The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners.
To follow this principle, the teacher must learn the concepts and material they will be teaching in order for the students to understand what they will be learning. With the proper knowledge of the material, teachers will excel in their teaching ability and will receive the results they wish from their students. In music, teachers need to have a complete understanding of the musical criteria they were teaching. By doing this, the students will fully understand what the teacher expects from them, and how to succeed in the class. The teacher also needs to establish discipline in the classroom, and have a set of rules the students must follow. By establishing discipline, the teacher will have complete control over the classroom, and receive the result of learning from their students they desire. The type of discipline depends on the classroom being taught though, and without knowing how to discipline many types of classes, a teacher will not succeed in establishing discipline. The teachers must establish their rules that will be a reference for the students to look back on and be expected to follow everyday in the classroom. The rules are aspects of the discipline the teacher is to establish in the classroom. The teacher is also required to know the tools of inquiry that are involved in teaching a class. This is the proper question asking and the proper ways of receiving information from students. Teachers need to ask questions based on the level of students they are teaching and properly know what material to ask questions on. Asking questions about songs and how a rhythm may go are good questions when talking to musicians. As a part of discipline, teachers need to also establish what types of answers they want from their students when they ask a question. Students will know what their teachers wants of them if the teacher lets them know of it in the beginning.
I feel my experience in this principle has some growing to do. The proper discipline in a classroom is something I feel I need to work on because the right discipline for students depends on the class. In my peer teaching episodes, I was told I established proper discipline among my peers, but I will have to change my strategies based on the level of students and classes I will teach. I have realized the discipline I used when teaching private lessons could have been better and to the level of the students I was teaching, but I have not had the experience of how to discipline those I will teach yet.
I am taking Music Education in order to fulfill my need of learning how to discipline in the proper way in the classroom. This class will help me to learn the ways of discipline there are and how to act with students in a classroom. I hope to gain the knowledge and discipline in myself to further my experience in knowing how to properly discipline others. I will also be doing student teaching in the future to have the experience in front of a class, and knowing how a teacher disciplines their classroom. This will help me to observe other types of discipline there are and how to approach those types. This will make me grow as a teacher and create in me a need to discipline in the best way I see possible.
MUSE 356- Choral Methods 1 Artifact: Middle and Elementary Choral Library Rationale: When teaching lessons in this course, I have had to become completely familiar with material and concepts I am teaching my students. Intoning pitches, cueing entrances, and guiding multiple parts are only a few of the things I have had to be fluent with in the music to be able to teach my students. This course has given me the opportunity to practice all of these particular aspects of content knowledge, and the best ways to practice them so they are carried out to the best of my ability. The artifact attached is my choral library. This is a compilation of all of the pieces of music covered in this course for elementary and middle school choirs. I was able to develop organizational skills and grow in my knowledge of pieces that are appropriate for the different ages.
MUSE 376- Choral Methods 2 Artifact: High School Choral Library Rationale: This course is choral methods 2, where I learned about teaching high school choir and all of the components necessary for a successful program. I carried out peer teachings as well as field teachings in a high school setting to have experience with this age of students. As with MUSE 356, this class gave me the opportunity to practice lessons with content that I, myself, must know in order to teach my students well. I understand that content knowledge is a vital part of an educator's ability to teach students well. I have updated my choral library to express that I now know how to analyze high school choral literature to know what content I can teach and be knowledgeable about myself.
MUSE 457- Artifact: Orff Arrangement Rationale: Within this course, I learned about the different approaches to teaching general music. These approaches included Orff, Dalcroze, Kodaly, and comprehensive musicianship. After learning each of these approaches, I was required to create lesson plans that had specific concepts as goals that could be taught using these approaches. I was also required to create an Orff arrangement for Orff instruments, which is the artifact attached here. I had to create a 5-part arrangement that consisted of a bordun, beat/pulse, rhythmic ostinato, melodic ostinato, and melody with the various Orff instruments such as floor drum, claves, soprano and bass xylophone, and alto glockenspiel. In order to complete this arrangement, I needed to know the process of arranging, and then the Orff approach. I learned how to create this arrangement for the purpose of a general methods class, and found that it was fun and easy to learn for the students. I feel that this arrangement shows my knowledge of the content within this approach and how I could create an arrangement for the purpose of performing in the classroom. Having this as a tool will be extremely beneficial to my teachings. Personally, I feel that a teacher should include a variety of approaches into their teaching strategies, especially utilizing Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze, and comprehensive musicianship.
Student Teaching Artifact: First Grade Lesson Rationale: The artifact attached is a first grade lesson that I taught during my LAMP project. It involves using media and multiple songs to teach the concepts of duet and trio. I used two videos of a vocal duet and an instrumental trio to emphasize this fact to help the students understand. I then had them sing in duets and trios within the class to understand the concept even further. The students were able to figure out the definitions of these terms due to the multiple means of representing the material I presented to them. Using multiple means of representation helps with the differing learning styles of the students as well as shows my understanding of the content and how to present that to the students. Knowing the pieces of music in each of these areas and the composers helps me to present the concepts to the students as well. I know what concepts I can draw from each of the areas I am teaching, and what I can do to help the students understand in multiple ways.