Start you engines...

This course has raised awareness for me in many new areas that I had not necessarily considered in the past. When asked to consider a driving question to guide my research throughout this course, I reflected on my teaching practice and the one question that stood out for me above all others was:

“How can I better engage the gender classes, specifically the boys, in my music classroom through the use of technology?” 

The reason this question stood out for me the most was because the all boys class is the class that I had the most challenges with when teaching.  Many of the boys that made up the grade 7 gender class this year, I had taught last year and they were really good students.  Something changed when these students were put into a single gender class and I felt like I had lost them in a sense.  They were not as engaged in their own learning and it was difficult to control them as a class.  These were not issues that were unique to me.  Their homeroom teacher and other rotary teachers also had similar issues.  As a team we did get the group as a whole on better track through the duration of the year by using a rewards system, however, I want to have a teaching practice where students are intrinsically motivated in constructing their own learning.

Throughout the duration of this course, a few key ideas have resonated with

me and have helped shape my new understanding of how to best start to answer my driving question to develop a program where the single gender classes, specifically the boys, are more engaged in their own learning.

At the starting line...

Upon embarking on my honours specialist in music, I felt like I was starting to have a good handle on my teaching practice and that my understanding of teaching music and "the learner" were solid. Having completed my third year of teaching, the second year at my current school, things were starting to make sense. I have taught music at the middle school level for all three years, both in a band and non band program. The communities that I have worked in are both very challenging areas. Most families are working class families and students have very little guidance and support from their parents at home because often parents are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Many families in my community are immigrant families comprised mostly of Indian, Pakistani, and Jamaican backgrounds. Rumour has it that a large portion of the community that I work in were actually families from Jane and Finch that were given a fresh start from the City of Brampton and the City of Toronto.

This past year I had the opportunity to be part of the school leadership committee and had the leadership role within the music department. Despite the political climate and difficulties that this year brought, it was a good year and my LTO teaching partner and I got a lot accomplished. I felt like I had this teaching gig under control, then I started this course and again, started to question everything I had believed in.  Musical understanding. Ya that means that you understand music right? But what does that REALLY mean? The first module tackled the ideas of "musical understanding" and I hit a dis-equilibrium in my own knowledge. I panicked.  

"To understand something is to have an intelligent relationship to it."

Carl Bereiter

"Understanding is to be judged according to its ability to produce further understanding."

Carl Bereiter,
Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age

Have I done ANYTHING right in my first three years of teaching?  Well, of course I had, but I had not taken the time to reflect upon what I did and the value that it provided my students upon completing their year with me. I have had many successful teaching moments over the last three years.  I have had the unique opportunity to teach in a developmentally disabled class, an all-girls class, an all-boys class, a behaviour class, a general learning disability class and a mixed behaviour-general learning disability class. I consider myself to be very privileged to work in a school board where all schools will be wireless by September of this year and that has programs like Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) already implemented and concrete within its framework.  I am even more privileged to work in a school that is technology focused.

To provide you with a clearer understanding of where I started this course, these are some of the things that I felt I did well in my teaching practice:

• strong connection with my band classes - very engaged in their own learning and enthusiastic about playing
• strong bucket drumming program, especially for the extracurricular group
• decent guitar program for all grades
• through understanding of the importance of technology in the classroom from working on my masters program - thesis topic "Teacher's Attitudes Towards iPad Integration in the Middle School Classroom"
• encourage collaborative relationships with other teacher's to create music assignments that connect to other curriculum strands such as art and media literacy
• engaged most classes in various music related lessons
• tried to make units and lessons relevant to what the students wanted to learn about, provided it followed the curriculum

These are some of the ideas that I struggled with in my teaching practice:

• Gender class - specifically the boys - how do I get them engaged in their learning?
• What other activities can I try with the GLD and Intensive Behaviour Class if I teach them again?
• How can I establish a better teaching team for next year when we incorporate the LTO teacher as a permanent teacher and the teacher on maternity leave returns
• What technology can I start to integrate into my teaching practice besides what I already use?

Hopefully, this provides you with a clear idea on where I was upon embarking on this journey.