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Winning a student's heart
Student I has been defiant in class. He seemed like the 'big bully' even though he is scrawny. When he speaks, he makes sure you hear him loud and clear. His eyes are constantly glued to his phone and gives empty promises on keeping his phone.

After speaking to the counselor who is in close contact with his case worker I realize he is a young man who speaks loudly to be

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What should I do when there is a group of 5 disruptive students in class?

To ignore the disruptive behavior and carry on lesson or to spend more time with them at the expense of the other students' groupwork time

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What do you do when a student has lost interest in music?
The student is not in school again. Not picking up her phone. Her mother is not replying my messages as well. According to her classmates, she has left school with her friends.

Her coursework is far lagging behind and she does not seem to be concerned. She sleeps in class despite multiple wake-up calls and motivational talks. "Music very hard" is her respond to not working hard. Even though I have reminded her on the steps for coursework, she still finds it difficult. "I am tired lah cher" is her usual respond when I wake her up from her sleep.

What do I do when a parent is unable to help her daughter?
"I don't know how to help her teacher. I told her finish her N'levels then talk" Mother sounded helpless when I feed-backed on her daughter's attitude and progress. Her daughter does not listen to her.
How? How am I to turn the situation for the better?

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It was exciting to watch students picking up piano playing skills quickly and the joy on their faces when they "did it!".

How did the lesson go?
Students were generally engaged as they had individual 'keyboards' (downloaded in their phones). They were keen to match up with the pace of the faster students in class and hence many were very competitive.

What went well?
Minimal instructions and more hands-on time gave students more opportunity to hone their instrumental playing skills.

What can be improved.
I wished I had more time to help each student individually. They were enthusiastic in learning, but there is only 1 of me and a short music lesson.

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Objectives of the lesson:

How did the lesson go?

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Teacher to bring in real life examples to engage students in lesson discussions. Using teachers’ Facebook conversation to show how a possible cyberbully situation may arise, and how it is resolved in the end.

How did the lesson go?
Students were engaged in discussion and asked meaningful questions such as: ‘how did you feel with Mdm Koh say that your face is like a pig?’ , ‘ how did you feel with Mr Peh sided you and ask you to report the bullying to Mr Shahul?’. This triggered the students to take different perspectives and see a clear picture of how a bully case could unfold. It caused them to reflect and think of their own personal encounters on social media.

What went well: Students were engaged to give their comments and felt more open to share their own stories. Values are better learnt through story telling

What can be improved: Teacher needs to be careful and bring a strong message to the students that bullying should not be happening in schools.

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Tried out a lesson exploring rhythms with 1A2 this week. First, to capture the attention of the students, I got the students to view a performance video of a percussion ensemble, Stomp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NhFmARAgu0
This video, a listening activity, was shown to set the context for the following activities on performing rhythms. The students then went through a short performing task by creating rhythmic ostinatos as a class. To allow students to follow the pulse of the rhythm, the first group of students who started the rhythm stamped their feet for the first beat of the 4-beat rhythm. The students were seated in rows so I led each row of students in by clapping different rhythms above the rhythm of the pulse.  After the music-making exercise, I got the students to reflect on how they thought their performance was, using Talk Moves. They thought it was messy so we tried again a few times. After this performance activity, we went into a simple note-reading exercise. They then proceed to read the rhythmic notation (Semibreve, minims, crotchets and quavers) before clapping short rhythm patterns using flashcards. It took them a while to get used to this but most of them managed to follow after some practice.
Flashcards may be found here:
https://laytonmusic.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/rhythm-flashcards/

What went well (or not so well) for the lesson/ What could be improved on and how it could be done differently :
I thought the activity of having students understand what the notation symbols mean and clapping the rhythms on the flashcards was quite successful. Although I am not too sure if everyone truly understood how to read the notation patterns, or students are just following their friends when clapping the rhythms. I would only be able to assess this in the following week when I recap the rhythmic notation and have the students perform the rhythms in groups. Ideally, students should all be able to clap the patterns and I'd like to have them play these patterns in ostinatos and in layers in class. The first rhythm-making activity was more messy and I thought it might be better if I rearrange their seating position (perhaps in a circle) and I could grab everyone's attention before demonstrating the rhythm to them. This is so that they can follow me more closely. (I'll try this again but in a different seating arrangement)

The teacher's assumptions
I actually thought the first activity might be more interesting for them, but it turned out that the students seem to enjoy the second performance activity more. I think the reason is because they were doing this as a class and it made it easier for everyone to listen in to only one rhythm. There is definitely more skill involved (listening, for one) when performing the ostinatos in layers.

