Final Reflections EDUC 350
Early in the semester I stated that I believed empowerment, leadership, collaboration, growth mindset, and creativity needed to be a part of music education. My ideas early in the semester were that my students would be collaborating, my students would be having fun, my students would be raising their hands to conduct groups or drawing notation on my smart board. I believed my students would be excited to sharing their experiences listening to music, developing their own expression through personal experiences, and composing music. Practicum experiences, and resources in EDUC 350 helped me develop my teaching philosophy and to set goals for myself as an educator. From the resources, I learned to create choice for students so that they could take control of their own learning. One example of this is when I created an exit ticket for a lesson I taught in EDUC 331 and gave students 3 options for which question they wanted to answer. I also learned that high expectations, rules, and predictable routines help students. I discovered that when students are off task they are not learning. Because of this I incorporated high expectations in my teaching philosophy. Additionally, I created a goal to learn classroom management skills through observation of other teachers. I also decided begin practicing classroom management techniques learned when working with students. While assisting in a math class for EDUC 350, I asked a student, who was off task over 85% of the time and distracting other students, to take out the school work and begin working on it. I pointed out the specific behavior of the student and then stayed near the student to help with questions. Every time I was in the math class I reminded the student to work on homework and stayed near the student to assist. I learned to use data to create and assess students better, but also to help me create lessons to help students build skills in other content areas such as literacy and mathematics. I discovered that students have a desire to be included and enjoy lessons that are physically, emotionally, and intellectually engaging. In EDUC 350 I created two social skills lessons that included physical and emotional activities. Finally, I learned specific techniques such as creating a positive environment for students to learn and collaborate and by building a culture of error, and building ration through questioning. I employed some of these techniques in my lesson plan for EDUC 350 and in some of the lessons I taught during my 350 experiences. I hope to continue exploring these techniques so that my students can have an excellent experience in my music classrooms.