Sarah Warsco Secondary General Music Dr.

Gerrity 29 September 2012 Peer Teaching Reflection While all peer teachings are nerve wracking, this particular teaching was perhaps even more terrifying for two reasons: a general uncertainty of the expectations for the assignment and the added pressure of being the only graduate student in a room full of undergraduates. Unlike my classmates, I am still finding my footing in Ball States music education department. I have not been indoctrinated into the system yet. Instead, my experiences and philosophies have been developed by a variety of professors teaching at a variety of universities who have never met each other. In addition, while I have no more teaching experience than any student in that room, as a graduate student, I expect a higher level of accomplishment from myself than any one of them. Consequently, my anxiety level was quite high going into the assignment. Despite that, I feel that my peer teaching was quite successful with the strengths of the lesson heavily outweighing the weaknesses. I feel the biggest strength of my lesson was my effectiveness in getting students thinking critically about the music. I was able to call on each student and ask them an open ended question. Because I walked around the room during the listening, I knew which students had the correct answers and was able to set up student success when asking questions. In addition, I had the students actually performing their own versions of homophony and contrapuntal music so that they had a personal experience with the concept. I think it was a definite strength of the lesson that it started with the concrete example, moved to the theoretical concept, and then returned to the concrete with the singing. I feel that this really gave the lesson a much greater chance of success with real students. Finally, I think the lesson had a logical flow from one activity to the next. The introduction sufficiently peaked student interest, the perception chart, while not solely devoted to harmony, did adequately prepare students for the new

concepts of homophonic and contrapuntal writing, and the vocal activity reinforced the concept in a fun and engaging manner. These strengths created what I consider a very successful lesson. Although I am happy with my peer teaching performance, there are still many things that I would change looking back on the process. First, upon review of my lesson, I found that I use alright as a general filler word. I clearly used it too often during the lesson. In addition, I awkwardly cross my legs while standing during much of the video. This is probably mostly due to nerves, but as it is not very professional, I hope to avoid it in the future. Despite my nerves, I need to appear calm and collected in front of my students. Although my classmates seemed to understand me, my directions were not always as clear and concise as they could be. This could pose a real problem when I am teaching students who do not already understand the concepts of homophony and contrapuntal writing. While I did spend ample time preparing how to introduce each activity, in actual practice I often forgot how I wanted to say something or stumbled on words blurring my meaning. Finally, the singing activity would have been much stronger had I taught the students the harmony to Three Blind Mice. This would allow them to physically experience both the melody and the harmony creating a better connection between the theoretical idea and the concrete experience. Having the opportunity to experience teaching a listening lesson was an extremely useful opportunity. In the process of planning my lesson I learned many things. First of all, I learned that in order to have a successful listening lesson, it is imperative that I choose a quality song. It is the music that must drive my lesson plan. I spent way too much time thinking about what concept would be fun to teach rather than focusing on what concept my song would teach best. It was only when I turned to the music that I was able to create a cohesive lesson. Second, this experience reminded me that I can never assume my students will know a song. While I would have a better idea of what my actual students would know, they still might not remember the song we did a few weeks back. If I am going to use a previously learned song in my lesson plan, it would be beneficial to do a brief review of the song, either during the lesson or incorporated into another activity, to make sure that students know it. Lastly, this process taught me that the best listening lessons are brief and to the point. Having now experienced multiple lessons by my

classmates, I was able to notice how quickly my own mind would wander. This greatly emphasized the importance of time planning. Whether it is simply making sure that my perception chart does not stagnate, using clips instead of whole recordings, or finding a way to make an activity physical, it is hugely important to make sure my lesson is constantly moving forward and engaging students. Despite my many fears going into this exercise, I feel that I created something to be proud of and improved my teaching each step of the way.