Today I taught my second music lesson and I feel that I went pretty well. I understand that music is a hard concept to grasp but I was very proud of my students for their hard work. When I was going through my lesson I was struggling with not wanting to sit in front of the class and lecture but I also needed to get the concepts across. I felt that considering the lesson I did a good job of combining teaching with group work. One thing I would like to do the next time I teach is to use the projector to teach, rather than standing in front of the class. This would incorporate technology into my lesson and allow me to be behind my students so that I can monitor them easily and allow them to clearly see the board with out having my back to some of them. Another thing that I really want to work on is taking the time to do brain breaks! My favorite part of the lesson was the self-discovery that was happening in the groups. I would walk around looking at the different musical patterns and the students had started to explore using rests. They looked at the page with all the notes and rest to understand the length of each rest and then properly incorporated them into the sequences. Overall I am really proud of my student’s success in music after only two lessons.
It was a good lesson Darci! I enjoyed watching your students discover and play with the musical notes. Your reflections indicate a thoughtful connection to what you would do differently. Brain breaks can be directly connected to the learning such as physically having students stomp, clap, jump etc the rhythm they have created with you. Learning is embedded strongly when the body is involved.