FIU

Off-Campus Observation Map

Your

Name

Lazaro Lopez

Name of School

Coral Gables Senior High School

E-Mail: llope243@fiu.edu
Town Miami

Name of Teacher Observed Kathleen Morrow

Observation Date

11/18/2014

State Florida

Class Concert Band

Time 12:50

Grade(s) 9-12

Date Submitted 11/24/2014

Describe the teaching

environment. Who are the
children? Who is the teacher?
How might the school environment
impact what happens in the
classroom?

The learning environment is extremely cluttered, I suppose in a good way. There are numerous music scores,
pictures, band memorabilia, and paintings scattered around the room. The students all dont seem to mind yet,
which would make sense. A room like that would overwhelm a student at first but slowly get under their skin and
make them more comfortable, kind of like getting used to a new home. The students are all grades 9-12 and have
at least a year of experience on their instrument. The teacher is very young and enthusiastic. She is relatively new
to the field, but is receiving guidance from her mother who is the head of the music department at the school.
The goals for the classroom were clear: get through the music piece while learning from all the mistakes or bumps
What were the teachers goals for in the road. She was clear and fluent with all her directions while maintaining a formal yet informal/playful attitude
the class/ensemble? How did
towards everything and everyone. She would occasionally yell at students, for reasons of the students not being
she/he act on those?
able to hear her over the music, as well she would make jokes here and then and stop every once in a while to tell
them a little history about the piece so it would help them feel the piece better.
Morrow put a 5-6 minute video up like she said she does at the beginning of every single class, because she found
out from experience that it helps students set up faster and get ready for class quicker. The videos would always be
funny and extremely interesting so student would always set up their instruments, stands, music, and be set for
the start of the video in under 5 minutes after the start ringing of the bell. The learning sequence was very cookiecutter. After the great idea of the video, everything was very bland in terms of strategies and sequence. She would
rehearse one part. Stop. Fix a mistake. Move on. Repeat. Occasionally there would be a joke or story but that didnt
change the fact that the sequence was very decent and didnt do anything to really make the students think.
I would change the lesson up a bit. The cookie-cutter lesson works, like it should, but doesnt make students do
What would you do differently?
much critical thinking. They get the occasional mini lesson here and there but they always leave the classroom
What was missing from the lesson?
being rehearsed and not taught. I would take some time off from rehearsing here and there and , for example,
show them a professional recording of the piece. Have students here for specific parts and have them try to point
out their parts. At least with that example I could have students thinking about how they should sound as an
overall ensemble.
What teaching/rehearsal
strategies did you see? What was
the learning sequence?

What evidence did you observe

that would indicate that the
learning goals were met?

Practically all of the specified learning goals were very well met. Most students understood the music well and had
a clear understanding on what to do and what to work on. Students slowly layered each thing they learning during
each run through of phrase or section or even the entire song. At the end of class most students had new markings
and new notes on their music, demonstrating that they were actually paying enough attention to write down notes
and most every student took their instruments home along with their music.

What evidence of critical thinking,

critical feeling and/or critical action
did you see?

Many of the students had their own personal tuners, which seemed more like the principal chairs had tuners and
would then tune their section. They also had notes, musical tools (clarinets would have extra reeds, slide grease,
rotary oil, and a few students even had a tiny cup to wet full of water to wet their reeds for them while they
prepared for class). Many of the students, although a lot of them were new to their instruments, were self-aware
of their mistakes they were making. Most students consciously circled parts of the music they had trouble in right
after they made a mistake so they would hopefully not make it again. A lot of students would raise their hands and
propose questions to the teacher, many of them being simple, but a lot of them having to do with theory and
instrumental quarries.

What National Standards did you

see?

MU:Pr5.3.E.IIIa
Develop, apply, and refine appropriate rehearsal strategies to address individual and ensemble challenges
in a varied repertoire of music.

How did students engage in the

classroom? What was happening
at the time when students were
really focused?

The students were engaged in the classroom by actually looking at their own mistakes and actions and trying to fix
them afterwards. I heard some talk between students, probably the more experienced players, about how their
phrases and parts meshed together and what they could do to sound better and if anyone should come out or back
down to give the rightful melody its limelight. Many students were well prepared for class, meaning they were
focused from the get-go. A handful of students even student with sections who are all the way across the room and
have the same parts as them like bass clarinet and baritone sax went up to the tuba to tune in the respected
concert key and went back to their seats and all of this happened before the teacher even told them to as she
remembered shortly after they started actually playing.

Describe a "teachable moment"

that you might have witnessed.

I saw that many students had very wrong embouchures, and fingerings. Im not saying that their embouchures
and/or fingerings were completely wrong , but a lot of them were struggling to play their instrument due to their
embouchure and when it came to the fingerings, the notes were their but not in the correct tuning meaning they
were too sharp or too flat for the chord.

What constructive comments might you make about this lesson/rehearsal?

The lesson/rehearsal itself went well and seemed to have reached the goals presented at the beginning of class.
Although the goals were reached, I feel that the students didnt actually learn much, they probably did learn something
here and there, but not enough think about deeper or that would really help them in the future. The lesson was very
straight forward and bland. There was much to it; do this at this point, play that at that point, listen in at this point.
Everything was just look at this rehearsal number and lets play there. There wasnt any stopping to teach, there was
just drilling. Of course this could make the students better musicians respectively, but this is school, not musical boot
camp, arent they supposed to take home some knowledge of music and not knowledge of rehearsal? I felt that the
lesson really needed to pause every now and then so the cooperation between the students and teacher could be
about questions, answers, and critical thinking rather than just playing music over and over again until something finally
would click in the students heads and make the music marginally better.

What is your overall assessment of this teacher, the students and the lesson/rehearsal?
My overall assessment of the teacher is that she knows what she is doing and it seems to work. The teacher just
needs to perhaps think about incorporating actual thought into the class rather than just drilling her students. I like to
think of it has having students know how to play music and how to understand music, both completely different. The
students were well behaved and very respectful of their environment and teacher. There wasnt an unnecessary talking
and/or movement in the class. Everything the students did had to do about rehearsing the song and making it sound
better. The lesson/rehearsal, was as I said earlier, straight forward and bland. It was lets do this, that, and call it a day.
At the end of the day the lesson worked well and reached its goals, in my opinion, it was just missing some critical
thought and deep thinking and the whole cookie-cutter strategy isnt of my taste, but in the end, it worked well.