Day Twenty

Today was my sad final day of my four week placement. Over the past couple blogs I have reflected on the classroom management with the goal of creating a high expectation learning environment. I believe that the foundation upon this goal is that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ method that teachers can use to manage behaviour. Each teacher must find their own method and style of managing behaviour to succeed. This method and style is determined by the character of the teacher but also from the unique students who make up the classroom. Today I took the opportunity to trial something that I studied in university. During an ICT lesson where all my students were busy working on drawing animations I began playing some music. Halfway through the lesson the students were very loud and continually talked to each other. So I decided to play some music from Mozart, because in my studies one reading said that his music is very good for aiding learning. In the beginning there were a number of comments such as. How long is this soundtrack? Does this song ever end? I like this song. But quite suddenly the noise and distraction level dropped significantly. Then for a significant amount of time the room was really quiet with students all focused and working. Once I stopped the music is was amazed to see how fast the students quickly got noisy and distracted again. So I tried playing another song which was more secular, but the students didn’t quieten down at all. Upon reflection I don’t think I could state that playing Mozart was more effective than other music due to the breaking of the flow between the songs. But my conclusion from this test is that I clearly did get better classroom management from playing a song whilst students were working. I was taken back by the effect that the music had and want to test this further during other learning times in a class. From my reflection I think music can break awkward silence that can be created if students are working silently. During this silence is when students would speak up because they can’t stay focused due to the unfamiliar quietness. Every day as humans we are bombarded by noises and sounds and when entered into a period of silence suddenly unease and discomfort can be created. This may be a good thing to teach students to be able to cope in but at the same time my attention would be stronger in getting my students to learn and study efficiently. Therefore even more after today I think that music can potentially increase learning.