California Teacher Performance Expectations
AST Semester:
TPE 1- Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning
This assignment shows strategies I plan on implementing to establish the development of academic language and achieving academic success for all students, regardless of familiarity of the content or English language.
TPE 2- Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments of Student Learning
Working with Students who are Medically Fragile
An Explanation: Who Qualifies?
· Anybody who has a 504 Plan that specifies a medical condition.
· Frequently absence from school which is directly correlated to a severe or life-threatening physical condition.
· Students who have qualified for special education in at least one category of disability (or is considered disabled) under Section 504.
· Students who are provided documentation of an illness by a licensed medical physician.
· A student whose illness is considered life-threatening and might require technology-dependent life-support systems.
Concerns that Arise
What are some of the concerns that arise for that population in terms of the consequences for them academically and/or their social-emotional health?
Concerns that may arise while working with a medically fragile student are the following; attendance, social-emotional health, academic performance, physical/ medical health, and mental health. The solution to these concerns are to consult the team handling this student between the teachers, special ed, and admin. Overall, these groups need to come together with the parents/guardians of the student to find the best possible plan for the academic and life long success of the individual.
What are things to look for to ascertain if they are in need of additional support?
-Days missed vs attended school
-Overall trends in grades
-Observed social interactions
-Observed medical condition
-Observed emotional behavior
Solution: call for a meeting with the student’s other teachers, and staff on the 504 plan to discuss strategies on how to provide support for the areas of need.
Strategies to accommodate students academically and on the social-emotional level.
Academically:
Create a 504 plan with the child’s parent/caregiver, general/ special education teacher, or the school principal.
Providing online resources to aid at learning while away from the classroom
Provide modified assignments as necessary based on academic aptitude and overall attendance.
Presume that they are competent to learn and do work, but offer special accommodations, such as working for 15 minutes while resting for 45.
Social-Emotional:
Placing the student in proximity to the nicer and more sociable students, to increase positive SEL experiences.
Finding times to talk to the student and the team that made the 504 plan on strategies to have the feel a sense of belonging and purpose.
Create an environment that is safe and welcoming to all students.
Helpful Forms of Communication to Students
· Treat the student like any other student in lieu of isolating them in a bubble.
· Establish a protocol on what to do should an emergency arise. There might need to be a code word or code sign that let’s the teacher know that the student needs medical attention. Explain the route from the room to the nurse’s office to the student.
· Have One-on-One support with the student before, during, and after class; have frequent check-ins. This can be done via email or text to remind the students on when things are due. Get to know the student and be prepared to help should an emergency arise.
· Keep a log of anything that may have arose during class.
Sources
https://www.issnc.org/uploaded/Student_Services/Guidelines_for_Medically_Fragile_Students.pdf
https://www.simplyspecialed.com/how-to-work-with-students-that-are-medically-fragile/
https://www.understood.org/en/articles/the-difference-between-ieps-and-504-plans
TPE 3- Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter For Student Learning
This document outline a “WHERETO” on developing musical vocabulary within a given unit on ear training and solfège. This document organizes the lesson in to understandable and engaging learning to structure an over arching longer lesson that will go throughout the semester of learning.
TPE 4- Planning Instruction and Designing Learning experiences for All Students
Promoting Language Development
This assignment was asking me as an instructor to show how I would can translate my content into more language friendly material to promote language development. This is important because is a subject area that transcends language at times, and as a result, can act as a bridge for students who are English learners. This shows my knowledge as an educator to create learning experiences that will promote language but also musical development amongst students.
TPE 5- Assessing Student Learning
This assessment was giving to the students as an exit ticket for learning and singing through solfège. It was done through Google Forms, to allow for instant feedback for them and myself, and allowed them to see their score immediately.
TPE 6- Developing as a Professional Educator
This is a completed version of my Individual Development Plan that will be used in my induction. The areas of focus were discussed between myself, my mentor teacher, and my university supervisor. It shows my areas of strength but also focuses on areas I would like to improve upon after my student teaching experience.
BST Semester:
TPE 1- Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning
This is a handout on a presentation I did about the learning disability; dyslexia. This document shows that I am capable of researching and adapting strategies to allow learning for all students. Through this type of research and lesson planning, I am able to adapt or accommodate all students in a manner that supports their learning and educational experience.
