Entry 1: Learner Development
Learners in a classroom grow and develop individually with varying patterns in social, cognitive-linguistic, emotions, and physical areas. Because of this, it’s vital for the educator to recognize these patterns to better implement developmentally appropriate, relevant, and rigorous learning experiences. Students under my supervision have been thoughtfully observed and organized in the contextual factors template which identifies gender, ethnicity/culture, language proficiency, academic performance, and special needs. The development of the learner is heavily influenced by instruction and activity type. Therefore, identifying these characteristics have aided me in finding and creating the best possible learning experiences for each specific class.
In an instrumental classroom with various levels of ability and musical experience, differentiation of instruction is key to reach and water each student. As some students may be on one end of the spectrum with years of playing experience, there is also the other end of the spectrum with beginners reading music for the first time. In this situation, I found it most beneficial to divide students into two groups based on experience and ability and go from there. Each group is working on the same concepts but at different levels. An example of this can be seen in the second artifact, percussion warm-ups. Another example of this can be seen as a choice of level in artifact one. Physical and cognitive abilities became a major influence in my elementary planning. In a kindergarten classroom, gross motor skills are typically ahead of fine motor skills in development. This was especially true for a special-needs student in one class with delayed speech and movement. To further the development of all students it proved useful to play to the age groups strengths and top-multiple intelligence of kinesthetic activity as seen in artifact three.
In an instrumental classroom with various levels of ability and musical experience, differentiation of instruction is key to reach and water each student. As some students may be on one end of the spectrum with years of playing experience, there is also the other end of the spectrum with beginners reading music for the first time. In this situation, I found it most beneficial to divide students into two groups based on experience and ability and go from there. Each group is working on the same concepts but at different levels. An example of this can be seen in the second artifact, percussion warm-ups. Another example of this can be seen as a choice of level in artifact one. Physical and cognitive abilities became a major influence in my elementary planning. In a kindergarten classroom, gross motor skills are typically ahead of fine motor skills in development. This was especially true for a special-needs student in one class with delayed speech and movement. To further the development of all students it proved useful to play to the age groups strengths and top-multiple intelligence of kinesthetic activity as seen in artifact three.