MusE 350: Field Placement Video Reflection Statement

Name: Angela Kinerk

Date of Video(s): 9/30/14
Brief lesson description: Phrasing and Conducting with Imperial March - West View 5th grade
Planning:
The goal for this lesson was to teach a listening lesson, and I wanted to teach phrasing
and conducting. My song, Imperial March, had simple 4-bar phrases. I also planned to teach
the students a little about John Williams, the composer.
I believe that the way I planned my lesson may have been a little too involved. Similar to
my last lesson, I did not simplify enough. My plan ended up being really long, and I dont get to
my concept of phrasing until near the end. I do give time to learning about John Williams,
though, and a lot of conducting practice. I also think I used the music well in my plan, although I
did not get as much of it in my live lesson. I think that overall my plan was a good one, it just
needed to be shorter and simpler. I tried to include too much.
This lesson plan was written to include reading standards as well as music ones. I had a
vocabulary objective - I wanted students to be able to define phrase. Since the typical
definition of phrasing is a musical sentence, I planned to include some review of sentence
structure. I also planned on using a technique from Language Arts, the KWL, to review with the
students the musical topics they had learned in my lesson. Unfortunately, when I taught the
lesson, we did not get to that point because I was rushed for time. I think it would have been
beneficial and would have set up future lessons nicely.
Execution of the Plan:
In this lesson, I noticed that I say okay a lot. It is a sort of space-filler, like the word
um. It was never really necessary, and sometimes it was a question, which could have given
the students the chance to respond with a big No, I dont want to do that! when really, I didnt
mean to give them the option. I need to take charge more in my future lessons: be louder, be
more assertive with my directions, and practice my pacing so there are no awkward silences
that I have to fill with okay? I think that practicing my lessons more beforehand and really
memorizing the order in which I want things to happen will make me more effective in this area.
I also want to learn more about classroom management techniques, but I will mention that later
in this reflection.
I planned this lesson to be really fun and full of musical learning. I set the tone for
learning first by opening with music - I sang the Hello There song with the class. I then had a
really good intro to my lesson where I talked to each of the students personally and set up my
song, Imperial March as a soundtrack piece. I even dressed in all black to convey the Darth
Vader character that the song highlights. All of this, I would keep the same. Some of the things
I would change, as far as setting a tone for learning, are my classroom management
techniques. This class was a little rowdy and would not stop talking throughout the class period.
Watching my video made it very clear to me that saying shh did not get the desired effect. I
needed to be more assertive and strict about silence, rules for glowsticks, and hand-raising.
During my previous observations, it seemed that Ms. Ingles did not have to do more than shush

