This teaching reflection is based off of a fourth grade recorder lesson.

The goals of this

lesson were to play both lines of a duet separately and together.

The beginning of the lesson could have gone a little smoother-I had to spend extra time

addressing students who were not following directions: taking out their recorders before

instructed, talking to other students, etc. One thing I try to do with the recorder classes is set the

expectation for them to be ready to play when I ask them to be. I do this by saying, “I know

you’re ready to play when you’re showing me a G.” This is helpful because it helps me check

comprehension and also gives the students a task rather than just saying, “Okay, is everyone

ready?”

I started the playing part of class with a few note pattern echoes. I do this to practice

finger independence moving between notes as well as ear training. The students typically do very

well with this exercise. We had to go back over a few patterns that they did not get the first time.

When I moved on to practicing the duet, I made sure every student had the notes written in their

music for both lines. Then we played the top line together as a class. The students struggled

getting through the top line, even with me pointing along. There were a few students who were

deliberately playing random notes, which is what I think distracted the other students. I stopped

to address that issue without calling out the students. There was a difficult measure in the line

that was causing the students trouble, so I isolated that note pattern and did it multiple times in a

call and response. This seemed to help the students when we put it back in context.

Next we practiced the bottom line of the duet together, which was considerably easier for

the students to play. After reviewing both lines, I split the class up into top and bottom parts.

before starting the duet, I asked each part/section to show me which note they were going to start
on. This helped me assess their comprehension and catch a few wrong fingerings before playing.

I continued to check beginning notes every time we divided the class up into different parts.

After playing through the duet multiple times I asked the students to show me how

comfortable they were playing it on their “thumb-ometer.” This showed me each student’s

comfort level without calling them out individually. When everyone was ready to move on to the

string test, I asked the risers that were not playing to show me good audience behavior. The

students were respectful to each other and many took the opportunity to practice fingering along

before playing their string test.

Overall, I noticed that I asked a lot of questions to check comprehension, however

sometimes that meant I took more time to talk than letting the students play. I want to work

towards doing more than talking. Even when giving instructions I tend to go into more detail

about the activity than needed. I am learning that students typically do not need as much

information to complete a task that I feel like I need to give them. Learning how to make

directions short and clear is something I am working toward.