Student Teaching
In Fall 2016, I student taught with Leah Crews at Sheridan Elementary School and Washington Elementary School in Bloomington, Il and Sara Williams at Normal Community West High School in Normal, IL
At Sheridan and Washington, I was in a K-5 music classroom and taught everything from the beginning of the year “Hello Song” with kindergarteners and first graders to playing the rhythms of Fucik’s “Entrance of the Gladiators” with fifth graders. I experienced a very diverse population as 86% of Sheridan was low-income families. This presented its own unique challenges as the students have very different home lives compared to how I have grown up. Using the knowledge I learned from my cooperating teacher, I was able to adapt my lessons to make them the most engaging as possible.
At Normal West and Normal Community, I taught American Pop Music and three curricular choirs. American Pop Music branched from a general understanding of musical forms to musicals, jazz, country, and rock music. This class was a considerably more pen and paper class compared to the choirs. We would enrich the students through powerpoints and have them experience the different genres chronologically through YouTube videos. I would love to dive deeper into a class of this nature and really have students be more involved in the class by focusing on the music that they listen to and finding ways to engage them more.
American Pop Music branched from a general understanding of musical forms to musicals, jazz, country, and rock music. This class was a considerably more pen and paper class compared to the choirs. We would enrich the students through powerpoints and have them experience the different genres chronologically through YouTube videos. I would love to dive deeper into a class of this nature and really have students be more involved in the class by focusing on the music that they listen to and finding ways to engage them more.
The three curricular choirs are an all-freshman/first-year choir (Concert Choir), Women’s Chorale, and Chamber Choir. Women’s and Chamber are auditioned groups. Much of the lessons on this blog are based on experiences with Concert Choir and Women’s Chorale.
Additionally, I directed Treble With Women, a women’s a cappella group, at Normal West as well as served as assistant director of Jazz Voices, a co-ed vocal jazz group.
Field Placements
Coincidentally, my field placements were at the same schools as my student teaching.