Music Fundamentals in the Classroom
Lesson Plan Guidelines
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Music Fundamentals in the Classroom Lesson Plan Guidelines |
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I. Lesson Plans
Your lesson plan handout must include the following information:
1. Your name, and the "name" of your activity. If you've gotten the idea from one of the textbooks, you must include the title and page number of the book–both as an acknowledgment of the source, and also so that we can find it easily.
NOTE: I strongly advise that you use the State-Adopted Textbooks (discussed under Item "C" in the Activity Notebook section) for ideas and models for your first few lesson plans. I am not opposed to your using websites to assist with ideas for lessons later in the quarteróbut I have observed thatóconsistentlyóstudents fail to "flesh out" the web ideas into full-fledged lesson plans until they are more practiced at writing plans.
2. The targeted grade level–and think carefully about what you're asking the students to do. Don't give reading assignments to kindergartners, etc.
3. Your objectives. These can be worded in the formal behavioral manner: "Given . . . , the child will . . . " Or, you can be less formal, and just tell us what you hope to accomplish by teaching this activity. Is it designed to help with spelling? Cooperation? Social Studies?
4. The Framework components which this lesson addresses (you can include these with #3, if you'd like).
5. The materials needed for your activity–recorders, autoharps, crayons, rubber balls–whatever. If the lesson includes a song, please include a photocopy of it (with a proper citation of the source from which you got it), unless it's one we all would know very well. It's easy to forget things over time.
NOTE: If you want the students to listen to or sing pieces in contrasting styles, you must name the exact pieces you would use. Remember that this plan should be written as if YOU were teaching it TOMORROW.
6. A listing of Prior Knowledge–the things you are presuming the students have already learned, that they need to know in order to participate in your lesson. These are sometimes called the Entry Behaviors, the Preparatory Set, and so on, in Educationalese.
7. A Step-by-Step, logical, detailed Plan of Action–how you decided to structure the lesson. Give us all the information which you would need to have prepared if you would be teaching the lesson yourself tomorrow (which shouldn't seem so far-fetched, because you will teach one of these lessons for your "in-class" lesson. Please include anything you think would be helpful–guiding questions, step-by-step approach, timings (i.e. "5 minutes for singing, 5 minutes for discussion," etc.) The subject matter for the lesson is by all means up to you. You can teach a music idea (or series of ideas), or you could use a musical lesson to help teach an extra-musical idea–a math game, geography, interpersonal behaviour (sharing, cooperation, etc.), art projects, and so on. You may want to devise a competitive game–just make sure that everyone has a chance to participate. The "bottom line" on these activities is that they should be FUN!
8. If you ask the class questions, make sure you know the answer(s)! If you say you're going to give them "a brief history of ragtime," what, exactly, do you plan to say? Your lesson plan must include this sort of information. If you want to play examples of 'slow' songs, what specific tunes will you use? A well-designed lesson plan will include this information. Do you know how to define all the terms employed in your materials?
9. Layout is important. Your procedures need to be easy to read (paragraphs are difficult to follow mid-lesson; numbered or bulleted steps usually work better). "Micro"-fonts are a bad idea!
A few pointers:
• Don't hesitate to use ideas you've gotten from the state-adopted textbooks, but don't feel tied to the way they presented the material. You can teach things any way you want. If you do 'borrow' a textbook lesson idea (which is fine), you must cite this source of your inspiration on your handout (the citation should include the author, title, publisher, and page number for books, or the author, title, and URL for web sites). This of course also applies to any photo-copied charts, music, and whatever.
• There are a number of websites that offer lesson plan ideas. Great! But be aware that I have never seen a website that gives you ALL the steps you needóyou'll need to create a lesson plan from the idea. Be sure to include the complete and accurate web address and authoróas indicated in the point aboveóas the citation for the source of your idea.
• Beware: many website lesson plans are at the wrong grade level to comply with the California Music Framework. You have to insure that you choose lessons that are suitable for the grade.
• Vary your proposed activities to a reasonable degree–for instance, don't devise nine lessons which all are geared toward learning notation.
• Our own textbook for this class is also a source of ideas; browse through it as well.
• PROOFREAD your lesson plan. A plan riddled with typos, spelling, and grammatical errors will not receive an "A," and will make me worry about you as a future teacher!
Make ___ hole-punched copies of each lesson plan (and staple multiple pages, but try to make double-sided copies whenever you can) so that these can be distributed among your classmates. Please give me two copies: you'll get one back, graded; I'll keep the other.
A sample lesson plan is included at the end of these guidelines, but: it describes a lesson which will take more than 20 minutes. I wanted to show you a variety of approaches to the same material–you could certainly take this lesson apart, presenting various aspects of it over a series of days.
Lesson Plan Grading - your lesson plans will be graded according to the following criteria:
Mechanics (6 pts)
Appropriate Citations (2)
Necessary Addenda Included (2)
Appearance: Layout; Holepunched, Titled, Identified (2)
Content (14 pts)
Objectives (2)
Prior Knowledge (2)
Materials (2)
Framework Elements (2)
Appropriate to Grade Level (1)
Logical and Complete Plan of Action (5)
Point Scale:
A 18-20points
B 16-17
C 14-15
D 12-13
Score-Busters:
- each typo, spelling error, or grammatical mistake will cost you a 10th of a point. Proofread!