to get the students to behave, but I obviously needed to be more authoritative. Students cant
learn when their class is being disruptive.
Another thing I would change is my questioning. I was not an effective questioner in this
lesson. I hardly asked any questions of the students that were relevant to what I was teaching.
I asked them about their favorite movies in the beginning, and got off to a good start, but then
the rest of my lesson was lecture and trying to fix their conducting patterns. I could have been
asking questions like What is a conductor? What do they do? before I had them conduct; or
What is a sentence? How do we know when a sentence is complete? when I described
phrasing. I had some of these questions written in my plan, but I either forgot or ran out of time
to ask them. I also wish that I had had one of the students (of the few who seemed to
understand the conducting pattern really well) be an example to the class and try to explain in
their own words how to conduct. That would show a high level of understanding and might also
be even more effective than the help I was giving.
Overall, the participation I got from the students was not bad. Despite some discipline
issues, I did not have anyone outright refusing to do what I asked, and I think they all learned
something from my lesson. I did my best to engage all the learners by walking around the room
and helping anyone I saw struggling. I was hoping that proximity would get the students to be
serious about their conducting and the questions I asked in my intro, and I think it did. I think it
would have been better for teaching conducting if I had moved them all so that they were facing
the same direction and could mirror my movements. I ended up confusing a lot of the students
so that they were just waving their batons around in no particular pattern. One thing I think that
went well was when I sang parts of the song as I modeled marching and conducting
movements. It allowed me to slow the music down so the students could better grasp what was
going on. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have the students do the singing as well,
so they had multiple ways of internalizing the music and its beat.
I listed movement as a standard in my lesson, along with listening and understanding
music in relation to history and culture. I could have added singing if I had included the activity I
mentioned previously. My lesson was a listening lesson, so obviously it included listening to the
Imperial March. I wish we had done more of this; I think I ended up pushing aside the
importance of listening to make room for improving their conducting. The lesson focused most
on movement, which was used in my our marching like Darth Vader and our conducting like
John Williams. I felt justified in putting understanding as well, because I gave the students a
little information about John Williams. I did not want to get too in depth with that because they
will learn more about him later, with Ms. Ingles, but I wanted to tell them he was a conductor
and interest them by listing the movies he worked on.
I was really excited about this lesson because I believed it would be fun and memorable.
I am proud of myself for thinking of the tune and finding the glowstick idea online and adapting it
to my needs. I think my greatest teaching strengths were my introduction and my interaction
with the students. In my lesson intro, I talked to each student and got them interested and
engaged in the lesson and the class. I did not know their names well, but I think pointing and
looking at them while I spoke was affective. I continued this rapport with the students
throughout my lesson by constantly walking amongst them and observing their motions. I
offered suggestions where I could, especially when they were practicing their conducting

pattern. I offered compliments to those who were doing really well, and I helped those asked or
who I noticed struggling.
Although I enjoy being amongst elementary students and helping them have fun with
music, I wish I had focused a little less on the fun-ness of my lesson. I wanted to be the cool
teacher who gave us glowsticks and so I forgot to be authoritative. Classroom management
was definitely my biggest struggle in this lesson. I was caught unaware and had no good
response to the extra noise and confusion the kids were creating. My shhs were not effective,
and I never tried anything else. I also didnt give very clear rules when handing out glowsticks,
asking for responses, or standing. For my next lesson, I need to think about what could go
wrong and have a solution ready, just in case. I want to ask my next coordinating teacher about
some management methods that may be effective in her classroom, because each teacher sets
their classroom up differently.
My pacing and energy also need improvement from this lesson. My pacing was way off,
and I should have noticed this from my lesson plan, which was over 3 pages long. I simply
planned too much, and I wish I would have chosen to do either phrasing or conducting, not both.
There were also moments where I wasted some time, such as when I allowed students to
choose their glowstick color. I got a comment on my energy last time as well, and I tried to be
more excited this time, but it did not come across in the video. I think I need to be louder and
more confident in my professional status. I enjoy teaching, and I have the energy to be excited
about it, but my quiet nature is keeping me down, so I will work on stifling that in the future.
Overall, I would rate my effectiveness as a teacher at a 5 out of 10 for this lesson. I
spent a lot of the time lecturing, not asking questions, and trying to make them conduct, which
was not very successful. However, I do feel that the students gained good knowledge of
phrasing, and would have had more of a chance to show that if my pacing had been better. In
the short amount of time I spent on phrasing, they were able to detect whether I was stopping in
the middle of a phrase or at the end, and they were able to remember the definition I gave them.
I think the relation to sentences and paragraphs was really helpful for their understanding, and
could have been taken further in the future.
I think this was an improvement over my performance in my last teaching experience.
Last time I talked about my awkward gestures and stance in front of the class, and I think that
went away this time because I walked around more. I think my dependence on the lesson plan
went way down, which I am pretty proud of. It helped that I was not exchanging lines with a
partner, but I also felt more prepared for this lesson. As I mentioned before, I attempted to
improve my energy, but can still work on that for next time. Next time I would like for my lesson
plan to be totally appropriate for my learners, with nothing they will not understand or be
successful with after my guidance and instruction.