Observation Notes
I visited Mr. Z’s Marching Band class from 7:30 until 9:00 AM on Thursday, September
15th. The High School worked on a block schedule system, so students were involved in one
class for the entire period. The room itself was not very large for a high school band room, but did
accommodate the students adequately. In the front of the classroom, Mr. Z had white boards with
announcement sections and local music events publicized. Directly in front of this were Mr. Z’s
desk, the semi-grand piano, and his music stand and stool, for conducting the band. The back
and sides of the classroom were lined with locking cupboard to store the school and personal
instruments. Students sat in rows based on instrument groupings with their seats on built-in
risers. Only the woodwinds and trumpets were on the ground level, with their chairs forming a
three-sided square around the conductor. In this way, Mr. Z was able to control the group more
effectively because of his proximity to the students. He could have seated all the students on
risers, but there would have been more opportunities for disruptive behavior and less teacher
involvement and instruction.
Discipline was an interesting issue in this classroom. For music teachers, general problems
usually include tardiness, talking amongst students, and behavior that might endanger the
musical instruments. Late students were reprimanded quickly (example: “ J, You’re thirty minutes
late! There’s no excuse for that.”), without extended discussion and without disrupting the flow of
the class. It did seem that quite a few students were late. When one student made a long excuse
to the conductor, Mr. Z dismissed him (“There is no excuse.”) and tried to move along with the
class. Although this might be a little harsh, high school students do have more control on getting
to school than younger students. Perhaps it would have been helpful for the teacher to lay-out a
clearer framework, like “If you are late you will talk to me after class,” or something to that effect.
This might avoid time-consuming excuses and attention-getting behavior.
The teacher usually just told students to “be quiet” when they were talking during rehearsal.
As a whole they seemed very well behaved, perhaps because it was so early in the morning.
When other issues, like lost music, came up, the students had their own system for dealing with
the difficulties. One student acted as music librarian, keeping all of the spare music and knowing
where to find supplies in the classroom. When students did not have music, they went to the
music librarian, rather than disturbing rehearsal. This seemed to give the class a sense of
community and organization. In addition, this student was able to find speakers when they were
needed for a listening example.
With regards to the instruments, students seemed very respectful with one exception. When
one student forgot her flute, she simple used someone else’s flute from the instrument
cupboards, without alerting the teacher. He noticed during the rehearsal and corrected her
mistake. On one hand, it was good that the students were able to look after their own needs, but
there also needs to be a level of teacher involvement to preserve school property and proper
standards (e.g.: you need to bring your music and instrument to rehearsal.)
The teacher also used humor in his disciplinary and teaching techniques. In one case, Mr. Z
had given the students an unclear direction. When he told them (jokingly) that they should be
reading his mind, a student pointed out that it would be difficult to do so with the teacher’s
copious hair. The teacher retorted with a humorous comment on the student’s ears. The sense of
community in the classroom enabled this exchange without compromising discipline.
Scaffolding was used to help students in the classroom. During the warm-up scales, Mr. Z
asked students for the number of sharps and flats in certain key signatures. When student B said
he did not know, Mr. Z referred him to a previous answer: “If student A just said that A major has
three sharps, how many sharps does E major have?” Students benefited from these cues. Also,
Mr. Z would ask students- “What did we do in measure 18 that did not follow the music’s
markings?” Students in this case were asked to look at the symbols on the page and translate
them. They solved their own problems, rather that just listening to the advice of the teacher.
I observed part of Mr. Z’s high school marching band class and part of his beginning/intermediate
brass class from 9:00 until 10:30 on Thursday, September 15th. For the purposes of the
observation note question, I will talk mostly about the beginning/intermediate brass class, which
constituted an hour of my observation. There were fifteen students in this class (one
tuba/sousaphone, six trombones, eight trumpets.) These students were all in high school, I
believe mostly between fourteen and sixteen (underclassmen.) These students should be using
formal operations. The most obvious signs of formal operations would be hypothetico-deductive
reasoning, that is, they should be finding factors that affect a problem and then find and evaluate
solutions. I believe that these signs could be shown in music and particularly in playing brass
instruments, because the solutions to tone problems are not in front of you. You cannot see what
might be blocking the air towards the horn or the position of your lips in the mouthpieces.
Students also have to use some deductive reasoning as late learners of musical notation.
