The Benefits of Working On Projects

Right now, it is 4:12 am, and I am sitting in my almost empty office, watching James Corden's monologue and writing this blog post. I am bone tired and decided to do some more passive music therapy sessions this week than active ones. I traveled into work yesterday, wondering what I was going to do with my three groups that would require less motion from me but that would also fulfill my mission with my clients which is educational enrichment through engagement and therapeutic programming. My quandary continued through sitting at my desk and trying to get things strategized. I started my planning with thinking about getting centers running, but the center ideas that I had needed some work on my part, and my brain is not working well right now. So, I scrapped that idea for later. I wrote that idea down, but I abandoned it for this week. I was almost in tears when I remembered something that I had already put together that was ready to go!

Do you remember in August when I stated that I wanted to work on my digital interaction opportunities now that I have a Promethean Board in my room?  Well, I have finished one and almost finished another one in this whirlwind of a fall. That is all. I wanted to have one per month so far, but that has not happened. I do have one completely finished, though.

I had offered this to my students while I was absent in September, but many of my students did not use this resource because many of them did not come to the music therapy room that week. They used the YouTube channel instead (some of them). So, I thought..."Hmm, let's see if this works the way I want it to work..."

So, I put my slides presentation up on the board and then introduced it to my students. I showed them how to navigate and then we took turns looking at a variety of YouTube links for our selected topic - vocations. I have three slides that contain links to YouTube. We have some music jobs, some songs about working, and some kids' songs about specific types of jobs. In addition, I have some pen and paper resources available for my students who are less interested in watching videos than other things. Students take turns navigating the board and selecting what they want to watch. I put two of my own songs on the "songs about working" page. Each one of my classes has played one (and only one) of those songs - very uncomfortable for me to see myself singing, but that's the breaks!

Now, I have been watching how my students respond to this presentation very carefully. I have always preferred to interact with my students without a screen in front of us or between us. My students have an affinity for screens. They can use electronics to do all sorts of things and need little to no instruction on how to use electronic devices - for the things that THEY want to do. When an authority figure wants them to do something that is contrary to their own interests and desires, they refuse, so I wanted to see if they could navigate this structure with independence. I wanted to see if they had any interest at all in what was presented. I also wanted to know who watched the videos and who focused on the paper stuff. Several students engaged in both activities during sessions, so that was also helpful to learn about them.

I set up my Google slides with a room background. There is a consistent home button and a consistent yellow arrow to advance to the next slide. Those buttons live at the bottom of the screen and stay in the same place all through the presentation. This helps me give directions (if needed) for what to do for clients who need a bit more prompting to find what they are looking for. One problem that I have found is that some of my clients are rapid tappers - they end up advancing the slides rapidly because they hit the arrow several times instead of just once. Impulse control work naturally there!

Each slide has a different type of banner to help my students distinguish between the talk about jobs, the songs about working, and the songs about specific jobs. I have also color coded things for each type of group in the room. There are two additional slides in the presentation - one gives directions to find the pen and paper resources. The other has links to online games and composition interactive sites. We haven't used those slides yet. I think I will change the order of these slides in the next presentation that I am putting together - the resource slide would be best right after the introduction slide. That would give the students who do not like watching videos the stated permission to use the resources available to them from the beginning of the presentation rather than at the end.

This is why I like to be present when my clients use my resources. I can see what needs to be tweaked and what needs to be removed or updated. I found that one of my links was no longer public. One quick search, and I was able to update that link. Without being there, I would have no idea that things were not working the way I wanted them to work.

I am going to work on another one of these things for January. The art therapist has been focusing on a series of characteristics this past year, and I think I can piggy back some of my planning with those characteristics. She has made posters for each one of the characteristics that they have addressed in the past year, and I have a whole list of things to work on. January's characteristic (I need to know what she calls all this stuff...) is cooperation. Time to write some songs, time to find some YouTube videos, and time to figure out what I want to include in my own resources.

Ooh. A rodent of some sort just ran past my sliding glass door - it was fluffier than a typical rat, but bigger than a mouse. I am not sure what it was exactly, but it seems the cats next door aren't big hunters if this rodent type thing is wandering around. At least it was outside and not inside. It saw me and turned around. Eek.

ANYWAY...

My eventual goal for all of this is to build a library of resources for my clients to access when I am gone. I want some sort of learning interaction in the music therapy room that clients can use in their classrooms if I have to be absent. I want there to be some planning as part of the time they spend in the music therapy room. If I work this right, then these resources would be available to my students on non-school days.

Okay, so today will be another day of using my Google slide presentation. I am feeling a bit more motivated to work on my half done one (it is a presentation on bullying - due (self-imposed deadline) on October 1, but still not finished. I haven't even thought of anything for the months of November or December. Other things have distracted me...

Speaking of which, tomorrow is the big move. I will be staying overnight at the apartment, trying my best to get all sorts of things packed up and finished. My box hoard is almost depleted, so I will have to stop when I hit the end of the boxes. There is no pressure at this time to get things out of the apartment since I have revised my move out date to December 31. Once the big stuff moves over here, I will have a chance to see what is left. I can start to empty boxes here and then take them back to the apartment to fill them up again. I want to get all the furniture and shelves over here so I can put them where I want them and then fill them up. I just have to get through today.

So, we are going to reap the benefit of the work that I did WAY back in August today. It shows me that doing the work offers me lots more options than not doing the work. Time to get back into my ideas book and my calendars to do some more of the work that needs to be done. I will make some cooperation worksheets and resources for my students to use and to supplement the theme. I just need to do it.

The work pays off. That's the lesson to remember here. I need to write it down and put it somewhere so I can see it every single day!