Classroom Environment
I believe effective education is extremely dependent upon the classroom environment. A classroom that is colorless, bare, and overall boring is a very poor teaching environment. Effective classroom equipment is important to the learning process as well. Having an open, colorful, and decorated room lets that student know that they are welcome, and that learning doesn't have to be boring. Establishing expectations and maintaining those throughout the year are important to the classroom environment as well. These ensure consistency and understanding.
2a: Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport
Student Relationships and Intentional Community
Creating a mutual respect and a genuine rapport is important in any classroom, but it is especially important within an ensemble setting. A trusting and fun relationship between an instrumental director will make a more positive experience for everyone, and increase the likelihood of producing a higher quality of music than the average group. Rapport and relationships between students is something very important to me as an educator, and it is a fundamental necessity to be able to help students progress in their learning.
On a more personal note, during my time as Secretary of the Elizabethtown College Chapter of the Pennsylvania Collegiate Music Educator's Association (PCMEA), we worked together as a club to create a statement of intentional community. This statement was created a harbor a more positive social and educational environment in which all of us respect, support, and recognize each other. The organization revised and finalized the statement as a group. The statement is published in our constitution as follows:
“We, as collegiate members of PCMEA, will work together to advocate for music education and provide service to the community through musical activities and performances. We will strive to uphold values of intentional community as individuals within the organization.
Our definition of intentional community is to be positive, professional, personable, and respectful. We will aspire to recognize the importance and strengths of each individual, and foster a safe community in which we can grow together as aspiring educators. We will uphold the musical and academic standards of the Elizabethtown College Music Program, and form relationships with each other and with the Elizabethtown College faculty. We will hold each other accountable for upholding these ideals and values.”
2c: Managing Classroom Procedures
Daily Activation
Whether they would like to admit it or not, children crave structure. They thrive on routines, and to know exactly what is expected of them. In my time at Central Dauphin Middle school, I provided the students with an activation activity called a "Do Now." This was a 5 minute activity that they were to come into the classroom and complete as the first thing they did. This provided a quick review for them, as well as time to relax into the environment of teaching. These varied from note identification, to analysis and the introduction to composition.
2d: Managing Student Behavior
Consistency and Assertiveness
I am currently striving to optimize my classroom management skills through the use of new techniques I have observed and acquired. I am grateful to have experienced and dealt with a variety of different classrooms throughout the course of my placements, and it provided me with invaluable information that only hands-on experience can provide. Assertiveness is important within the classroom. It shows that you care about student learning, and also that you both command and show respect. In two occasions, after failing to manage a classroom with techniques such as repeated reminders, proximity, as well as reward and consequence, I decided to move the classroom seats around. This provided me with the ability to split up some of the problem areas within the student groups, and regain control of my classroom. This, in turn, made the other classroom control techniques easier to manage and maintain, and their reward system of "Panther Prides/Bucks" was much more effective.
2e: Organizing Physical Space
Ensemble Set-Up
Within an ensemble setting, it's important to be optimally set-up to provide the best aural and visual environment for a performance setting. In my placement at Central Dauphin East High School, the students tended to always sit in the same places in the room. Some were not close to their sections, and had difficulty hearing how their parts fit in with the others. It was not uncommon for my coop and I to change seating around to make them closer together, or have the sections facing one another so the sound would go towards their fellow ensemble members, instead of forward towards the front of the room.