https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey El Dorado Middle School en-us 2019-03-28 03:38:20 UTC 2019-03-28 23:13:07 UTC hello@padlet.com michaela_reason https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976613 Mr. Piazza’s classroom was fun and the kids seems to have a good time. As the students walked into the classroom he said “Hello, ____!” addressing each student by name and asking how they were doing. They were open with him and clearly enjoyed the connection they have with him. He starts each class with what he calls a Music Minute. During this, they get a vocabulary word related to music or a reminder of an upcoming performance. They get participation points for writing these things down. On the first day I went they had just gotten done with their contest season and were looking at judges’ comments. He read all of the comments to them, both positive and negative. He asked them to talk about how they felt about their performance and they were very mature about it. He showed them their certificate for the II rating they received and they were proud of their accomplishment while understanding that they still had work to do to improve. He clearly has expectations of maturity in this class and the students certainly live up to them. They warmed up with solfege syllables on a major scale. When they had a hard time following along, he had them make a card with the syllables written down and had them point to each one as they skipped around. At one point, he asked the class “If you were a teacher for a day, how would you explain this to the class?” I thought that was incredible. It showed which students really understood the concept because if you can teach something you have to have a pretty good understanding of it. I was very impressed by the amount of involvement throughout the class. As they started learning a new piece, he asked them to listen to him sing it once, using their ears to listen and their eyes to watch the sheet music, implementing visual and auditory learning styles. They then stood together in a circle and sang it together. There was a pair of girls who were talking a lot and very unfocused. Instead of calling them out, he told the whole class they had seven seconds to find a new spot in the circle to stand next to two new people. This split up the talkative girls without upsetting them. He consistently complimented those doing a good job out loud in front of everyone else instead of demeaning those who were acting out. It was very effective because everyone seemed to perk up with the compliments. He obviously has a wonderful relationship with his students and his room was refreshing to observe. 

]]> 2019-03-28 03:40:41 UTC https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976613 michaela_reason https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976697 Mr. Muñoz’s classroom was much crazier. Being an instrumental class, each student was armed with their own personal noisemaker. That seemed to be one of the main downfalls of this class. The students were set up in rows of semicircles facing the front white board. The room felt a little bit small for the number of people in there, especially with how loud they were being. They played their instruments and talked a lot out of turn. Mr. Muñoz was very impatient and he yelled a lot. His way of trying to manage the noise was loudly saying “Stop please” and “Be quiet”. He was losing his voice by the end of the two classes that I observed. It was not very effective at all. He clearly never set up expectations for behavior in class. If he did, he wasn’t great at enforcing them. He had almost no order or control over the class. There was a lot of time and energy wasted on unnecessary things. The thing that bothered me the most was something he said. He told them “You’re wasting MY rehearsal!” I think it was really harmful to call it HIS rehearsal when it should be OUR rehearsal. The students should understand that what they are doing in their class is not for their teacher, it’s for them as a group of people. They weren’t engaged because they saw this class as something they were doing for him, not for their own development. When the next class started, his student teacher, Mr. Boone, started the class with some warm-ups. Instead of waiting for the room to be quiet to start, he just began right away. This was actually pretty effective because it forced them to stop talking and start playing. He had an interesting way to get them to be quiet. He used something called “rest position.” They went over the three steps at the beginning of class and they are as follows: 1. Put instrument down, 2. Close your mouth, 3. Look up and listen. During class when they got too loud, he said “Rest” and they were quiet almost instantly. When they played their music, Mr. Boone conducted along visually while also snapping on the beats so they could either see or hear the beat. I think it was a great method to use. Overall, they made some good sounding music even though it didn’t seem they had much fun. 

]]> 2019-03-28 03:41:17 UTC https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976697 michaela_reason https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976817 Mrs. Hildreth’s classroom was a little bit crazy but that is to be expected when teaching sixth graders. I was very impressed by her classroom setup. All of the desks were set up in a way that the children could see the board and she was able to see all of the desks as well as the front door. To keep order in her classroom, she talked very quietly so the students would have to be quiet in order to hear her. The first day I visited, they had an award ceremony for their grades during the third nine-weeks. Before they left the classroom, she reminded them of the procedures with a fun game. In order to line up at the door, they had to answer questions about assembly procedures and expectations. It was a good way to get them lined up and ready to go while making it fun at the same time. Since they did a good job at the assembly, they got to dump syrup, sprinkles, and whipped cream on one of their teachers. It was funny and they all had a good time. The second day I visited her was a more normal day. As they came into the classroom, she asked them to get on their iPads and do some arithmetic work. She went around the room to be sure they were using the right app to get their work done. They then got a math worksheet on median, mode, and range. She told them they were reviewing it since it will be on the state test, further showing the impact of standardized learning. She let them be at a voice level two to work together. When they were too loud and off task, she moved them to a one and then to a zero. She expected them to work on their own but they all seemed to be confused. They came up to her for help, one by one, crowding around her desk. It was a little bit hectic and she really didn’t have time to work with each student individually, meaning they left her desk just as confused as they were before. One student was so confused that he stopped trying to finish the worksheet and ended up ripping the sheet in half and distracting everyone around him. When he was acting out, she sent him out into the hallway to work on his own. She later explained to me that he is a student with ADHD and she knows that by the end of the day, his medicine starts to wear off. She does her best to work with him on that. After about 15 minutes of trying to explain it individually, she finally called the class together to review it on the board. After the both auditory and visual review they did much better. At the end of the day they had to put their iPads away in the cart and put them on a charger so they would be ready for class tomorrow. 

]]> 2019-03-28 03:42:02 UTC https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976817 michaela_reason https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976962 El Dorado Middle School is an Apple Distinguished School. They are one of 470 schools in 34 countries that take part in this program. A school where innovation abounds, El Dorado Middle School has embraced redefining, risk-taking, and reflection with a passion. All EMS students have an iPad, access to Mac computers, and other technology tools. Every teacher has a MacBook and an iPad. Students use Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, GarageBand, and other apps for personalized learning. Using Photo Booth or the Camera app to record selfie reflection videos at the end of projects. In a television studio classroom, students publish a daily school news broadcast, using Apple technology to storyboard, assign jobs, produce, edit, and create video reports. Students can view the video via Apple TV located in every classroom, and the community can view it virtually. EMS was one of the first schools in the U.S. to integrate the Everyone Can Code program. Using Swift Playgrounds helps student learn coding, and curriculum materials and activities further instill coding concepts through reflections and journal prompts. The results from this initiative demonstrate that the one-to-one program has made a continued significant difference in meeting program goals. For example, engagement is at an all-time high level of 99 percent. This program promotes technology-rich environments to support learning goals.

]]> 2019-03-28 03:42:42 UTC https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345976962 michaela_reason https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345977012 I observed three different classrooms at El Dorado Middle School: Mrs. Hildreth’s sixth grade, Mr. Piazza’s seventh and eighth grade vocal music, and Mr. Muñoz’s sixth, seventh, and eighth grade bands. 

]]> 2019-03-28 03:43:00 UTC https://padlet.com/michaela_reason/qim7mt3ubvey/wish/345977012