Week 5

This week we learned many new and interesting things. Starting on Monday we began going over the teaching criteria for our lesson plans and what we needed to specifically do for them. Some of the things we learned that were important in teaching each lesson was Musicianship, which includes being in tune and having accurate rhythm, Leadership, which involves our body language, eye contact, and intensity, Preparation, which is basically having our lesson plans figured out and knowing exactly what we are going to do, which we worked on last week, and the Delivery of Instruction. We learned great deal of things under the delivery of instruction category, such as important aspects of closure, continuity, feedback, and verbal instructions. Going over each aspect was extremely helpful because it showed us how to get our ideas and lessons prepared and organized, because we now know exactly what is expected of us and how we should do it. On Wednesday we discussed Zoltan Kodaly, his importance, and many of the musical concepts he brought into play. We went over “do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do” and different hand motions and levels that you can use to show that note. It was interesting, but probably one of the harder things we have learned so far because everything to me was new.
We learned these concepts and skills several different ways. For lesson preparation, knowing what is expected of us, and getting things more organized and ready for this week’s lesson we were given a worksheet outlining these things and we went over them. As we did this if anyone had any questions about anything in specific or in general they were given an opportunity to ask about them. This was nice because a lot of questions other people asked I was wondering myself but was too embarrassed to ask. We all were able to help each other out and give one another tips. For the Kodlay martial we started off by listening to the Sound of Music so we could hear and know what he concentrated on. We were shown the different hand motions and repeated them. We also went through the packet, having the teaching read and point out the important parts of it and taking note on it.
Lesson planning is probably the most important thing for us to go over because the large majority of us are not going to be music teachers, but will use these same concepts. It is nice to know what we need to do and how to get organized for it. The Kodlay material was important because he had the philosophy that music should be the core of education for all children, so it puts the idea in our heads of incorporating more music into the general education setting. Ideas like hand signing and solfa can be very helpful to children and we should know them.
While children will not know the importance or difficulty that goes into lesson planning, the Kodlay material is very important for them to know. It will help them grasp a greater understanding of music, so the younger they begin to learn it at the better. The hand motions may be hard to pick up at first, but will be very beneficial.