I can’t believe this internship has flown by so quickly! This semester seemed to begin yesterday!

Yet, as I compile my portfolio (which can be found online: http://katherynmie.wordpress.com/), I also can’t believe how much I’ve discovered and learned – better becoming an artist, scholar, and teacher. My string pedagogy class supplied me with just enough information to make me want to dive in more through observation of fellow teachers and reading Galamian, Simon Fisher, and other pedagogy books. I have learned through reading Leopold Mozart’s A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, the importance of teaching students the history of music, particularly concerning our rich violin history.

My teaching has been high energy (keeping a four-year-old motivated and engaged) this semester, but slower paced than I thought, as my student doesn’t have much time to practice with the family’s demanding schedule. Certain technical aspects have been hard for him, but just over the past three weeks, we have progressed leaps and bounds. His bow is now straighter, bow hold more consistently excellent, and his fingers more exact in placement. This came with a bit of struggle!

Two weeks ago during our lesson, we were able to end on a joyful note, but he broke down in tears during our first “Pennies Game”. Four pennies on my side of the stand, and four pennies on his side, each time he didn’t reach his goal, I got one of his pennies, but each time he nailed his goal, he got one of mine! The purpose of the game is to have the student focus while doing repetitions, with his/her goal obviously being to get all the pennies in his pile.

His goal was to keep his two and three fingers on the bow for an entire down bow, which I knew had been an emotional experience during practice with his mom. Trying to work through why he had broken down, I asked him if he was missing his mom, as an emergency had come up and she had suddenly needed to leave. He said it wasn’t that, so I asked him if he didn’t like the game. He still shook his head no. He finally was able, between his sobs, to express that, “I never, ever want to lose”! It was so incredibly sweet and honest, seemingly not only about the game, but also really concerning a fear that he couldn’t play the violin. After having a long talk, he was able to fair and square win the game, realizing that keeping his fingers on the bow was actually not impossible and could be fun! At the end of the lesson, he grew tired of me helping him guide the bow, placing the fingers…I backed off…he did it perfectly!!! Success!

With the close of this story, here ends my first wonderful MIE and NEC internship!

Editor’s Note: This is Melody Jenkin’s third post in a series of three regarding her internship this semester. You can view follow-up posts to this one, and her internship proposal, here.

I can’t believe that the Outreach Opera performances have finally come to a close.  I’ve learned so much this semester about Music-in-Education, teaching, and working with kids.  Posted below are a couple videos of interviews with the students after they had completed my study guide, but before they viewed the performances.  I was pleased with the amount of knowledge they retained from the guides.  I noticed that the lessons where they had to do more activities were the lessons that they remembered most.

Touring Opera Student Interview

Another Student Interview

Here are some great questions they had about the performance after they had seen it:

When was your character born?

How do you sing so loud?

Were you nervous before you went on stage?

How do you feel when you are singing?

How did opera start?

Can kids sing opera?

I think that these are all great questions that the kids are asking.  Inquisition plays a large part in education.  These questions show that the students have a lot of interest in learning more about opera.  I’m glad that the workbook and the performance sparked their interest.

One of the main ideas that I wanted to get across to the kids is that anyone can participate in and enjoy music.  Sometimes the student’s initial reactions would be, “I could never do something like that,” but we try to show them that they can.  Music is a specialized field, but not any more so than math, for example.  Many have more of an aptitude for math or a talent for music, but both are worth studying and can be appreciated by anyone.

I can honestly say this has been the busiest semester of my life. On one hand I am pleased with the work I have accomplished. On the other hand, I have definitely learned a valuable lesson about the law of diminishing marginal returns.  I put a lot of time into my internship, spending one hour of lecture plus preparation per week, and approximately eight hours of private lesson time per week. I would like to come back to my documentation as I begin work on my cumulative portfolio for additional reflection. I have a great deal of material to work with and I feel I was just able to scratch the surface of all the lessons inherent in this experience.

My biggest lessons with this internship were about meeting students where they are and continuing to find tools for engagement in learning.  I feel a lot of responsibility to give students everything I can and I felt there were times I fell short of that goal. If I lose interest in a student, or get frustrated with what I perceive to be a lack of effort, I lose the opportunity to reengage them. I also have begun to recognize that the student-teacher relationship and subsequent student progress is a process. Patience with this process is something I have to keep working to develop. Fortunately I will be teaching the same class next semester! I’m excited about this and very eager to apply what I’ve learned.

