understands their students’ developmental needs and provide learning experiences that have been appropriate challengingly designed for them. During the designing process, the teacher also considers the cognitive, linguistic, social and physical demands and needs of the learners in their classroom. In addition to the individual students learning styles, strengths, culture and current interests. The teacher implements a variety of strategies to support and aid individual growth for each student.
Artifact 1 -
Seating chart for 2nd grade class
In order to make the best possible environment for my students to learn, I have organized and created a seating chart for this one 2nd grade class. This chart shows where each student sits on the carpet according to their learning needs. I have taken into consideration students that have accommodation such as preferential seating, medical, who are multilingual or have a behavior plan. I would like to add that with my knowledge of my students from the previous year, I was able to arrange students according to their strengths and where they would benefit from sitting next to a student who would support and can collaborate well with. This would ensure respectful interactions for when we would do movement activities in music. Through this process, my goal is to minimize disruption and increase the prospects of engagement. This is what I believe best demonstrates this standard.
In the future, I would like to change the placement of the dots on the carpet to be staggered so that students can have a clear view of me, visuals that are on the Smartboard screen, and anchor charts around the room. It would provide more space for transitions for the students, create an easier location to place instruments, and allows me to monitor behavior.
Artifact 2 -
Steady beat & note durations
For the process of the students recognizing the steady beat in music, I provide different ways for students to “feel” the beat. I have the students demonstrate the steady beat either by clapping, walking, singing or playing an instrument while we are singing or listening to a song. This is to assist students to internalize the beat. I also provide a visual for my students to reinforce that the beat is a steady pulse that stays consistent and is not sporadic. The visual I use is a YouTube video for kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade. The interest my students have in video games is what led me to present this since it would prompt the most engagement.
Within this video, it exposes them through variety of note durations that we will learn throughout the year. Those note durations being the quarter note, paired eighth notes and the quarter rest. For the quarter note, it has the student say “game” and for the paired eighth notes, “Minecraft.” The steady beat is shown through a Minecraft sword that is also highlighted in the song. For some grade levels, this will emphasize the music standard and help them to grow towards learning other kinds of notes and rests.