Week 2

The second week was a whirlwind of a week. My cooperating teacher and I decided on the lesson I am going to teach for my EdTPA, and we have almost finalized the week that I will teach it. I should teach my EdTPA lesson starting next week on September 10th. This week I also started to take over one of the band classes, the 5th-grade woodwind band. It consists of 20 5th graders who all started playing their woodwind instrument this summer.

Tuesday I taught my first solo lesson with this group. This was their first rehearsal since summer so I spent the first lesson reviewing what they learned. The group has already learned three notes and were working on tonguing each note before they play it, the fingerings for each note and hitting the note when they start to play. I thought that the lesson went okay, I did have some issues with time management and figuring out what to do with the section that I am not working with. I had a lot of talking from the other sections when they were not playing. As for the lesson, I was teaching the band sounded better after the review lesson then they did before. All of the sections knew their notes and most of the students were tonguing their notes before they played.

After the lesson, I talked to my cooperating teacher and she told me that I needed to be more specific when giving directions and make sure that everyone in the band knows what exercise we are playing and what is expected of them. She said that I was treating them like an older band and needed to treat them like they do not understand anything and be very specific. She also told me that I need to really focus on giving out tasks to the students who are not playing to stop the talking and have them be productive throughout the entire class period so that no time is wasted. My cooperating teacher told me that overall the lesson was good and the things that I need to fix come with time and practice. And if I try to fix those things in my next lesson then it will go more smoothly.

The next lesson that I taught was on Thursday with the same group. I had planned on quickly reviewing and then moving on in their book but once we started playing I realized that the band forgot what we reviewed last time and we needed to review again. We spent most of the lesson reviewing the same exercises from last time, but this time I remembered to be more specific in my instructions and to give tasks to the section that is not playing. If they weren't playing they were supposed to go over exercises that we have not done yet and make sure that they know all of the fingerings and what note is being played.

After the lesson, my cooperating teacher told me that I improved on being clear in my instructions and I also gave good tasks for the students when they were not playing and overall the lesson went smoother and the band talked less and stayed on task more.
Next week we have another parade on Labor Day. The students are very excited and it helps me because the more they see me doing things with them the more receptive they are to me when I am teaching a lesson.