ENTRY 8: Instructional Strategies
The candidate understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in relevant ways.
The candidate should complete a reflective essay demonstrating how the strategies utilized in instruction are appropriate for meeting the needs of all students in the unit.
The candidate should complete a reflective essay demonstrating how the strategies utilized in instruction are appropriate for meeting the needs of all students in the unit.
During my time as an undergraduate at Kansas State, I have found several instructional strategies that will be valuable to my teaching. Ensuring that you use multiple strategies in your lessons allows you to differentiate instruction meet the needs of all students in your classroom.
One of the strategies that I have found to be most effective for all levels of music education is solfege. With older students, music to be learned, such as a song or choral piece, can be taught by first labeling and singing the pitches of the melody (or students’ respective parts) on solfege syllables. With younger, elementary aged students, songs can first be taught by rote using imitative call and response (echo) on solfege syllables with Curwen hand signs. By isolating musical content from words, students pay closer attention to pitch and rhythm. Additionally, the use of solfege helps them to sight read melodies with greater ease and allows the learning process to begin much more smoothly.
Another strategy that I have found affective is the use of self and peer assessments. These assessments can be as simple as asking students to answer prompts or just a few questions. This allows students to reflect on their own performance and gives them the opportunity to think about how they can improve themselves without being told by the teacher. The ability to self-assess makes them stronger musicians.
An instructional strategy I have found to be very effective is learning centers. In my student teaching at the elementary level, we set up learning centers for second and third grade at the end of a unit. The centers were comprised of a variety of hands-on activities for students to do and apply their newly acknowledged knowledge. They worked in small groups and independently for short periods of time before switching stations. This allowed me to move from group to group to assess how well they understood and retained the knowledge from the unit we just taught. It also helped to solidify the concepts by asking students to apply their knowledge and do a variety of activities using the knowledge.
Instructional strategies vary significantly by grade and by concept, so it is difficult to fit them all in here. I look forward to continuing to expand my “tool box” if you will and giving me even more strategies to teaching students in the way that is best for them.
One of the strategies that I have found to be most effective for all levels of music education is solfege. With older students, music to be learned, such as a song or choral piece, can be taught by first labeling and singing the pitches of the melody (or students’ respective parts) on solfege syllables. With younger, elementary aged students, songs can first be taught by rote using imitative call and response (echo) on solfege syllables with Curwen hand signs. By isolating musical content from words, students pay closer attention to pitch and rhythm. Additionally, the use of solfege helps them to sight read melodies with greater ease and allows the learning process to begin much more smoothly.
Another strategy that I have found affective is the use of self and peer assessments. These assessments can be as simple as asking students to answer prompts or just a few questions. This allows students to reflect on their own performance and gives them the opportunity to think about how they can improve themselves without being told by the teacher. The ability to self-assess makes them stronger musicians.
An instructional strategy I have found to be very effective is learning centers. In my student teaching at the elementary level, we set up learning centers for second and third grade at the end of a unit. The centers were comprised of a variety of hands-on activities for students to do and apply their newly acknowledged knowledge. They worked in small groups and independently for short periods of time before switching stations. This allowed me to move from group to group to assess how well they understood and retained the knowledge from the unit we just taught. It also helped to solidify the concepts by asking students to apply their knowledge and do a variety of activities using the knowledge.
Instructional strategies vary significantly by grade and by concept, so it is difficult to fit them all in here. I look forward to continuing to expand my “tool box” if you will and giving me even more strategies to teaching students in the way that is best for them.
ARTIFACT 1: Content Area Literature Text Sets Lesson
This lesson plan uses text sets and literature to introduce students to musical topics.
ARTIFACT 2: Secondary Lesson Plan
This plan uses poetry and composition to introduce lyrics to a song.
ARTIFACT 3: Elementary Video Lesson
A video of an instructional strategy used to teach Kindergarten.