Kinga Kostreva

Lesson Plan Analysis 1

PSY 205

February 14, 2011

Lesson Plan:

Introduction to Music

By Laura Conaway

http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Arts/Music/MUS0015.html

The lesson plan being analyzed introduces notes values, new vocabulary and different rhythmic patterns. This lesson plan is design for 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd grade students. Laura Conaway uses a mastery and peer model in constructive teaching approach, as well as visual aids. The “Introduction to Music” lesson plan consists of: description of the lesson, goals and objectives of the lesson, specific time range, and materials needed and detailed procedure. Procedure involves: anticipatory sets, input and modeling and guided practice II and I. The assessment concludes the lesson plan.

Modeling is presented through verbal mediation in the procedure section of the lesson plan as Laura Conway offers her idea of the dialogue between a teacher and the students, which I find very helpful for kids. It is clear and easy to follow her train of thought and understand the aspects as a whole. She also emphasizes the importance of keeping kids engaged and “encouraging them to respond with enthusiasm.” She ‘mediates’ by talking to her students through the tasks as she introduces new concepts. She increases not only understanding of the subject, but also, by using visual images of notes while clapping the rhythm, she enhances the chances of transferring the information into the long-term memory.

During the lesson a teacher serves as a mastery model for her students, along with students as peer models. Throughout the lesson she continuously demonstrates the value of the notes. “The instructor stands before the students and slowly begins slapping thigh once, clapping hand once, and snapping fingers twice.” Students are asked to demonstrate in front of the class their own understanding of the notes’ values. They explain the material to the class and show by clapping or snapping the rhythmic pattern. Both the teacher and peers present the material, so the class has a chance to observe and experience individual methods and techniques. This provides a variety of teaching approaches for various learning methods.

The lesson plan also includes enhancing self-efficacy of the students. She makes sure to praise each kids’ performance whenever they present themselves to the class to demonstrate the rhythmic pattern, as well as enthusiastically complementing the class: “Wow, you are fast with this!”

When Laura Conaway calls on individual students to answer the questions, she asks to explain their train of thought and how did they come up with their answer. This presents constructivist learning theory approach. Parts of Laura Conaway’s lesson plan tie in with constructivists learning theory when she encourages inductive learning practices.

At the beginning of the lesson she simply claps the rhythm without offering any explanation and waits for students to join in. The teacher first claps, snaps, slaps the rhythm, then begins to count, then sings the song to the rhythm she introduced. In this activity students are encouraged to imitate the teacher. Although teacher never asks them to join her, they slowly start to imitate their teacher, following the rhythmic pattern. This short introduction at the beginning of the class is an inductive teaching, which forces students to work out their own understanding.

Further in the lesson plan, Laura Conaway uses deductive learning approach. Students are presented with information about each of the note value, and then asked to clap given example of the rhythmic pattern. “In math, numbers tell us how to count. Well, in music, notes tell us how to clap; One-two-three-four.” They can now apply the rules they just learned and demonstrate their knowledge. Through various methods, like: graphic representations of note values, verbal explanation, or aural examples, students make associations and inferences about the rules of the concept. At the end of the class they are able to distinguish the differences between the note values. As the result, students retain the information longer, and information learned in the lesson makes its way to be stored in their long-term memory.

The lesson plan utilizes many types of rehearsal to transfer information from the short-term memory to long-term memory. The only thing I would suggest that the lesson plan was missing is association. A teacher could easily create some kind of verbal associations to be attached to the new information, so that students could understand the new material even better and remember the notes values. For example: whole note is round and big because it ate all four quarter notes. Her value is four quarter notes; half note is little smaller, because she ate two-quarter notes. The value of the half note is two-quarter notes.

To ensure understanding and long-term memorization of the material Laura Conway encourages her students to define characteristics of each note. Students are asked to describe similarities between two notes, then differences. She really makes sure that they can understand how diverse the quarter note is from the half note. She emphasizes that even though they both look alike, “yes, they both have a long stem,” they are also very different: “one is colored in. That one is called a quarter note,” and have very different note values.

The lesson plan also includes steps to enhance the information processing: maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal, as well as attaching visual associations and organization of the material.

Throughout the lesson teacher rehearses the new concepts with students through elaborative and repetitive learning; she organizes and constructs the material for them, and attaches visual graphs with verbal explanation. She holds the graphical images illustrating whole note, half note and quarter note. To illustrate the value of the notes, she covers two-quarter notes with one half note to demonstrate that half note has a value of two-quarter notes. She uses this approach for several other examples. When using maintenance rehearsal, a teacher constantly ensures the understanding of the new material, by frequently asking students questions. When they respond, she then asks them further questions and requests an explanation of their thinking process to assess their knowledge and understanding of the subject.

The instructor does a great job with visual description of the notes values. She uses different visual examples to demonstrate note value for quarter note and for half note. When clapping the rhythm of the quarter note, the teacher claps hands closed. When demonstrating the value of the half note, she bounces her hands forward. She visually demonstrates how the value of quarter note differs from the value of the half note. She makes clear, easily understandable and memorable distinction between these two note values. In doing so, the teacher practices good rehearsal technique, ensuring the students can transfer information from short to long-term memory. She is making visual and verbal associations, attaching meaning, and making connections to the information, (closed hands – a quarter note, bounced hands forward – half note.)

In her lesson plan “Introduction to Music” Laura Conaway suggests that once the students have figured out the note values and clapping rhythmic pattern, the teacher can shift to guided practice, then individual demonstration. This indicates scaffolding, along with Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development theory. During the guided practice, instructor claps various rhythmic patterns, and then asks students if the demonstration was correct. After that, students clap the rhythms by themselves and without instructor’s lead or help. Based on the previous guidance and built frame given to students they are now left to figure out the correct note values and demonstrate it to the teacher.

Students’ understanding is done through observation during the last part of the lesson, an assessment – the guided practice. By individual presentation of the students, teacher can easily assess their knowledge and understanding of the material, and students also learn and enhance their skills from peer modeling and through observation, as individual students are called up to demonstrate and explain their understanding to the rest of the students.

The analyses of Laura Conaway lesson plan “Introduction to Music” shows how complex and flexible at the same time the lesson plan can be. It covered many different concepts and teaching approaches without being overly complicated or difficult for the teacher or the students. Laura Conaway applies variety of teaching methods, but ensures the enthusiasm and excitement of her students at the same time. Overall, the lesson plan provided effective teaching along with students’ positive understanding and memorization of the material.