TPE 2- Creating and Maintaining Effective Environments for Student Learning
This document contains my classroom management plan that I conceived after working with many successful educators.Having proper structure and set expectations within a classroom is how an effective learning environment is created and mantained. With a good environment in place, students will feel safe, supported, and encouraged to learn.
TPE 3- Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning
This document is a lesson plan that I implemented with my jazz band. It breaks down the process I used to teach them the very basics of soloing and start them on the process of improvising. The scaffolding within this lesson demonstrates my understanding of the content and is formatting in a way that supports a wide range of students to be able to start learning this concept.
TPE 4- Planning Instruction and Designing Learning Experiences for All Students
Lesson 2
Objective of Lesson: Have the students work on research and presenting skills, using music as the topic of presentation.
CA State Standard you are addressing:
1.6 Compare and contrast the use of form, both past and present, in a varied repertoire of music from diverse genres, styles, and cultures.
3.1 Analyze how the roles of musicians and composers have changed or remained the same throughout history.
3.8 Compare and contrast musical genres or styles that show the influence of two or more
cultural traditions.
Formative and Summative Assessments:
Formative: Survey the room and ask about what topics they have encountered and would like to learn more about.
Summative: Present their independent research.
1) Anticipatory Set: gets students ready for the lesson in a way that inspires interest and attention:
Show them little segments of presentations I have done in the past. Explain how though I learned from these presentations, these were always topics I was passionate about.
Then show them my presentation on “The Planets” and how I put in so much effort into this presentation because I loved the content.
2) Purpose: communicate objective of the lesson
The purpose of this assignment is to work on research skills, presenting skills, and to generally learn more about a topic you care about.
3) Teaching/input/explanation: Can take the form of teaching by the teacher, student presentations, use of media, etc.
The teaching will take place in showing the process of picking a topic, outlining a presentation, asking questions, research, and finally presenting it.
Each step is the following;
Selecting a topic
Outlining a presentation
Asking important questions
Research
Presentation
4) Model: Demonstration of what is required of the student so that they can first see what to do and then do it. (We usually think of this as part of the initial teaching stage.)
Give a shorted version of my “Planets” presentation and point out along the way, what I did with each step of the process.
5) Check for understanding: Teacher assesses whether the students understand what has been taught, generally by asking questions, doing practice questions or problems on the board, etc.
Ask the students to explain each step of the process and why it would be important for a research presentation.
At this stage, I’ll give students 10 minutes to begin searching for a topic, after which, they will get it approved by me, if it is school and musically appropriate.
6) Guided Practice: Students are given some form an example to practice with the close guidance and attention of the teacher to make sure they basically understand what to do. If they don’t, this is the time to reteach those who are still struggling.
After the topics have been approved, they are free to research on their own and I’ll be cycling around the room and checking for understanding and providing guidance as needed.
7) Independent Practice: Once students are able to complete the basic task of the lesson without fear or confusion, it is time to move them to independent practice with less teacher supervision and more independence.
At this point they should have had enough guidance where they can work on researching and developing their presentation on their own.
They can email me with questions. Once they believe they are done, they will send me their final draft for approval before presenting.
TPE 5- Assessing Student Learning
Philosophy of Assessment
The idea of formal assessment is something that is not often talked about in my content area. Formal assessment does exist but there is a variety of ways in which music educators believe it should be done. The different type of assessments I want in my classroom are the following; participation, part checks/recordings, written content, and student directed content.
The purpose of participation point is to ensure that students are actively listening and participating in the rehearsal process. The rehearsal process is where students will be building the most skill and learning the bulk of the content. Realistically, nearly all days will receive full points, however the places where students may lose points is when they forget their sheet music, forget their instrument (for an instrumental program), or if they choose not to participate (pending serious reason not to be involved in rehearsal for that day.) This participation portion of assessment will be purely on effort and not the technical skill they have. I will also have participation points for concerts, however, these will be worth much more, because this is their “final” or “test” for this course.
The part checks will be having the students submit short recording of themselves performing passages from our repertoire. This will ensure that the students are practicing and learning how to record themselves simultaneously. The grading of the performances will vary based on the difficulty of the music, and the general skill level of the ensemble they are in. I have seen this method used very effectively in my master teacher’s classroom and think it would be valuable to adopt for myself.
