Hannah Pitrie MUED 4305

Charter School Teaching Reflection #4

I thought that the transitions and overall ‘flow’ of my group’s collective lessons this past

week were the best they have ever been. Although we still ran out of time towards the end, we

were able to manage time better than we had in the past and everyone was able to at least do a

portion of their lesson. At the very beginning of my lesson, the students seemed uninterested.

However, as we were able to get into the game, the kids became more active in participating. I

felt successful in that I remembered the part of my lesson plan where I had the ‘trees’ echo tonal

patterns as well as the kids who were left without a partner, so that everyone was able to echo

tonal patterns. I was also worried that my directions would be too wordy or would not be

enough explanation for the students to understand the game, but they quickly caught on and it

appeared that I gave instructions in a clear and understanding way.

In the future, I would pick a song and game that would be more appropriate for older

kids. Though the students got into the game after playing it for a short while, they all gave me

blank stares when I first sang the song to them. I found it difficult to pick an appropriate activity

for this class because unlike fourth graders in schools that have been receiving music instruction

for their entire elementary education, these students are behind where a fourth grader should be

musically in school. Concurrently, it is also difficult to choose an activity that is not so easy that

the older students become easily bored. If I were to do another activity with tonal patterns, I

would make sure to use solfege. I sang the tonal sequence using solfege and had planned on

using solfege when echoing patterns but my nervousness distracted me. The students had a great

deal of trouble matching pitch, but I still would have liked to try echoing solfege patterns with

them.

This past week, I observed that the fourth graders are capable of matching pitch.

Watching Matt lead his activity in my group showed me that with the right approach, the

students can echo tonal patterns very well. He was very confident in his modeling and gave

them solfege patterns that included far more than just the major chord. Another aspect that

seemed to make his activity so successful was that he repeated the “poison melody” several

times, so that they were audiating it as he was singing it.