My Teaching Philosophy
As an educator, there are many of different ways that a classroom can be handled, and each of these ways can all be effective in the classroom. My management and teaching philosophy is based off my passions and personal beliefs in music and was grown through my education.
My philosophy of classroom management derives from my ideal of every student having the ability to learn music and grow with in the music. This, in turn, gives the classroom a calm, and focused atmosphere because no student needs to feel shy or pressured to make music. Music should comes as a natural occurrence and with the right teaching, can turn into wonderful music. With this in mind, it is easy to achieve the curricular because the students don't have to worry about always getting the correct answer as long as they are working towards the goal of learning. My curriculum also enforces my idea of student ability by focusing more on reflection than actual skill level of the voice, not to say there aren't assessments that deal with the voice directly.
In the activities and assessments that I give to the students, I use the ideals of both Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly. These two theories are based of children learning to about middle school, I take the ideas and refocus them to be used in a higher level of music along with the elementary implications. The basic idea is to see music as play. The last thing I want is my students to feel is the music room being a rigid place where music making is only technical. I found these methods to be useful because it gives students the the chance to take the chances to develop their own musical ideas, but still learn from the instruction of the teacher.
My classroom management is strongly based off the theory of James Kounin, which focuses on prevention of discipline rather than punishment based management. In summary, Kounin's method uses a variety of techniques to keep the students working and the teacher always on task and observing the students. This gives the students ample learning opportunities while simultaneously allowing the teacher to keep a steady class pace with no interruptions. You can read more about Kounin's theory here.
In closing, my goal is to foster a community where learning in all students can happen. I feel with these criterion I follow, it is very likely that a community will be created. Every student will have the chance to learn if they are willing.
In the activities and assessments that I give to the students, I use the ideals of both Carl Orff and Zoltan Kodaly. These two theories are based of children learning to about middle school, I take the ideas and refocus them to be used in a higher level of music along with the elementary implications. The basic idea is to see music as play. The last thing I want is my students to feel is the music room being a rigid place where music making is only technical. I found these methods to be useful because it gives students the the chance to take the chances to develop their own musical ideas, but still learn from the instruction of the teacher.
My classroom management is strongly based off the theory of James Kounin, which focuses on prevention of discipline rather than punishment based management. In summary, Kounin's method uses a variety of techniques to keep the students working and the teacher always on task and observing the students. This gives the students ample learning opportunities while simultaneously allowing the teacher to keep a steady class pace with no interruptions. You can read more about Kounin's theory here.
In closing, my goal is to foster a community where learning in all students can happen. I feel with these criterion I follow, it is very likely that a community will be created. Every student will have the chance to learn if they are willing.