My Teaching Philosophy and Practices

by Mary Jensen

Maintaining an environment for student success

First and foremost, my intention is for students to feel safe, loved, appreciated and valued in my classroom. All other aspects of my teaching branch from this core value. This, above all else, is crucial so they can feel safe to learn, grow and explore the wonders and magic of music. It is my responsibility to provide this environment that will help their minds thrive! I want all of my students to remember my classroom as being a fun, positive and welcoming place. A wonderful experience in music as a young child will make them more likely to pursue music-making and have an appreciation for this precious form of art in the future. A negative experience can do the opposite. By maintaining a connection that is authentically affectionate, kind and supportive I believe that they can hold onto their happy memories for a lifetime!

Brain-building, Music-making and Successfulness

I desire to constantly stretch my students’ thinking. Our classroom activities, concerts and lesson objectives are meant to “exercise their brains!” Reading music, moving to music, playing music, creating and composing music, listening to music...these all activate different areas of their brain! Every teaching moment is an opportunity to help their minds grow and change. What an unbelievable, amazing and humbling responsibility we educators have!

What are the details of their learning and products of their understanding? While under my care, my students learn how to read, play, and compose complicated rhythms; construct melodies that they sing and play; compare and contrast music structures; and investigate social and the historical background of music. We use many instruments in class! Our ukuleles and percussion instruments are a couple of their favorites! We dance with scarves to explore musical expression (dynamics and tempo). We dance, march, clap and hop to feel steady beat and rhythmic changes. We sing, perform, laugh and play.

How do I know if THEY know what they need to know?

● Performance Assessments - Often, my students are asked to show their learning in a performance assessment for either just me or in front of a group or the class. After they compose a melody, song or rhythm they are asked to share what they have created. Ideas can lead to other ideas, right?! So many kids benefit from seeing what others have made. This is a wonderful and natural way to spark their own thinking!

● Utilizing Technology - Teachers in our district often integrate technology for formative and summative assessments. We are fortunate at A.G.S. to be a 1:1 school. All of our 1st graders use Samsung Tablets and 2nd-5th graders use Chromebooks. They often bring their Chromebooks and Samsung tablets to my classroom. They access assignments on Google Classroom and use them to navigate my blog/website which includes links to educational music sites. My colleagues and I enjoy finding new apps, sites and uses for these devices in our music classrooms to support and assess their learning. In January, my elementary music team and I presented to a group of over 200 music educators of Illinois about how to use a variety of Google Suite products to enhance teaching, assessing and support peer collaboration. My personal favorite G Suite product to use with my students? Google Slides (sent via Google Classroom, so they each get their own copy of the assignment)! They must click on rhythms and pitches, and move the icons into particular spots on the slide. We even use Google Forms for pre and post assessments, giving us “real-time” results on knowledge, pinpoint common misconceptions and identify their strengths and areas needed for growth.

● Assessments and Learning Through Games and Play - Most of all, though, I love to assess through games and play!  We have enough puppets, dolls, costumes, and props to fill toy shop! Need a foam apple? We’ve got 10. Want a plate of delicious plastic toy food? We have a tub full of ‘em. How about some ladybug ears? Princess tiara? Viking helmet? Giant spoon? No problem, We’ve got you covered! Any song can be made more exciting with a silly or fun visual. Any difficult concept to learn can turn into a super-fun-challenge with the right tricks.

In these past (almost) 17 years, I’ve discovered a few important things about children. When we can fill our days with engaging lessons using games, instruments, technology, smiles, laughter and joy not only will our learning process be fun… we can have a blast SHOWING our learning!