Today I had the unique opportunity to redo my 10 minute lesson. We were all given the option of changing our lesson how ever we wanted (or we could keep it the same) for the second run through. The point was to take the knowledge we gained from the first experience and use it to improve our ability to deliver a lesson.
I chose to keep some of the aspects of my lesson (the activity) but develop the procedure and make the lesson more well rounded. While I wouldn't say it went perfectly, as I still made mistakes and there was certainly more ways I could have improved, I think I reached my goal of improvement. This time around I have a better imitation to the lesson and I stated the objective to the students early on, both aspects I had left out the first time around. I then moved into the activity which involved a "passing the beat" telephone like game. Once again I gave the students the directions and checked for understanding. When I realized that I had an odd number of students, three of them volunteered to sit out which I allowed them to do, and I really wish I hadn't. I could've and should've found another way that they could assist or still participate in the lesson, after all, that's what I would have to do in real life. I think the order of the game flowed more than the last time but I made a mistake in the first round when I forgot to tell the students the meter and number of mesaures, something I told them I would give them. In spite of this, the students were almost all able to figure it out and once I realized the mistake I corrected myself on every other "round". I also think I should have come up with more simple rhythms, some of them were a little tricky.
Overall, I am really glad I got to do this and I'm even more glad that I got to watch my classmates get up and do this. I go to school with a lot of really good future music educators and it was cool to see how everyone taught, differently but effectively. It certainly gave me ideas and helped me to grow. Thank you to all of my peers for a great semester. It's been a pleasure working with and getting to know you. I can't wait to call you colleagues.
