Erin M. Grady's ePortfolio

Child Development

The teacher understands how children learn and develop, and can provide learning opportunities that support their intellectual, social, and personal development.

I believe that learning about child development is one of the most useful tools a teacher can acquire. Through learning about child development, a teacher is better able to plan her curriculum and methods.

Although I have some formal training in child development, having taken developmental psychology courses as well as methods courses that focus on different age groups, I believe that the best way to get an accurate handle on the process of child development is to observe and interact with real children. In my experiences, I have often been amazed at what discovered children were able to do. Three-year-olds are able to recognize and answer questions about pieces of classical music. Third graders are able to perform a four-part round. I discovered these facts and more while dealing with actual children in classroom settings, and look forward to discovering even more of the intricacies of how children's abilities to grow as musicians develop over the course of time.

A part of reflecting upon child development entails deciding which age level I would like to teach. It has been my goal for several years to become a high school choral director, but upon working directly with middle school children when I taught summer school science classes in 2004 and with preschool-aged children in my Teaching Music to Children laboratory class in 2006, I discovered that I enjoy working with these age groups as well. I think that my goal for settling into a program remains in a high school program, but I might also enjoy spending a few years teaching students at different age levels.

I feel that having taken Elementary General Music methods courses at both Oberlin and Case Western, as well as student teaching at both the elementary and high school levels and teaching preschool classes at Hawken Lower School, has given me valuable insight into children's development in music. Even though it is my goal to teach students at the high school level, I find that what I have learned about children's musical progress which occurs very early in life is something which can inform my practices as a secondary teacher. The first few years of a child's life are critical to her musical development, and early childhood music education is a facet of my profession which is very important to me. To that end, I hope that in addition to teaching high school chorus I will be able to lead a once-weekly class for preschool-aged children to give them a solid introduction to the musical world.

Child Development Artifacts

Handout for Piaget Presentation (PDF File)
This is a handout I created to go along with the presentation described about on Jean Piaget. It includes more in-depth information about the psychologist, his theories, and ways those thoughts can be utilized to enhance school curricula in a developmentally appropriate fashion. The PowerPoint which accompanied this handout can be found below.

Presentation on Piaget (PDF File)
I created this PowerPoint for a presentation I gave for my Principles of Education class I took in the fall of 2004.

Inner-Speech and Audiation (PDF File)
This review of literature was written for my graduate course in Learning Theories and Curriculum Development, taken in the Spring of 2007 at Case Western. In it, I examine the psychologist Lev Vygotsky's theories regarding how children come to think using language through the process of self-talk. I posit that a similar process occurs when students use musical babble to acquire what Edwin Gordon refers to as audiation, the ability to think musically. I then discuss possible applications for teaching young children to improvise as a natural part of this process.

Presentation on "The Neurobiology of Music Cognition and Learning" (PDF File)
This presentation is on a chapter from The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning, which discusses how our brains come to acquire musical knowledge. Knowledge of such research can help inform our practices of teaching. Although it does not yet tell us how we should go about teaching music, it can give teachers a good idea of when teaching certain concepts is most developmentally appropriate.

Age-Appropriate Activities in "Clickety-Clickety-Clack" (Quicktime Movie File)

This lesson was taught in the fall of 2005 to a group of three- to five-year old students enrolled in a MusicPlay extracurricular course. The segment of the lesson highlighted in the video demonstrates my ability to choose age-appropriate musical activites for the children. The video starts after a student correctly identifies a song we'd been working on using only rhythmic cues. Students engage in turn taking, play scenarios, music making, connected locomotor movement, and vocal exploration activities all within the context of the song.

Movement Exercise with Middle School Students (Quicktime Movie File)

In this lesson taught in the fall of 2005, I lead a group of sixth grade general music students in an exercise designed to help them learn the concept of high or low melodies and melodic patterns. I lead them in a movement exercise to a recording of the "Tocatta" from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, asking them to make connections between our movements and the direction of the melody. Following the lesson, I ask them if they discovered any patterns in our movements or the music.