James Coleman
Entry 8
Differentiated instruction allows for a higher chance of reaching each student that enters my classroom. Every student comes in with different interests, backgrounds, and prior knowledge. Thus, the way they learn will be different. A few strategies to include in the classroom would be to add physical movement, provide opportunities for exploration, and find ways to connect new knowledge to old knowledge. Physical movement allows students to involve their bodies and clicks with those who learn kinesthetically. Allowing students to explore rather than just telling them the answers allows for productive struggle. This gives students to opportunity to not only find the right answer but why the other answers are wrong. This is more likely for students to remember as they were the ones that discovered it. It also gets the students thinking deeper about the content. Finally, connecting new knowledge to old knowledge makes the information more meaningful to the students therefore, it will stick with them longer. This also gives students a way to apply their knowledge in ways that are meaningful to their life. All of these strategies allow students to build on what they already know and makes the information more memorable.
During student teaching, I incorporated a variety of strategies into each lesson in order to reach as many students as possible. Movement is one thing that goes hand in hand with music that I used often to keep up engagement throughout lessons. One lesson I did with first/second grade was over Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. Since each movement is about an animal, I invited the students to move their bodies with the music as if they were that animal. This gave them the opportunity to understand what the composer was picturing when creating the music thus creating a deeper understanding of the piece. In this lesson I also connected their prior knowledge. Students already understand what certain music makes them think of or how it makes them feel. In this lesson, we talked about how each instrument could represent a specific animal because of the tone, pitch, and range of the instrument. This allowed them to connect what they had already came up with in their head to a musical concept. By using a wide range of strategies in each lesson gives me a better chance of reaching every student in my classroom.
During student teaching, I incorporated a variety of strategies into each lesson in order to reach as many students as possible. Movement is one thing that goes hand in hand with music that I used often to keep up engagement throughout lessons. One lesson I did with first/second grade was over Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. Since each movement is about an animal, I invited the students to move their bodies with the music as if they were that animal. This gave them the opportunity to understand what the composer was picturing when creating the music thus creating a deeper understanding of the piece. In this lesson I also connected their prior knowledge. Students already understand what certain music makes them think of or how it makes them feel. In this lesson, we talked about how each instrument could represent a specific animal because of the tone, pitch, and range of the instrument. This allowed them to connect what they had already came up with in their head to a musical concept. By using a wide range of strategies in each lesson gives me a better chance of reaching every student in my classroom.
Artifact #1
This is a worksheet I made for a world music lesson I taught, working towards making students comfortable and familiar with music from all over the world.
512_afrocuban_music_ws.docx | |
File Size: | 22 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Artifact #2
This is a lesson I wrote to teach for a trumpet class, using differentiated instruction to help out learners who prefer different learning modalities.
high_brass_tpt_lesson_plan.docx | |
File Size: | 68 kb |
File Type: | docx |