The next major assessment will be based on direct instruction. This will often come from writing papers or completing worksheets based on the non-performance content we are working on. This can also be used in a reflection after a concert or performance. It can also be used as a tool to work on general writing skills.
After trying it this semester, I would like to have another assessment be based on a student-led activity. I believe giving the students a chance to present on an approved music topic of their choice is a great way to get them more interested in music as a whole, whilst developing research and presenting skills at the same time.
With these areas working together, I will realistically have a 60, 20, 10, 10 split in terms of grading percentages. Due to the nature of my content area, the written and research-based assignments will occur less often than standard rehearsing, however I would still like to implement them. Having all of these in tandem will work on teamwork, managing time, writing, research, and presenting skill that will apply across all content areas.
TPE 6- Developing as a Professional Educator
My Subjects Matters
1.Why did you choose your subject area?
I chose my subject because in high school I really enjoyed being in choir and felt like I would be content studying music in college. I was also good at math and entered as a double major in music and accounting. During my freshman year, I came to the realization, that if I chose music, I would never have a boring day of work in my life. I also enjoyed teaching, and being a music teacher is the most stable form of work for a musician. As a result, I dropped accounting and haven’t looked back.
2.What do you love about it?
I love my subject because it is just plain fun. It is a very enjoyable thing to be a part of and to share with others. I love the joy it can bring to an audience when live music happens in front of them. I also love that it is a never-ending journey, things will always change and evolve with music over time, and I will never have the exact group of students two years in a row. This will make every year in teaching different, and that excites me.
3.Where are your strengths with regard to your subject?
My strength is knowing the fundamentals very well. I teach 3rd graders on the weekend, and I taught undergraduate students two years ago. Between these two areas, I became very good at finding ways to break down the concepts and explain and demonstrate them in a fundamental level.
4.Where are your areas of growth?
I need to become more proficient with different instruments. In certain situations, the students may be much more skilled on their instrument than myself, and I need to work on closing that gap. I also would like to improve on selecting music to perform. I have not had a large amount of hands on experience selecting music for lower ensembles and I would like to be more skilled at that.
5.If you were asked to summarize the big ideas, key competencies, and vital importance of your subject area in just 200-300 words, what would you say? Why is it important for students to learn? Advocate for it! You may eventually have to do this in a faculty meeting at your school!
I believe the big ideas of my subject are preparation, practice, and performance. The idea of preparation is having the students prepared with a baseline knowledge and understanding before proceeding to learn performance pieces. These ideas often tie into the state standards in terms of understanding the content and working with others. This will create a firm foundation that much music can be made from without having to reset to zero for each piece. The idea of practice is working together in rehearsal to learn the music and develop it in a way that is natural and an expression of the ensemble as a whole. The performance is the live or recorded execution of the music. After the performance, a reflection is good to see how they have grown and where they can continue to grow.
This subject is very beneficial for student growth because it allows students to learn a potential lifelong passion, teaches them work habits that transfer to other disciplines, and allows the student to be in a creative environment which in turn will help them with self-expression.
Programs like music provide students a testing ground to see what they may or may not like in the creative field, which in this day and age with digital media is becoming more and more important. It also provides a free education promoting creativity to all that are a part of it. This creativity pays off in a variety of fields from medicine, to law, to design, business, and many more.
6.What are some key connections between your subject matter and other subject areas that could be the basis of interdisciplinary collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines?
There are many key connections that music has with other disciplines. English and music can collaborate through the use of poetry as lyrics for a song. Music is also a portal through history, as often most of the works performed as historic and it is relevant to know the context of what we are performing. Music, especially vocal music, is very tied to the physical body and knowing how to control it, and that is a connection with PE.
7.List, in addition to your Subject Matter Framework, at least four other resources that you can consult to go deeper in your understanding (include at least one podcast and at least one professional organization among your resources).
One of my sources is “The Music Education Podcast” on Spotify. I have been listening to it lately and it provides solid insight. Another source is video essays on YouTube. Many creators, and sometimes colleges, will make presentations and post them on YouTube, often including scholarly links to the sources. I also use my collection of books from my undergraduate and master degrees to find more insight for problem solving, or more information for a topic at hand. My final resource is conferences, I have attending NASM conferences and plan on attending many more to constantly be learning.