Reflective inquiry Project:
What ways do classroom teachers integrate Music when teaching Math and ELA to a diverse classroom?
LAI 668
Reflective Inquiry Project: Reflective Essay
April 2016
Zuleyma DeLaRosa
Zuleymad@buffalo.edu
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In what ways have your student teaching experience reinforced what you discovered in the fall semester?
Throughout the course of the past 16 weeks I have had the opportunity to teach in two very distinguished and distinctive school districts. My first placement was completed in kindergarten in a suburban school. In my first placement there were eighteen students in a classroom, out of the eighteen students there were five English as their second language students
(ESL). Also, in my first placement there was six kindergarten classrooms. In each kindergarten classroom there was two adults and some classes had even more adults. I am currently working towards completing my second placement of student teaching in a fifth grade classroom within a urban school. When I entered my second placement I knew that things would be different being that I am coming from kindergarten going to fifth grade, which is a big grade jump. In my current placement I only teach ELA. Being that I only teach ELA I meet with three different classrooms in which each classroom consist of twenty-seven students. One classroom is an inclusion classroom, this specific class has a special education teacher that follows them throughout the day. For the other two classroom there is only two adults in the classroom, my cooperating teacher (CT) and I. It is impressing to know that before my arrival to this placement my CT handled two full classrooms all by herself. Within these two classroom one class has two
ESL students and the last class does not have either ESL or special Ed students. Having the opportunity to teach students in two different environments provided me with a extensive range of learning for example, classroom management, modifying and adjusting, and teaching to the objective.
My RIP topic focused on what ways do classroom teachers integrate Music when teaching Math and ELA to a diverse classroom ? I choose this topic because of its importance to
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me. I have concluded that to obtain the best Education students must be offered many opportunities to grow from. In order for students to grow personally, professionally, and academically schools should offered students different activities within the school. During my entire academic public school experience the schools never supplied me with much. As a result of my experience, I was interested to see if the school systems have changed? I was eager to see if my experience when I was a student in elementary school will be the same in the school I am currently student teaching in.
Children enjoy making and listening to music, and music experiences support learning in numerous areas. The article by Jinyoung Kim and Helen Robinson provides insight into how music supports children’s language learning, reasoning skills, and academic performances. In the area of language learning, children who receive music instruction showed significantly greater gains in oral language and reading scores. In the area of reasoning skills, music enhances children spatial temporal reason skills, known as skills that are crucial for learning math and science. Thirdly, it has been study that children who have received formal music lessons, as a result have a positive long lasting correlation with IQ and academic ability (Kim & Robinson
2010).
Throughout the Fall semester, a comprehensive field observation was conducted in the suburban school in Western New York. A kindergarten classroom was the foundation of the observation, however a glimpse of each grade pre-kindergarten through fifth grade was observed in order to acquire a more rounded view of the school dynamics. From what I observed at my first placement I can say that the primary grades, pre-kindergarten to grade 2 incorporates more music in their curriculum compared to intermediate grade levels such as, grade 3 to grade 5. The primary grade level used different songs for students to learn how to count to 100 by 1’s, count
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by 5’s to 100, and count by 10’s to 100. Also, music was used in primary grades as a way to transition from one subject to another. Whereas, for ELA music was incorporated in the curriculum but not as much as Math. For ELA I only saw two kindergarten classrooms include music when teaching students the short and long vowels. As mentioned above it was rare the times I saw music in a fourth or fifth grade classroom.
During my teaching experience in the fifth grade classroom at the urban school, music was never used as a form of instruction. In the fifth grade classroom I am teaching in my CT played instrumental music. She mentioned that she plays the instrumental music so that students can feel more relaxed and try to focus more on what they are assigned to do. She also mentioned that she only plays the instrumental music during certain times of the period. For example, it will be playing if students are working independently on an essay, short response, or reading. If students are working in a group or copying notes from the board the music will not be on.
Furthermore, I observed the Math teacher one day to see if she incorporated music within her lesson. For the time I was there the Math teacher did not play any music.
From my observation at both placements I can conclude that music is not essential to the intermediate grade level. For grade levels third to fifth teachers do not spend much time with trying to incorporate music in their ELA and Math curriculum. I can see how for the primary grades music is essential and can benefit to those students in numerous ways. Being that music is being incorporated in primary grades and is resulting in a positive matters, intermediate teachers do not feel the need to repeat what’s done at the lower level. By third grade students should be able to count to 100 by ones, fives, and tens without a song, students should know their equation without hearing a rhythm song, etc…
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What advice would you offer to next year's TEI students about RIP?
The biggest piece of advice that I could give to next year’s TEI students with regards to the Require Inquiry Project (RIP) is not to start this project late in the semester. When you first receive this assignment make sure you choose your topic. Once you have solidify your topic just start working on it from part to part. I believe the observing part of the paper was the hardest part for me. But, it is different for everyone depending on their topic. For my topic I had to observe several different grade level to get most of my research. If you have to observe different grade level for your research I encourage you to plan accordingly because you also are required to do a certain amount of hours in your classroom and do not want that to interfere with observing other classrooms. Also, some teachers like to get a heads up when someone is coming to their classroom, so plan a time that works best for the both of you.
Another advice I can give is to keep your observation notes organized and readily available. It is important to date the observation notes and make sure after you write your notes you than write that piece of information. The reason why I suggest this is because the observation is fresh in your mind. Although you wrote down notes, your notes are just a preview to your full piece. You want to make sure what you are writing is as accurate as possible and very detailed. Lastly, I advise the future TEI students not to be afraid of the RIP. It sounds very intimidating at first and yes the RIP requires a lot. However, the RIP is manageable when it is broken down into parts.
Choose a topic that is meaningful to you and the education field:
It is important that you pick a topic that is of interest to you, is meaningful, and easily observable. Before finalizing my topic for my RIP I switched my topic approximately about 3
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times. Although I switched my topic a couple of times I made sure the topic I was sticking with was something of my interest, meaningful, and observable. Like I mentioned above, it is important that you pick a topic that interest you because throughout field experience in the fall and student teaching in the spring you will spend a great amount of time researching and analyzing the topic you have chosen. You do not want to get stuck with a topic that you find no enjoyment in and you are writing the paper just to get a grade. That should not be your mentality at all.
When choosing a topic it is important to choose a topic that is dominating the education field. Researching significant topics in the education field prepares you for the classroom environment and interview process. Some examples of significant topics in the education field you might want to consider when doing your RIP is classroom management, differentiated instruction, student behaviors, or technology.
Conclusion
As I reflect back on this entire RIP process, field experience, and students teaching I am impressed at the amount of insight, experience, and knowledge that I have gained. I am also grateful for the experience I have had in both of my placements. Both placements were completely different and I learned many techniques from both of my CT's. When I have my own classroom I am confident enough to incorporate many lesson and assessments I learned with both of my CT’s. I believe I am at an advantage because I got the opportunity to teach in a primary and intermediate grade level. I got to see how things are done with both age groups. I am also glad I got the opportunity to choose a RIP topic of my interest rather being assigned one. Overall, my experience teaching and doing this project made me realize even more how much I enjoy teaching and how I choose the right profession.
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