2-1 Content Knowledge

The candidate understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the
discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates content-specific learning and literacy experiences
that make the discipline accessible and relevant to assure mastery of the content. (This entry
may be up to 800 words).

One of the most important aspects of being a educator is being very knowledgeable in the
content one teaches. In order to be knowledgeable in the content, the teacher must
understand the central concepts of their subject, the tools of inquiry used to gain
understanding of the concepts, and the structure of the discipline(s) they teach. Without each
of these aspects, student mastery of the content is not possible.

It is absolutely vital that music educators have a mastery and vast knowledge of musical
content. No matter what grade level, the teacher must be knowledgeable and proficient in the
music they’re teaching. In elementary classrooms, the educator must be aware of the most
popular and successful approaches to music learning, which include Kodaly, Dalcroze, Gordon,
Orff, and World Music Pedagogy. I have detailed the aspects of each of these methods in this
presentation. In this lesson I was teaching in a fourth-grade classroom, we were using the Orff
method to learn sixteenth notes by working with the xylophones and metallophones. The song
we worked on allows for the children to play on the instruments easily, even though for some
of them they had never played these instruments until this unit. In the Orff method, percussive
rhythm is seen as a natural basic form of human expression. This explains why the children
enjoy these songs and playing on these instruments so much. Working with younger students
requires a lot of knowledge of classroom management strategies and pedagogical techniques.
Each of the previously stated approaches to music education for children has been proven
effective and useful, so it is important to study them and implement these techniques in your
own classroom.

In secondary classrooms, it is very important for the teacher to be able to diagnose and solve
any issues the ensemble may be having. In this lesson (from 24:03-28:03) in a high school
freshman women’s classroom, the women were having trouble getting their notes in a certain
section of a piece they were working on, so it was important for me to separate the sopranos
from the altos so they could each hear their part and make sure they were singing correct
notes. Without the teacher’s ability to diagnose the issue, the women would have continued to
sing incorrectly. This ability is one of the most important abilities for a music teacher to possess
and makes rehearsals the most effective they can be.

Content knowledge in the classroom, both pedagogically and musically, is extremely important
in making music accessible and relevant to the students. As music educators, we must not only
have knowledge of our content and pedagogy, but we must also be able to implement it to
ensure student success.