Journal #5

The majority of class this week was based on bettering our lesson plans however, I am not sure that was the case. Although we did receive feedback from the teacher on our lesson plan I don't know if that was exactly the feedback that was needed. A lot of it although seen as correct in the teachers eyes as well as the students may not be correct to other people. I always thought as a lesson plan as something that could prepare you for what and how you were going to teach your classroom. I think that a lesson plan can be very different when dealing with different people and I feel as though we are not truly able to express that in this class. I have come to understand that the teacher wants the lesson plan a certain way and that is okay because in order to be a successful teacher you need to be able to differentiate but I feel as though much of the feedback was very negative this week and truly put the students under a great deal of pressure that could have been avoided. One of the concepts however, that we did learn this week or started to was the sharp on the recorder.
Like I said earlier I feel that students were called out this week that shouldn't have been. I truly do not think that numbering the lesson plans was a good idea because whether or not it was meant to come off that way it really made students feel bad because you are saying that if they did not receive a 1 their lesson plan was not good and that there are students that not necessarily can teach them better but our much better then them. I am not saying this because i received a 2 and am jealous of the people that received a 1 because I know that I benefited from their help but I do not believe that I should have been put down like that because the whole point of this class is to learn how to become better and a more rounded teacher. I also do not think that it is fair at all to be giving 5 extra credit points to someone who as a "good in tune singer." This class is not about that at all and that is what we were told our first day. There are many students in this class who do not believe that they have a good voice or have never really been exposed to singing in the first place and by telling people basically that if they do not get the extra credit they are bad singers really is just putting down students self confidence. I do think that it was a good idea to put us together with students not in the way that it was done but it gave us a chance to see how other students did theirs and to receive feedback from them. Like I said we only briefly started to cover the sharp, I think that it helped drawing out the keyboard, but I believe that many students are still confused by this so we need to spend a little more time on that to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
I think that it is important for us to be able to understand how to put these different lesson plans together because with out that we will not truly be a differentiated teacher and realize that sometimes we need to change things for the way certain students learn. I hope that we work more on getting the techniques that we need to really be able to be confident in our lesson plans because I feel like we were just thrown into it this week with really not a great deal of guidance or positive feed back. In terms of the sharp it is important for us to understand that so that we could progress into different and more challenging songs.
I feel that in terms of the sharp it is important for kids to understand this because it will further their knowledge in music. I also feel that the lesson plan although not important directly to the students will make us better prepared to teach them and benefit them in the long run.