This field study was a very informative experience. As a music teacher, I have never been exposed to the use of many help strategies to build literacy. This experience is absolutely valuable to me as a third
year teacher. There are several strategies I will use this school year, especially with the remediation groups I will have. I will definitely use the word sort strategy, to build relationships between key terms and concepts. The anticipation guide is also a strategy I will use in my classroom to spark the background knowledge of students of related topics. Embedded questions are also very effective in building comprehension of students. I could have used more examples in the directions of each given assignment. I should have done another non-traditional assessment other than the one I requested. The directions that were given to Sarah were not clear, and I admit it was my fault. It was difficult to use a collage, in my opinion, as an assessment. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this very informative exercise.
A. This aspect was fairly easy to produce for the student. Sarah seemed to have benefited from the use of the prereading survey. She was able to pretty much conclude what the section was about.
B. This aspect was also fairly easy to produce. The discussion about Sarah’s choices to agree or disagree was very interesting. I think it sparked Sarah’s previous knowledge about vernacular music.
C. This aspect was pretty hard for me to produce. I think that because of the difficulty I had with producing this aspect, it affected Sarah’s ability to grasp the concept.
D. This aspect was pretty concrete. Sarah was able to put the composers in their respective categories without any problems. This aspect went well in my opinion.
E. The gloss seemed to have served its purpose as a guide for Sarah to use. Sarah really utilized the gloss as a strategic tool.
F. The frame matrix is an awesome tool to use to compare concepts. Sarah completed the frame matrix with various elements she was able to relate to each aspect.
G. This aspect helped Sarah to retain information section by section. I believe it raised the level of comprehension of the specific selection.
H. This aspect helped Sarah to depict the characteristics and elements of the different vernacular music styles.
I. The word sort proved to be one of the excellent tools of relating information and putting it in relative categories.
J. Sarah was able to produce two detailed paragraphs that depicted the similarities and differences of jazz and rock music.
K. Sarah made a perfect score on this aspect. This revealed that she had a solid foundation and understanding of the selection.
L. This aspect did not go to well. My directions were not clear and specific. As a result Sarah did not produce as well as she could have.
M. To be honest, I really did not understand this aspect. I did produce a rubric that I use to attempt to grade the non-traditional assessment.