In the beginning/intermediate brass class, Mr. Z used a technique for tuning trombones that
was quite new to me. The students were asked to remove the slide from their instruments (tuning
slides for trumpet and tuba), so that they could tune the open instruments (which makes quite an
ugly sound.) Mr. Z also used this technique in his marching band class also, but in this case he
asked the students to evaluate and fix their sounds. He did not provide a great deal of scaffolding,
but instead asked the students to play individually and evaluate what they might do to fix
problems in their sound. Other students also offered additional suggestions, and the students had
limited discussions on why or why not a technique might work. For example, one student had a
louder, raw sound and suggested that he needed more air. Another student commented that too
much air-pressure might be the problem, since the sound was loud. While the students were
performing a lower level of deductive reasoning (since it was facilitated and somewhat
observation based), I felt that most of the students (probably at least eight) were using formal
operations.
Many of these students also demonstrated adolescent egocentrism- believing that everyone
else felt as the individual and also that their actions were ‘watched’ by the rest of the students.
This was clear as some students did not want to play individually in front of the class and their
tone, in some cases, seemed to suffer as a result of their nerves. Also, some of the students
appeared to be using deductive reasoning, but seemed to fear the reaction of their peers. For
example, a student would remain quiet when asked what might be causing the sound problem,
and then would suggest something that had already been said. On further questioning from the
instructor, the student would produce a new suggestion.
In this class, the students each needed individual attention without other sound going on in
the rooms, so the teacher was not able to use overlapping and movement management was not
of primary concern since each student needed equal individual time. Group focus was apparent,
as the students each evaluated and helped find solutions for each other in the initial portion of the
class (the second section involved everyone playing together from their books.) Withitness,
however, was essential and apparent. The teacher kept the students in semi-circular rows on the
built-in risers. Mr. Z insisted that their cases and bags be placed at the sides and back of the
room so that there was not distraction or additional issues for him to be aware of. Mr. Z was able
to watch each student. When they warmed up together on long tones, the teacher walked around
to listen to tone and intonation. Following this was the above described tone quality activity.
During this activity the entire class was involved in each individuals times, so Mr. Z was able to
observe their behavior and correct disrespectful activities (talking, jokes, etc.) The time on each
person was kept fairly short to keep the students’ attention. When the class performed together
the songs from their book, the teacher started the piece from the front and then moved around
the classroom (clapping the beat to keep the group together) to hear each student’s tone and to
maintain good participation. With a small class of fifteen, this was not very difficult for Mr. Z. His
main challenge was just to keep the students from talking to each other and involved in the
music. Since the students were clearly concerned about their behavior and performance in front
of their peers (adolescent egocentrism) and because it was still early in the morning, the class
was relatively respectful and interested.
Concept attainment is a way of helping students to construct understanding of a specific concept
and practice thinking skills. Mr. M (substitute teacher for Mrs. G) helped these pre-k students by
encouraging exploration and the use of thinking skills. In once case, a student asked for help
coloring a picture which had the color names denoted for different areas. Instead of just telling the
student what the word was, Mr. M asked her “what is this [object]? What color do you think it
should be?” This encouraged the student to use her practical thinking skills and learn the concept
(recognizing the names of colors) rather than just receiving an answer to her specific question.
This was a much more effective strategy because the students learn to use their thinking skills to
solve problems and at the same time learn the concept at hand. Later in life, they will be able to
apply these thinking skills to real life situations, rather than just waiting for someone to tell them
how to deal with the situation at hand. They are able to create their own solutions and their own
learning experiences.
Mr. M used both discovery and exposition teaching. When initially introducing how to write
the letter H, he told the students how to write it before they began practicing it. This kind of
concept is not effectively learned through discovery. Although students may discover a way to
match the letter they see, it will lead to habits in writing that the student may need to amend later.
When teaching about the concept of ‘the wind,’ however, Mr. M used discovery learning. Students
were asked what the wind moves and how we can see it and how we are unable to see it.
Students constructed their own concept of wind and what it does. They answered these questions
based on their experiences and critical thinking skills (it was the wind that moved the leaves
because the leaves cannot move themselves.) Next, they drew pictures about the wind, in this
way reconciling the invisible nature of wind with a firm, visual concept. Students were able to
create their own experience because they thought of and drew an individualized visual concept.
Students also were involved in constructing their own learning during the frequent play
times. They had to interact with each other using things they had been learning, like sharing and
cooperating. They also were asked to use their knowledge of numbers in a self-management
way. They had to make sure that there were no more than five people in each area. Students also
exhibited private speech during this time as they read books (or made up the stories), stacked
blocks, or made up puppet shows.