Tara Foley Field Experience Notebook Entry #2 Warm-up Observation

1. Describe the routine that is in place for the beginning of class (How long do the students

have to get into their seats and get ready to play? Are they allowed to warm-up individually once they are in their seats? How does the teacher take attendance? Are cases allowed at the students seats? Does the teacher deal with individual questions at this time? What is the response to students who dont have music or equipment? Is the schedule for the day posted on the board? Are there other notable things about the start of class? Students are able to drop off their instruments and books before going to their lockers. After going to their lockers, students come back to the class and hear announcements and do the Pledge of Allegiance. The students have about ten minutes to unpack and warm up before the teacher begins to the tuning process. The cases are kept in their cubbies that are in the classroom. During this time, the teacher is sitting at her desk doing attendance and the students come to her for individual questions and to turn in practice records. The students for the most part follow the same procedure in sitting in their own seats and not being overly disruptive or loud. 2. List the materials used for the warm-up a. All for Strings, book 2

3. How much time is spent on warm up activities? About five minutes is spent on warm-up activities. This is cut pretty short because there is only a 50 minutes time frame to teach the students repertoire.

4. What instructional strategies are employed?

The teacher uses a methods book and sometimes plays scales. The teacher has the students demonstrate their knowledge of where their fingers go by putting up their finger pattern for each string when the warm-up includes scales. The teacher also has the students answer questions regarding the key signature of the scales.

5. How do students tune?

The teacher puts on a loud A440 drone over the speaker system and all the students tune their own strings. The teacher repeats this procedure for each string. Sometimes the teacher has myself and other observing students tune the students individually. Because the drone is so loud, it is difficult to hear the instruments, therefore most of the time the entire class is not in tune.

Tara Foley

6. What else of note did you observe about the warm-up?

The students are not engaged in the warm-up. They are not answering questions or following instructions, such as showing finger patterns or clapping rhythms.

7. Was the warm-up effective? Why or why not?

The warm-up does not seem to correlate with the lesson. The teacher goes through the method book sequentially, but without much consistency between the method book and the repertoire. Also, since the students are not engaged, they are not effectively learning the techniques the teacher is giving them.

8. What did you see that you would incorporate into your teaching? What would you do differently? I hope to use a method book similar to All for Strings because I like the sequencing and the repertoire. However, I hope to not go through the book as sequentially but to jump around to some extent to tailor to the music that is being taught at the time.