Instrumental Arrangement Teaching Reflection

Teaching video:

https://youtu.be/LiywW1kPe5w

Reflection:

I appear prepared. I flow well between each part of the lesson and rarely have to pause to remember what to do next in the lesson. I know my song well so I do not fumble over pitches or lyrics. I am also creative in connecting movement with the lyrics of the song. This preparation allows me to teach with enthusiasm and confidence.

Overall I have good musicianship. I am able to accurately sing the raised seventh of Dorian tonality and I am able to maintain the original keyality and tonality. I am also able to provide a good vocal model for the students. My sense of rhythm is also good, however my tempo changes a bit between each repetition of the activity. It is not too noticeable, but I could be even more consistent by audiating the microbeat before beginning or cueing each repetition. A few of my cues are confusing or absent so I need to work on adding clarity to my cues. I also mix up some labels, so some practice with solfege before teaching again would be beneficial.

My teaching process is also good overall. My rote song teaching process prepared my students well for the instrumental portion of the activity. When playing at the instruments, my sequencing allows for increased complexity with each repetition without being overwhelming. One thing I can work on is being even more clear with my expectations. When going over macro and micro beat I need to tell the students that I want them to continue to say rhythm syllables while they move and I sing. When I am going over resting tone and having students audiate I need to tell them that I want them to keep flowing like leaves. My expectations were more clear during the instrumental portion of the lesson because I told students when to play with fingers, when to play with mallets, and when to have mallets on the floor and listen.

Field Work Assignment 6

My CT evaluates student progress often throughout each class. For example, the students were learning the melody of a short tune on mallet instruments today. The CT taught the melody line by line and would evaluate the progress of the class by observing body language and listening to the class as a whole to determine if students had sufficiently learned the current phrase and were ready for the next phrase. The CT also asked questions to gauge and their understanding.

The CT measures student progress through singing grades. She often begins class with some solfege patterns which the students echo and show hands signs. After introducing a new solfege syllable (like re), the CT will sing a short pattern with the new syllable which each individual student then repeats. Each individual is graded on a scale of 1 to 4 as follows.

4 points: The student sings the pattern with correct hand signs and pitches.

3 points: There is some confusion in pitch or hand signs, but the student eventually fixes the error. Or a student sings the correct intervals but starts on the wrong pitch.

2 points: The student gets some correct hand signs and pitches.

1 points: The student uses their speaking voice or the pitches and hand signs are totally off.

The CT teacher would use a similar rubric to measure other skills such as playing mallet instruments. The CT takes a singing or playing quiz nearly every class. When introducing a new skill the CT will sometimes grade on participation and effort one week, and do a formal assessment with the above rubric another week so the students have a chance to practice the skill.

Field Work Assignment 5

The 5th grade class I observed today was an extension of previous classes. The students had been singing combinations of mi, sol, and la in previous classes and today the syllables re and do and accompanying hand signs were added. The class also continued to use mallet instruments. The class had not met for two weeks due to fall break, so much of the class was spent reviewing. New things the CT did address were the connection between solfege and notes on the mallet instruments, borduns, and playing the beginning of the melody on the instruments.

The class was well behaved but did get distracted at times. The CT always addressed behavior issues right away so they would not have a chance to progress. She would often ask questions such as “Did I ask you to play right now?” to help the students realize the desirable behavior. The CT also prevented behavior issues when possible such as asking students to put mallets down when instructions were being given.

One behavior issue I saw is that a student did not take the bars off the mallet instruments correctly. The CT had the student put the bar back and remove it properly. Another issue I saw is that students were playing on the last macro beat of the song when the CT asked them to play on the first macro beat after the song. She was firm with her expectations and did not move on with the lesson until the students focused and played how she had asked. The CT is generally clear with her behavior expectations and will not continue class until students demonstrate the desired behavior.

When I asked my CT about classroom management she discussed positive and negative incentives. Each class starts the day with 5 stars and lose stars with bad behavior and maintain or earn back stars with good behavior. If the students can maintain 5 stars through good behavior for 5 classes in a row they earn a fun day where they get to choose the musical activities to do for class. If the class ends with 2 stars or fewer, each student must copy the class rules. Students earn privileges and choices through good behavior and lose privileges such as the ability to play instruments with bad behavior. There is no school-wide system to address behavior, but administration may become involved if needed.

Field Assignment 4

I observed a 5th grade general music class. The class began with a singing test where each student sang a short pattern on the solfege sol, la, sol, mi. Each student sang the same pattern for the singing test. The students did a similar activity last week and many more students are accurately singing the correct pitches on their own. The CT starts each class with singing activities so I think one of her teaching goals is to help students develop a confident singing voice with good pitch accuracy.

