Rhythm Lesson Reflection

For this microteaching, I attempted to demonstrate the connections between spoken rhythms (particularly in speech) and simple, symbolic notation, as well as help the students to show the understanding of rhythm and notation. I used enactive and symbolic teaching, though the main emphasis of the lesson was intended to be on the symbolic teaching. The creating of sentences and repeating them by rote were strictly enactive, but the application of the rhythms by writing them on the chalkboard was the symbolic part of the lesson.

Unfortunately, due to the time I started my lesson (about two minutes before class was supposed to be over), I felt rushed. I’m not sure exactly how long my lesson was, but I don’t think it was more than about 5 minutes, and I know that I had planned for, well, at least 7 minutes. Thus, I had to skip a portion or two of the planned lesson. Nonetheless, for the parts of my plan that I did get to do, I felt that I did a fairly good job. I probably spoke too fast (not only is this a common issue for me, but I was under pressure for time more than usual), but I believe that my instructions were clear and understandable. It is hard for me to tell how appropriate my lesson was for 3rd-grade students. But given my experience and knowledge, I think it was fairly appropriate. However, I did assume at the beginning of my lesson that I had previously taught the students notation, so that was an assumption that I made. I could have made the board writing somewhat clearer, but, again, I fault primarily the time constraint for this.

In the end, I felt that my lesson was good. I would not call it excellent but, given the time constraints, it was pretty well-done.

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