Standard 7 Planning for Instruction
The teacher plans instruction that supports every student in meeting rigorous learning goals by drawing upon knowledge of content areas, curriculum, cross-disciplinary skills, and pedagogy, as well as knowledge of learners and the community context.
Reflection
An effective teacher is purposeful in how they plan to instruct their lessons that are aligned within their content standards and curriculum. They thoroughly examine what the end goal they want for their students in gaining knowledge of the content and then breaking down the process adding supports to where it is obtainable yet challenging for all learners. They also consider their students’ interests while also applying cross-disciplinary skills from other content areas that can be referenced within these lessons.
Artifact 1 -
Lesson planning
With lesson planning, I strive to bring meaningful learning experiences to my students that will help them grow in their understanding and appreciation of music. I have provided a series of lesson plans that I have developed during my participation in the MAT program. In this series, students will develop their ability to recognize and identify what meter they are singing or playing in. This will assist them in grasping other music concepts we will learn throughout the year. Each of these lessons were based on the QuaverEd curriculum pacing guide. Throughout this process, I have made modifications to meet the needs of the learners as well as making it relevant to them. In addition to making adaptations to the lessons while conducting informal formative assessments using visual and aural observations.
What I would change from these lessons is the time at the end to summarize and have us reflect on what the students learned. Granted that this is done within a 30-minute timeframe, I feel there could be points throughout the lesson to stop and reflect. I will continue to adapt and make modifications of the layout of my lessons that will benefit my students.
Artifact 2 -
Selecting songs for music programs
As a music educator one of my duties is preparing and presenting music programs featuring my students mastering the skill of performing. During the planning process, I look into songs that will display the skill as mentioned above as well as concepts the students have gained from the content. One of these is the ability to recognize between high and low sounds, which is a concept they learn before going into 1st grade. Within the song, “I’m a Superhero” by QuaverEd helps highlight this. I also took into account my students’ interest in superheroes, their culture and life skills that translate over from music.
How I present this to my students is having them pat to the steady beat while we listen to it. Then I break it down and have the students repeat after me including the movements that are choreographed in this song. Next, we put sections of the song together until we can perform the song from start to finish. This is spread out through a couple of months to build student’s confidence in singing and performing this song while also emphasizing the concept of high and low sounds. This provides a foundation that will lead students to learning about pitch in instruments, voice and melody.