In the end I was very pleased with the student performances in their final exam, which consisted of a quasi-promotional in front of the official instructor and the two Teaching Assistants (including myself). I sent an email to all of the students in the class congratulating them and expressing that I hoped they were proud of their accomplishments.

My internship portfolio can be viewed at the link below. This link leads to all of my current portfolios; click on “Guided Internship” to preview the right one. Thanks for following my blog!

http://portfolios.mieatnec.org/digital/admin/edit_units.php?function=preview&id=188

This is my first semester as a T.A. for the undergraduate class, Voice for Non-Majors.  So far it has been a challenging but rewarding experience. As I stated in my first blog, the learning curve is pretty steep.  As the semester progressed I found myself getting more comfortable with lessons, but continually challenged by the lectures.  The mid-term exam was an insightful experience. I found myself frustrated with some of the students’ preparation and effort on the mid-term, but also reflected on things I can do better.  I think I learned something about how to present material next semester, including providing better handouts, doing more demonstrations, and trying to make the class generally more interactive and engaging.

Lessons have been going pretty well. I need to work on improving my documentation and reflection on students’ progress. I feel with a few students we tend to get a bit “stuck” and I think if I had a better record of their progress that would help us shift gears and keep lessons engaged and interesting. I also think observing some lessons with other teachers would help with giving me more ideas for techniques, warm-ups, and repertoire. This may be something to pursue next semester as I’m not sure I will have the opportunity to observe before the break.

Attached is a video clip of a breathing exercise with one of my students. We’ve been working on getting her to feel her breath in order to use her support more fully.

Enlightening, challenging, exciting are three words that sum up my pedagogy internship so far.  Although I have taught privately often in my past, my experiences through the internship have broadened my comprehension of pedagogy methods as well as helped me pinpoint the intricacies of the technique behind the instrument.  Since my internship student is a four-year-old beginner, I have been shadowing Suzan Jarvis to better learn how to communicate on a young child’s level.  She truly makes pedagogy the art that it is!  From keep eight plus four year olds engrossed in a group class filled with simply (or not so simply) placing the violin on the shoulder, to teaching a student how to place a finger on the string – every process is done with energy, excitement, and expertise.

I am, additionally, enjoying a very informative pedagogy class as well as observing Magdalena Richter’s lessons whenever possible.  She is widening my knowledge of teaching materials as well as learning how to compose my own etudes to link with difficult passages in repertoire.  Articulating the specific technical and musical aspects of playing the violin of all levels, she continues to enrich my internship with her knowledge.

I have learned to use few words, finding positive aspects for every musical attempt.  I have learned how to better communicate with parents and how to navigate administrative issues.  I feel so privileged to have had this guided experienced as I prepare to embark on my own career path of private teaching.

The video below shows a peak into one of our first explorations of using ‘Multiple Representations’ to teach musical concepts at the YMCA in Chinatown. The video shows intern, Pui, taking the lead in demonstrating rhythmic concepts, numeric pitch identification and solfege using Lego blocks that we found in the classroom at the YMCA. The students were surprised by this use of the Lego blocks initially, but caught on quickly.

At the beginning of the video is the initial introduction of rhythmic concepts. One sees intern MusicLaunch intern, Pui, pointing to a block and together with intern Devin Ulibarri demonstrating the desired action – in this case, clapping according to the size of the blocks. The clapping patterns were introduced separately (1,2 and 3 beats), but were combined to create an 8 beat pattern consisting of three of the smaller patterns. The students were then asked to manipulate the blocks in order to come up with their own structures. For example at 0’53” in the video, one observes Kayla’s pattern (2+1+3) and then her brother changing the pattern (2+3+1). This moment is important because it empowers the student and demonstrates that musical concepts can be mastered and manipulated – it develops their creativity.

At 4’22” into the video, one can see the culmination of the entire lesson. In this final review, Pui asks students to identify the solfege names of the notes by hinting at the numeric name. Pui asks the class what the second pitch in the scale is to which a student answers, “Re”. Pui then asks the class to answer using pitch to which the class accurately sings the intended pitches that she is identifying using her fingers (numeric name). At the end of the review, Pui tests the students mastery by asking them to skip “Re” and accurately sing “Mi” from “Do” – the students have some difficulty doing this, but this is their first time and subsequent videos will reveal their progress.

The video ends with quick demonstrations of other types of multiple representations that we have used in the break off sections of MusicLaunch. Future blog posts will keep you posted on the significance of these other forms of multiple representations and how they have helped the development of the students in MusicLaunch at the YMCA in Chinatown.