Blog TE 1

Becky Frank
Teaching Episode Reflection
2-19-12


8th Grade Trumpets

On Monday February 13th I was privileged to work with five eighth grade trumpets students. I worked on my rhythm with them for about three minutes; the rest of the class period was spent practicing their band piece, Go West. Before I worked with the trumpets, I had talked to Ms. Nelson about what I should have the students work on in their concert music and she suggested the key signatures in Go West.
My learning goals were to have the trumpet players be able to say at any moment, what notes were sharped in the key of E major and that each student would be able to understand the syncopation of the second measure of the rhythm that I had created. The outcome for learning the sharps in E Major were, by the end of the class each student would have successfully told me the notes that were sharped. The students would also able to understand and successfully perform the syncopated rhythm that occurred in the second measure of the rhythm that I had created.
Ms. Nelson sent Karen and myself, with five trumpet players from the bottom of the section to the Wold Music Room while she kept the other two trumpets to play trumpet part in the large rehearsal. We went to the World Music Room where Karen taught her name game. After she went though the names, I did my quick rhythm exercise.It went pretty well. I did not want to hammer this rhythm to death, because it was not used in their concert music. It was just a fairly easy rhythm that had a little syncopation in it. That task took only took 3 minutes. Next, I moved the students into Trumpet 1 and Trumpet 2 sections and leaviing no open seats between the two section My goal was to help the trumpet players with their fingerings and most importantly to make sure that they knew what notes should be sharped in Go West. I would ask the trumpets what the order of the sharps was though out the rehearsal in order to see if the information was being retained. As we were working our way though the piece, the key signatures would change and I would ask what notes are still sharped and which ones were not. The only piece that we rehearsed was Go West. The final test was to find out if Karen was able to get all the students names correct; they would only have to say the four sharped notes once, however, if she did not get them correct they would have to say them twice though. Karen got all the sames correct and the students were able name all athe sharped notes correctly.
My assessment of the rhythm was that all the students had a 3 or 2. All of them did the rhythm correctly within 3 tries so I passed them all. My assessment of knowing the sharps went even better. At first the only sharp the students could tell me was was F#. I told them what the other notes that were sharped when the key signature had 4 sharps were and then showed them the fingerings for those notes. Though out the piece I would hold up my fingers and ask what the sharps were. It was a fun way to accomplish this goal.
I felt that overall my teaching strategies were effective. However, I did make one mistake. The students did not have pencils and I did not sent them to get one. Ms. Nelson told me I should have sent one student back, or searched the room to find one. Lesson learned, I will always keep a pack of pencils with me at all times. I do think that the students did learn from working with me. They learned what notes get sharped when there are four sharps in the key signature, and they learned the fingerings for those notes that they did not previously know. I also learned that I can show fingerings in both hands at the same time. This experience showed me that I am not the type of person that can observe for more than 15 minutes; I like to actively participate with the students. I also found that I can get the students to listen to me without yelling. If the teacher remains calm and in control, the students will listen usually. I also discovered that I really like working with students.