Date:                   June 26, 2020

Bibliographical Information:

Branstetter, Dyan. (March 2019). Building Arts Integration Collaboration. Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM, retrieved June 26, 2020 from https://educationcloset.com/2019/03/01/arts-integration-collaboration/

Article Summary:

Dyan Branstetter is an elementary teacher that has been teaching for 16 years in Pennsylvania. She has experience in arts integration because it’s something she has dabbled with for a long time now and has learned from trial and error. She was motivated partly by her own love of music and dance, but also by the results she saw in her students; when arts were integrated, the engagement levels for the students increased tenfold. Through that trial and error process, she has figured out the best way to collaborate with other teachers to get the most out of planning time and classroom time as well as maximize the impact on students’ learning experiences. She lays out 4 different levels of collaboration that vary from a format of arts integration without collaboration (for teachers who don’t have access to arts specialists) to a completely collaborative effort where planning, implementation and teaching all occurs as a team. Of course, after experiencing every level of collaboration she felt the best results occurred when she was able to plan the lesson as a team, targeting standards from both disciplines and co-teaching the lessons together. She admits that getting to that place where both teachers could collaborate and be on the same page was hard work, but it was worth it in the end.

Reflection on the State of the Content:

As a music specialist, I am potentially an arts integration resource for fellow teachers in my building. As I searched though  blogs and articles in various education resources, I found that the key words, like collaboration, standards, integration and student engagement were always present, the actual collaborating piece was usually missing and so I found only a vague idea of how to actually accomplish a truly collaborative lesson for the students.  Dayna Branstetter’s article gave me something more concrete I could grasp how this actually happens, and a little forgiveness on my own expectations for the whole process. I see that she learned each time she tried, and each attempt was an improvement over the last. I can already foresee obstacles in my current teaching situation. For one, I rarely have prep time at the same time as the classroom teachers, it’s a daunting task with barely enough time to get organized or scratch the surface. Another big obstacle is that if teachers are interested in co-teaching, they would have to give up a prep time to co-teach with me, or vice versa. The best attempt at collaboration this year was when the Speech/Language classrooms gave me a list of speech sounds that they targeted in class and if I could find a way to work the sounds into my lessons, I did my best. I know I am fairly new to the building and all of these issues are things that can get easier with trial and error.  The resource Dyan Branstetter offers here is a good guide to starting the process. 

Date:                   June 20, 2020

Bibliographical Information:

Hinton, Marva. (January 9, 2020). Hip Hop EDU: Use Music To Spark Students’ Creativity and Learning. School Library Journal, retrieved June 20, 2020 from https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=Hip-Hop-EDU-music-Sparking-students-Creativity-and-Learning-libraries-literacy

Article Summary:

Finding innovative ways to hook our young students can be a challenge. Marva Hinton found educators from several different areas that are using Hip Hop to engage learners in many ways, and everyone is seeing the positive impact of it. When we incorporate the things that excite our students, it honors them in a unique way. It gives validity to their voice and helps them to feel accepted, but it also provides them with an opportunity to use their language and literacy skills, create something original and collaborate with other students that they may not typically work with. One librarian in Georgia created a recording studio in a high school library where students could produce their own hip hop tracks. It was so popular that students discovered the best way to get a turn in the studio was to collaborate with classmates so that everyone could have a turn to write a verse. Other students who have a talent for producing ended up working with students they might not have ever met if it weren’t for the recording studio. Another library media specialist at a Georgia Middle School used Hip Hop to motivate her students to learn the rules of citation- they were allowed to listen to songs they cited correctly, which was always a boring skill that didn’t go over very well, but with the new motivation of preferred music, they were excited about citations. Establishing rules and boundaries around controversial lyrics is an important step to consider when incorporating Rap and Hip Hop, but in the end, it sends a message of acceptance and gives students a place where they feel welcome and encouraged to express themselves.

Reflection on the State of the Content:

The article by Marva Hinton comes from a library journal source that is not my area of expertise, but I do find the subject of hip hop in the school setting to be an important topic to explore as a music teacher. The poetic characteristics of rap and hip hop are great for incorporating language arts into a music class, but also allows students to open up, be themselves and communicate in a language that feels like home to them. Hip Hop and Rap are the voices of our young adults and transcend racial and cultural boundaries. Although the history of Hip Hop is rooted in black culture, you will find that most middle- and high-school students spend at least a portion of their down time listening to it. That provides a unique opportunity to use a genre rooted in Black culture, with messages that speak to the Black experience and educate all our students about black culture in a way that honors their voice.

Date:                   June 8, 2020

Bibliographical Information:

Simon, R. (March/April 2019). An Interview with Peter Levine: Turning Psychotherapy Bottom Up. Psychotherapy Networker, retrieved June 8, 2020 from  https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/article/2347/an-interview-with-peter-levine

Article Summary:

Peter Levine is a Psychotherapist who uses a technique called Somatic Experiencing to help clients resolve trauma.  Traumatic events that happen often are experienced in a disconnected way and the residual effects of the traumatic experience are stored physically in muscle tension, or internally in other symptomatic ways such as digestion issues or elevate blood pressure. Traditional talk therapy addresses the trauma from only one perspective, that is to talk about it, examine the memory of it, but the physical sensations that accompany the ‘reliving’ of the event are not addressed. Somatic Experiencing (SE) can help to address the traumatic responses of our physical bodies that are ignored when talk is the focus. Bringing the clients attention to what’s happening physically can help them to target the traumatic experience from another angle and the focus on body awareness, such as relaxing muscle tension can help to interrupt the physical responses to the trauma and deal with one aspect of the trauma at a time so that it is easier to address and not so overwhelming. The focus on body sensations help his clients to be physically present in the current moment and in that way they are able to take a more objective perspective on the event that they need to heal from.

Reflection on the State of the Content:

It may seem strange that I chose a psychotherapy article to review, but I have noticed in my work with preschoolers that behaviors are often a result of traumatic events happening outside of school. I am sure that in the midst of a behavioral meltdown, I have dealt with students that are reliving something traumatic that they are not able to put into words. Using an intervention such as this Somatic Experiencing can be a way to help a student disconnect from the traumatic event and anchor them in the present situation at school, so that they can move beyond it, they can pull themselves out of the state of flashback and feel reassured that in this moment they are safe. My hope is to always be sensitive in my behavior management techniques to subtle cues of trauma so that the underlying issue can be referred to the school staff best equipped to help and handle the situation. Social and emotional learning is an integral part of my teaching curriculum and if something as simple as body awareness and breathing can help a student through a difficult moment, I feel articles like this one are important to include in my teaching resources.