The majority of the class was spent with a mallet instrument activity. The class started their mallet instrument unit last week so they reviewed the singing part, played air mallets, reviewed instrument names, and played on the instruments on the macrobeat following each repetition of the song. The CT set up an instrument rotation so that the students could explore new instruments with each repetition of the song. The coordination also became more difficult as the activity progressed. At first the students could play whichever notes they chose, but eventually the students were told to play C with the left mallet and and G with the right mallet.

Based on the mallet instrument activity I think that the CT has a goal that the students will learn to play with good technic. The song itself reminds the students of good technic with the lyrics “Mallets in the air, fingers wrapped around, strings are on our elbows, wrists go up and down.” Another goal is that the students will know the names of the instruments and be able to differentiate them based on size and material. The CT reviews and quizzes students on the names of the various mallet instruments each week. Another goal is to have the students explore the different instruments. She made this possible by setting up a rotation so that students are at a new instrument with each repetition of the song.

The class ended with the usual questions such as “What did I learn?” and “How can I do better?” The frequency of this activity tells me that the CT has a goal that the students will reflect on music and learning.

I asked the CT about her goals for the class. With regard to the singing activity she said that singing is important to her because it will help students to play instruments more effectively. She also teaches solfege in singing to help students develop a theoretical understanding of music.

The CT also told me about her goals for the mallet activities. By the end of the unit she wants her students to be able to play with good technique, play at various levels of complexity, play on the macrobeat, play the melody of the song, and improvise. She also said that it is important to teach the names of the various mallet instruments because they are commonly confused.

Field Work Assignment 3

I observed a 2nd grade general music class. The class began with a review of the solfege syllables and hand signs for sol, la, and mi. The students echoed the CT and also sang pitches without the CT by following the hand signs. The students are getting much more accurate and confident when singing without the CT. Next the CT had the students read a PowerPoint about the Legend of William Tell, had the students listen to the finale from the William Tell Overture while copying the movements of the CT, and the class discussed form within the finale in connection with the movements the class had done during their listening. The students were very eager to answer questions and take turns reading the PowerPoint. Lastly, the class ended by answering questions such as “What would I like to learn more about?”

The class was more distracted than usual this week. The CT had to ask students multiple times to look at her, sit up straight, stop talking, etc. Part of this may be due to the fact that the CT talked for much of the class about history and form so the students got bored. It may have been more effective to break up the lecture-heavy aspects of the lesson and discuss history one week and form another week to keep the attention of the students. Another issue was that the CT had to take time to set up the projector for the PowerPoint. This took a few minutes and may have lost the attention of the students. One thing the CT did well was to do different movements for each section of the finale which helped the students to understand form. The students remembered the movements well and did not need much guidance from the CT as the song was repeated.The movements were also fun to the class so the students were eager to participate.

The CT teacher did call out names in front of the class to correct behavior issues such as lazy posture, playing with name tags, and students not paying attention. However, the CT mostly used gestures and eye contact to correct behavior or addressed the class as a whole rather than singling out a specific student. The CT also has a system where the class begins with 5 stars and if they make it through 5 classes in a row without losing stars they can earn a game day. The class was getting distracted enough that the CT took away a star, but they did earn it back. The CT also assigns seats and changes these seats every week to prevent students from getting distracted by being next to their best friends. Overall the students became distracted at times, but were willing and eager to participate in the class activities.

Whole Song Rote Teaching Reflection

Link: https://youtu.be/253IsU84440

Overall, I appear very prepared. I know my song well and am able to confidently sing the correct pitches and lyrics, stay in tune, and move to the macro and micro beats. My instructions are also short and clear, my movement activities are relevant and creative, and I move through the sequence smoothly and with quick pacing. My movements are getting less rigid and I adapt well when the class is not able to sing the tune on their own right away.

My sequencing was accurate but I could have spent more time on resting tone to balance the amount of time spent on rhythm. This might have helped the students feel more prepared to sing on their own. I could have sung through several repetitions of the tune, varying the places where I stopped to have the students sing resting tone. I could also try to stop in the middle of phrases or words to challenge the students (and myself) as they sing resting tone.

My activities were appropriate for the verbal association stage of learning. At one point I accidentally called the macro-beat the micro-beat, but otherwise my use of syllables was fluent and accurate. In addition to syllables I did use, I could have also talked about how the song was in duple meter and major tonality.