Ten Minutes Ago.

After completing my general music lesson to a mock 8^th grade class, I realized that I probably gave enough information, but not enough elaboration. I felt as though I needed to review the major scale briefly to show the learner’s background and to at least review a bit before moving on. Perhaps I could have focused a little on the whole step, half step motion, but how much time could I spend on it with only ten minutes? My point with the stepwise motion was to show how it was done in a minor scale so then students could see how the two types of scales intertwined.

My labels on the board were composed of solfege and scale degree numbers. I explained that to my students, but I should have labeled it on the board to help the students. Though the labels would have thrown me off even more because during my lesson I was thinking too much and it got my brain all scrambled. I kept saying out loud, “I’ll go back to it.” I think I was getting too excited and too ahead of myself that I needed to just relax and continue slowly. It didn’t help at one point that a student had turned my focus to him. I do realize that is poor management and therefore a domino effect would happen, but I quickly got the students to turn their focus back on the board. Another time the students confused me even though my students were my colleagues who were trying to help me, it’s still a disruption to the teacher’s train of thought. Although it is nice that they were trying to help, it can be difficult to control after. However, the harmonic scale was something I did not intent to teach during my lesson, I thought I would just proceed with the rest of the lesson. Therefore I believe I need to make sure my lessons reflect on the time allowed instead of a HUGE lesson.

I know I talked a lot during my lesson, but when I finally got to the “activity” in my lesson, that was pretty good. I know it took me a while to get there, but I needed to explain what was happening in the scale. This was an 8^th grade class. Give if I knew I could have worked with a younger grade, I would have and obviously done a lot less talking. I should have done a lot less talking here, but it would make sense to do that when the material is more familiar to the students.

Aside from singing a scale, perhaps I could have done another activity such as taking a familiar song such as “Mary had a Little Lamb” or “Happy Birthday” and make into minor. That would have been fun, but with such a short amount of time. Looking back though, I wish I could have done that just to show how incomplete it feels to be in a minor key. Perhaps next time I will.