Fitzpatrick Student Teaching Blog Week #4

This week, I continued the second week of my two-week Dance unit. Unfortunately, my two-week unit has been pushed to a three-week unit because of the two call-off days due to the cold. Luckily, I was able to take advantage of my days off by catching up on lesson plans and reflections.

            In 3^rd and 4^th grade I concentrated most of my teaching on the 5-6-7-8 dance and teaching the Waltz Box Step. I was tepid about teaching the Waltz, considering it is a partner dance and the students were not into it at all. They are very uncomfortable with the idea of dancing together. To ease the embarrassment, my cooperating teacher told me to allow the students to pick their own partners. I followed her recommendation, which helped immensely. Being with their friends of choice, they were willing to be “silly,” yet able to stay on tasks the discomfort was greatly lessened.

            Trying to teach a partner dance is not an easy task for 3^rd and 4^th graders. The toughest concept was teaching the students how to mirror each other. Placing my first class in pairs, I immediately knew I had made a poor decision before even beginning my lesson. Of course, the class period bombed, with the kids not wanting to pay attention, and rather goof around with their friends. This period frustrated me to the point I had to reach out to my cooperating teacher to practically take over the class so that she could restore order and I could observe her for Ideas.

            The next period, and all periods after were much smoother. The first decision I made that worked more effectively throughout the day was as simple as teaching the main roles of each dance partner while the students were still separated in the warmup spots before pairing them together. By doing this the students had an easier time concentrating, and I was able to assess the students much more fluently, allowing me to gauge better as to when they were ready to be paired. Another technique I used, which I feel truly made an immediate difference, was that I chose to use a partner pair in the classroom demonstrating perfect form to demonstrate as an example of how the dance should look. By allowing students to visually recognize what the dance should look like aided so much because the students not only now had a tangible idea of the expectations when dancing, and able to recognize the ability to succeed as their peers have done. I also modified the hand placement from the lead holding the side of the partner to the lead holding the shoulder, as the side seemed to add a sense of emotional discomfort to the students whereas hold a shoulder released the tension and aided in the dancing.

            Assessing my teaching ability in the Waltz, my cooperating teacher had remarkable praise after class today, stating that I did a terrific job slowing the teaching down, and showed patience with working with the students. As a result, she said I had at least 85% of my students successfully completing the Waltz, which was better than she expected after the second day.

            As much as I appreciate the praise, I do wonder if teaching a partner dance such as the Waltz is beneficial to students in elementary school. As I feel the objective of teaching dance is to enhance health, balance, and rhythm while increasing emotional confidence, I am not sure forcing students who are either at an age where partnerships either are a non-thought or beginning stages of curiosity are beneficial to the affective domain. While I do see many benefits, I question if the minimal amount of hindrances is heavy enough to cause an adverse effect to the objectives of the lesson. This question came to me because on two separate instances when a pair was “forced” together due to them being the remaining students without partners, the idea of engaging in a dance together kept them from participating. However, simply placing two poly squares parallel to each other and having the students face each other while practicing the moves around the square was okay.

            In terms of new ideas and best practices, when teaching dance, I must say that I feel technology can go a long way in teaching students proper dance technique. I noticed that when I incorporated a music video via YouTube into my dace teaching lesson, the students showed increased comprehension as opposed to watching myself or their peers who were also learning. Also, it enabled me the opportunity to walk around and better assess my students as I did not have to physically participate in the activity as much at the beginning of the lesson. The students rather were teaching themselves and I was there to guide them with subtle hints as opposed to full-on incorporation. I also learned that mirror teaching works great, especially in the younger grades.

            I was thoroughly impressed with how well my 1st-grade students have improved in their ability to decipher between right and left. At the beginning of the unit, my students were all over the place, running into each other as they would turn or move the wrong way, or would just stand in place because they did not know what movements to make. After day one, my biggest concern was how can I ensure the students understand direction. While mirroring my movements to theirs and shouting the direction they were supposed to move in, I have noticed that without even asking, the students are understanding the directions of right and left better. To test my theory I assessed my 1st-grade students today before we reviewed the Cha-Cha Slide. My first assessment to them was “slide to the right, then left stomp 2 times,” to which all but three students out of 41 total students were able to do successfully. To be honest, of all the thing I have enjoyed thus far in student teaching, I believe this small assessment is by far my favorite as it shows my teaching has truly been being applied in the lives of the students.

            In the week ahead, I hope to discover that my stress on the importance of recognizing musical beats and rhythm when dancing pays off as my students are beginning to create their own minute long group musical performances. I am hoping they can take movements acquired in class along with their own moves and create performances that are in tune with the music assigned to them.

            In relation to Standard 3 – Differentiated Instruction – while the third and 4^th graders were working together to demonstrate harmony in movement through the Waltz, I incorporated the Bunny Hop dance for 1^st and 2^nd graders. By doing so, the students still had to work harmoniously together, understanding each partner’s movements and location so to not break the chain of the bunny hop. Students are still learning the same objective, but in different forms more suitable to the age and psychomotor and cognitive potential.

            In relation to Standard 5 – Instructional Delivery – I have come to recognize that a handful of my students respond better to more intimate, individual instruction. For these students, specifically three in mind, I not only give them more verbal instruction during activities such as during the instruction, but I also stop them and give them more praise such as fist bumps and tell them “thank you” more often than other students. I have noticed that giving them more private attention while deviating from giving them more public attention has not only lead to a decrease outbursts and distractions in the class by them and others, it has also lead to greater positive participation in class. For example, my first grader who would not listen to a word in class has been actively engaging in all the dances this week, has been participating in closure by raising his hand instead of talking and blurting, and has shown major improvements is standing still in line while waiting for the teacher. This is my new student who has only known me as a teacher. I am sure it is a product of all who is working with him, but I would like to believe I play a decent if a not large role in this sort of outcome.

            My goals for next week: Continue learning students’ names. This has been my toughest area of expertise. Also, I hope to reach and surpass my goal of 85% of my students reaching a minimum of 75% or better in the accuracy of the physical and written summative assessments in dance.