Challenges in implementation of the Talk Moves (in this case):
When asked to reflect on how they thought their performance went, students were not always able to find the right words to describe or elaborate on the reasons for their thoughts on the process. Perhaps it would help if I share with them some of the words they could use to describe rhythmic patterns.

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Reflection 2: CCE 
2T2
Total defence – Cyber security  

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Reflection 2: CCE 
2T2
Total defence – Cyber security  

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Using line Continuum and talk moves, engage students to rank how far they trust the internet activity with their personal information.

Some students rank online gaming platform such as Mobile Legends as ‘very safe’ as it is only ‘a game’. Teacher to bring in real life example on how students can still find teacher’s account on the leader’s board, despite teacher’s efforts to change user name. However, teacher is also able to find out which student checked her profile and monitor if the student has been playing the game during lesson hours. Through this platform, some basic information can be leaked to strangers, or other players whom we may not know in real life.

| How did the lesson go? | Students reacted well to the talk moves and perspective taking. They listened to one another’s view point and tried to understand why their classmates rated the same activity with a different level of trust.  What can be improved: Teacher needs to be aware that not every student in class knows the same social media app. To give a basic context and ensure that all the students are involved in the class discussion.

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English Lesson: Descriptive Writing (Describing Objects: 3E1)
MTV Routine: Chalk Talk
For this lesson, students were tasked to write a short paragraph on a possession that matters most to them and explain why they would never be prepared to part with it. They were also taught to describe by considering the object's appearance, value and function. Instead of doing the assignment individually, I decided to get them to complete this in groups of four. Descriptive writing is an especially difficult genre of essay to write because students are expected to describe using their five senses and to write vividly using literary devices like metaphors, similes and personification. Hence, writing in groups makes this task more manageable because they can discuss and bounce off ideas.

What went well for the lesson/ What could be improved on and how it could be done differently:

I first got the class to write down the paragraph in groups. I gave them about 15 minutes to come up with the ideas. Thereafter, they were given time to circulate around to different groups to read others' work and write down their responses, extend ideas or note down questions. They may do so with a different coloured marker. Using the alarm, each group is to take 3 minutes to do this. I got students to rotate around 5 groups. I thought that for a first trial, this routine went quite well. Although the comments written by each group may not be as well-developed, they were able to spot areas that may be improved. They wrote down questions and new description to the paragraph. In addition, students got to read what the others wrote and learnt from them. When the students returned to their own respective groups, they also read, with interest, the comments by other friends.  At the end of the routine, I asked them if they felt it was useful to go around to expand on others work and read other groups' work and some of them felt this activity was useful.

In terms of what could be improved, I thought that maybe I could be more specific when setting some ground rules for the students to follow when carrying out the Chalk Talk activity. E.g. 1) Rotate in groups to view others' work but do so silently. 2) Think more deeply about how you can improve the piece of writing you're reading.

The teachers' assumption:
I thought that the students would be able to focus on writing meaningful comments. But we all must have a Sense of Reality and understand this doesn't happen in the classroom.  Some of the students were rather childish and  wrote irrelevant comments/ drew pictures on the paper. Having said that, there were some good comments/ ideas on the mahjong sheets.

Challenges in implementating MTV Routine:
I think in this case, Chalk Talk is effective in getting students to view and think about the work presented by others. In the process, they also learn from their friends' description of different objects. However, for this to be more meaningful, it is crucial for me to be more explicit in giving expectations of behaviour and provide them with the questions to think about while reviewing their friend's work.

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Music Lesson: Rhythmic Ensemble Performance with 1A2 ( 06/03/2019)
Over the last few lessons, students have been clapping and creating rhythmic ostinatos as a class. In the previous lesson, they tried to layer two rhythms together, trying to play in unison. For this lesson, students were tasked to come up with a short rhythmic ensemble performance in their groups. To give them the context and tap on their prior knowledge for the task, I showed them a couple of videos of groups of people playing rhythms together.