- "Late" lesson plans will lose points at the rate of 2 points per day late. Teachers have to be prepared, no matter what!
- Repeating someone else's lesson plan from another grade level will cost you 5 points. READ what your peers have given to you!
The earned points for each lesson plan will be added together and divided by 10; this will represent the average of your lesson plan grades, and will be treated as half your Activity Notebook grade.
• Your task is to choose one of the weekly music-based lesson plans you've prepared for your notebook and to teach it to the rest of the class in your 20-minute appointment.
• I can make arrangements for you to borrow non-circulating materials from Kennedy Library for 24 hours, if needed for your lesson
• You are free to use any materials in our "Music Education Cabinets"
• On the day you teach, please bring a duplicate of your lesson plan for me.
Grading: Your grade will be a combination of several factors:
1. The scope (goals) of your lesson (15 points). Is your plan a good one? Does it address particular skills or knowledge? Is this a worthwhile activity to spend 20 minutes teaching? Is it 'do-able' in 20 minutes?
2. Your general level of preparedness for this lesson (10 points)
3. The clarity of your instruction (communication skills, etc.) (15 points). Did you get us to do what you had intended? What worked? What didn't? Did you gauge the time correctly?
4. Correspondence between the lesson and your written lesson plan (10 points). Is your plan written up in such a way that it will be helpful to the rest of us later on? Does it reflect what you actually did during your lesson? Did you follow your plan?
46-50 points = A
41-45 = B
36-40 = C
31-35 = D
Please let me know if I can help you prepare in any way, such as helping you obtain the materials you need, showing you how the sound equipment works, discussing your ideas ahead of time–whatever.
In-Class Lesson Checklist:
___ If you want to use a recording from Kennedy, have you listened to it? (sometimes you'll be suprised at how it sounds, or how it's set upSample Lesson Plan - Music 360
"Name-Pop"
Alyson McLamore
Grade: 3
Materials: Paper; colored pencils or crayons; record, cd, or tape player; recording of Lucien Cailliet's variations on "Pop Goes the Weasel" [optional: paper bags, slips of paper]
Goals: 1. To explore the musical form of theme and variations, along with introduction and coda. (Artistic perception)
2. To introduce (or reinforce) the musical concepts of fugue (the texture of imitative polyphony), major versus minor mode (aspects of harmony), different instrumental tone colors (timbres), and role of composer. (Artistic perception)
3. To reinforce listening skills (Artistic Perception), including perception of musical styles–jazz, etc. (Historical and Cultural Context).
4. To practice and invent various types of letter notation (writing exercise, fine-motor coordination, artistic design).
Prior Knowledge–Musical: Familiarity with the song "Pop Goes the Weasel"
Non-musical: lessons in cursive handwriting
Lesson Plan:
1. Pass out paper and writing utensils; ask each student to print his/her name on the piece of paper.
2. Ask for other ideas about how we can write our names: cursive, all capitals, all lower case, fat "doughnut" letters, fancy letters, shadowed, backwards (!), different colors, etc.
3. As each idea is submitted, ask the students to write their names again in the new style.
4. Get the class to come up with at least 7 different notations.
5. Ask the class to sing "Pop Goes the Weasel," then again as a 3-part round.
6. Play just the theme from the recording (cd or tape player works best for this)–does the class recognize the melody? Another word for melody is theme. What instrument plays the 'pop'? (popgun). Does the melody start at the very beginning, or does the orchestra play something else (an introduction) first? If we sing along, can you tell when to start singing? (Start the piece over, and sing along.)
7. Let the recording continue through the first variation–can you still hear the melody? Do the instruments come in one after another, like a round? This is a fugue. (If you have plenty of time, you could divide the class up and have them sing along with the different instruments.)
8. Play the next variation–can you hear where the composer (a person who writes music) hid the melody? (In the accompaniment, as low pitches)
9. Play variation 3–in the minor mode. Does this part of the piece sound sad? How fast is it?
10. Variation 4–the composer wanted to create a music box effect here. Did he succeed?
11. Variation 5–jazz version–How is this version different than the previous? (faster, happy mood, syncopated rhythms [unexpected accents]).
12. Talk about term variations (in which parts of the music are changed while other parts are different)–how is this piece similar to the different ways we wrote our names?
12. Play Coda (which means "tail" in Italian)–do you recognize this tune? (same as the introduction). It wraps up the piece, and lets you know that you're coming to the end. Also, it puts a 'frame' around the piece like bookends.
13. Play the piece again, singing the melody along with each variation.
[14. If time, write the name of a friend or family member on a new sheet of paper in different styles as you play the whole piece again.]
15. Review new terminology with class; if time, discuss favorite variations.
Suggestion: you could give each student a paper lunch bag, and let the class draw slips of paper from a hat. Some of the slips will have numbers on them. Ask the whole class to blow air into their bags; then, as the piece is played a second time, the people who drew the numbers can "pop" their bags on the corresponding variation, and the whole class could 'pop' at the end.
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