2016-2017 Teaching Reflection: High School Guitar Class -structure & advanced organizers

Inspired by the many discussions of the benefits of constructivist teaching and

student-centered learning, I decided to try to provide a lot of options for my guitar students to

be able to choose what songs they wanted to learn, and to try to figure out how to play a few

chords based on our class conversations about how to decipher chord diagrams. I realized very

quickly that this was not working very well. First, many of my students seemed confused as to

how to start, and others did not have the motivation to pick songs and practice on their own.

There was too little structure and too many choices at first. I learned that I needed to provide a

stronger foundation and scaffolding in order for them to get to the point where they could feel

comfortable taking more ownership of their learning.

This experience helped me realize that as beneficial as discovery-learning and

student-directed activities can be, it is essential to get to know your students (Vittorino da

Feltre). Most of my students did not have self-starting personalities, so many of them needed a

clearer idea of a starting point and suggestions for the next steps to take. After I realized this, I

decided to step in and make the process a bit more organized and teacher-directed for a little

while, until my students were able to get to the point where they were ready for more of a

student-directed project.

I also discovered the importance of routine and readiness for learning (Thorndike) for a

more structured approach. I implemented a daily do-now activity for the beginning of each

class. One of the main purposes of these activities was for students to have a task to

accomplish as they came into the classroom to help get them focused and ready to learn guitar,

and to facilitate a smooth transition to the start of class. Another purpose for the daily do-now

assignments was to review important concepts from the day before, and/or to access prior

knowledge/get them thinking about new topics to set them up for the focus of the day. At first,

these do-now exercises started as separate daily written activities where students would pick
up their assignment as they walked into the classroom. However, by the second semester, I

realized that it would be helpful for them to have a weeks worth of Do-now assignments at

once so that they could have an idea for the plan and focus of the week. I found these to be

extremely beneficial because they reinforced concepts from the previous day/week, and helped

them mentally prepare and become ready for learning.

An additional way that I decided to create more structure for my guitar class was to

create a daily Google Slides plan/organizer for both myself and for my students benefit. This

helped me to state the learning objectives so that my students understood the main goals for

the day. It also gave me a method of laying out the plan/schedule for the day so that my

students could see the general direction and activities that the lesson would incorporate, and

gave them a big picture as to what the unit/lesson would involve (Ausubel). This was very

helpful because it allowed my students to be better prepared and to know what to expect from

the class. In the future, Id like to share the Google Slides presentation with my students via

Google Classroom or Google Drive (or some other online format) so that they could access the

weekly plan and notes/chord diagrams/videos at home. This would allow them to catch up on

any missed work if they were absent, and would give them the opportunity to have access to the

materials if they wanted to review and/or practice anything from the week.

*I have included an example of a typical Google Slides Advanced Organizer (from the week of
5/8/17).