Video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_sHVAExWw4

After watching the videos, the students got into their groups to practise. For the task, they are allowed to use various found objects to put up the performance. They could also use their voice, stamp their feet or clap their hands. After the practice (of about 15-20 minutes), they put up the mini performance in front of their classmates. After each round of performance, students will critique their friends work using an AfL strategy, 2 Stars and a Wish. Students will state 2 things they thought were good about the performance and 1 thing they hope the group performing will do better.

What went well  for the lesson/ What could be improved on and how it could be done differently :
In general, I thought the lesson went well today. The students may seem noisy when they broke up into groups to practise, however I found a way to get their attention quite quickly. I told them when I raised my fist up, they are to sit down, face the front and keep quiet. They were able to do this in a couple of minutes when I practised that routine twice with them. (I later found out that their form teacher also carried out this routine with them to get their attention and keep quiet. Perhaps, if all subject teachers practise the same routine, students may be able to get used to responding) The  students also appeared engaged. To minimise the noise created within the class, I got a group to move outdoors. We only managed to get 3 groups to put up their mini performance. Given the short time they have to prepare, I thought the short ostinatos they came up with were quite well-organised. When I did 2 Stars and a Wish with the class, they were able to point out areas in the group's performances to improve. E.g. There was group that only had 3 students playing a simple beat (resembling that of We will Rock you rhythm). One of the students in the audience mentioned that the rhythm is too simple. I thought this is apt. I asked the students, " So what else can they do?" and one of them added on to say that they can change their rhythms. I mentioned that  there were 2 students in the group who were not really playing any rhythms and that they could have layered another varying rhythm on top of the simple beat.

The teacher's assumptions
Initially, I thought the students may not be as focused on the task when they break up into their various groups. However, they completed the task well in their groups.

Challenges in implementation of the Talk Moves (in this case):
When asked to reflect on how they thought their performance went, students were not always able to find the right words to describe or elaborate on the reasons for their thoughts on the process. Perhaps it would help if I share with them some of the words they could use to describe rhythmic patterns.

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Reflection 4: CCE Lesson/ Professionalism@Work Yingyi

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Reflection 4: CCE Lesson/ Professionalism@Work Yingyi

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CCE Lesson with 4E3
Approach: Circles

Went quite alright. There were uncooperative students who made unnecessary comments. Only three of them. But in general the students were participative and gave their honest views when it was their turn. Sartark's sharing was forthcoming. To be continued

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English Lesson with 3E1
Thinking Routine: Generate Sort Connect Elaborate
Topic: Oral Preparation

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Objective of the lesson:
I.   Appreciate the history of Indian       Traditional Music
II.  Understand the structure and
scale used in Indian Traditional
Music
III.  Identify and Describe Indian
Instruments

How did the lesson go?
Students were very engaged when they were completing their individual research project. They were focused on finding the answers to the questions posted to them. Students were also challenged to present their findings to the class after the research.

Thinking routines observed:
See - Think - Wonder
See: Observe how the instruments are being played. Listen to the texture of Indian music
Think: How sound is produced in the instrument. Why does Indian music sound so complicated.
Wonder: What is the history behind the music. Who teaches the musicians?

What went well:
Students were very engaged during the research. Training of independent learning and public speaking skills.

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Objectives of the lesson:

1. Independent learning through music app

2. Understand basic drumming pattern

How did the lesson go?
Similar to 1E2's lesson, 1E1 was very enthusiastic in learning to drum. One difference is this class is capable of more independent learning, and I realize when given more time to practice after demonstrating each drum pattern, the students were able to digest better. They were very focused on practicing and getting the rhythm right. The class was generally very quite with only the sound of drums.

Students' responses to I used to think, now i think...

I used to think drumming is...
difficult, complex, for punks

Now i think drumming is...
not that difficult, is easy, for everyone

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Objectives of the lesson:

1. Independent learning through music app

2. Understand basic drumming pattern

How did the lesson go?
Some students had issues downloading 'Real Drum' or 'Drum Kit' as they require parents' consent to download apps. These students used the Ipads.

Most were able to and they were very excited to try out the app. Students had no issues with learning the basic b-s-b-b-s rhythms and were able to follow the tempo led by me. Challenge surfaced when when the close-hat was added in. Many were unable to catch the rhythm from the beginning and I had to demonstrate to them individually.

Generally all students were engaged and were responsive.

Students' responses to I used to think, now i think...

I used to think drumming is...
easy, cool, for the hippie

Now i think drumming is...
difficult, complex, requires a lot of patience, everyone can drum