This week was very exciting for me. This was my first chance to teach part of the Let's Play Music class. I got to teach about 10 minutes of the first year class (the easiest of the 3 classes). It was very fun for me to get to teach the kids. Since I taught 2 times, I really feel like the second time was an immense improvement. Practice makes perfect as they say, and even though I know all the material, it's really important to work on specific techniques for teaching. A huge art of teaching is adaptation and asking the best questions. It's knowing your audience and what concepts they struggle with. The end goal of this project is ultimately to write a beginning violin method book. So I think one of the most important aspects I should add, as I can't exactly play the role of the teacher, is to incorporateA questions to promote careful thought in the minds of those reading my methodology. Also, I believe that it's possible to create an adaptive method, a choose your own adventure of sorts that would ensure students could move at their own pace, onto topics they believe they need the most emphasis on. It's difficult to make a book change to fit the needs of students learning solely from its methodology. Nothing will ever replace the benefit of a teacher, but self teaching is possible by careful investigation.
Next week is spring break- but I will be continually practicing violin. and begin writing some of my exercises to include in the book I intend to write.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Monday, March 7, 2016
Week 4
Week 4
Violin progress is going well. Slow, but well. I assumed I would be practicing more, to be completely honest. But I am still making progress. I need to begin working on composing my violin exercises. Composing is challenging, but I have some ideas now after working on the violin for almost a month. The problem I keep facing is reconciling my mental perspective of how I should be progressing to my actual progress, which is way slow and requires a ton of work. But, I do see now that my idea for the "expert beginner" thing wasn't completely crazy. I do see a lot of improvement in my ability to begin this instrument now than if I had started it as my first instrument (obviously). But the point is that I can self moderate what kind of exercises I think would be helpful, not just going off what my teacher expects me to practice. I also have tried making up exercises. The difficulty is that, since I'm the only test subject in this research project, it's 100% subjective to my perspective.
Let's Play Music is fun as always. I am preparing about 10 minutes of exercises to teach next week. These exercises include teaching the children to Lorie is really letting me do a lot within her class and I am super glad to get a unique teaching experience. I really feel a difference in my piano teaching. I've decided to incorporate more music theory into my piano curriculum, which is occasionally difficult because I can't put all these kids through Let's Play Music. LPM really makes the theory fun and exciting, which is something I'm obviously trying to do- but it's theory. Also, I find myself approaching notes differently. Generally, I just tell the kids the right answer when they miss a note, or have them try to fix it then assist. But after watching LPM, I've found there's a better way, and it has to do with pitch relations. They do it with solfegge, but also by naming the interval between the notes in a simple way (ie baby step, skip or leap). The kids get a sense for reading the shape of the melody, which, once they find their hand position, it becomes way easier for them to play correctly. The problem I see (potentially) in this, is that there becomes less of a focus on learning the notes and that becomes a little weaker as the kids just rely on "feeling" the way the song goes based on pitch relations. To modify this, I believe it's really useful to do what Let's Play Music does and stress all the notes separate from pitch relations. But it's difficult, in an unstructured piano curriculum like I have, it's difficult to really get the bridge between notes and pitches. Still working on a solution to this, and I am super excited to integrate this concept into my violin book.
At this point, I feel like I am finally seeing a lot of benefits from doing this project. It feels like a good use of my time. Learning how to teach is a useful skill and learning the Violin is a unique challenge that I really enjoy.
Violin progress is going well. Slow, but well. I assumed I would be practicing more, to be completely honest. But I am still making progress. I need to begin working on composing my violin exercises. Composing is challenging, but I have some ideas now after working on the violin for almost a month. The problem I keep facing is reconciling my mental perspective of how I should be progressing to my actual progress, which is way slow and requires a ton of work. But, I do see now that my idea for the "expert beginner" thing wasn't completely crazy. I do see a lot of improvement in my ability to begin this instrument now than if I had started it as my first instrument (obviously). But the point is that I can self moderate what kind of exercises I think would be helpful, not just going off what my teacher expects me to practice. I also have tried making up exercises. The difficulty is that, since I'm the only test subject in this research project, it's 100% subjective to my perspective.
Let's Play Music is fun as always. I am preparing about 10 minutes of exercises to teach next week. These exercises include teaching the children to Lorie is really letting me do a lot within her class and I am super glad to get a unique teaching experience. I really feel a difference in my piano teaching. I've decided to incorporate more music theory into my piano curriculum, which is occasionally difficult because I can't put all these kids through Let's Play Music. LPM really makes the theory fun and exciting, which is something I'm obviously trying to do- but it's theory. Also, I find myself approaching notes differently. Generally, I just tell the kids the right answer when they miss a note, or have them try to fix it then assist. But after watching LPM, I've found there's a better way, and it has to do with pitch relations. They do it with solfegge, but also by naming the interval between the notes in a simple way (ie baby step, skip or leap). The kids get a sense for reading the shape of the melody, which, once they find their hand position, it becomes way easier for them to play correctly. The problem I see (potentially) in this, is that there becomes less of a focus on learning the notes and that becomes a little weaker as the kids just rely on "feeling" the way the song goes based on pitch relations. To modify this, I believe it's really useful to do what Let's Play Music does and stress all the notes separate from pitch relations. But it's difficult, in an unstructured piano curriculum like I have, it's difficult to really get the bridge between notes and pitches. Still working on a solution to this, and I am super excited to integrate this concept into my violin book.
At this point, I feel like I am finally seeing a lot of benefits from doing this project. It feels like a good use of my time. Learning how to teach is a useful skill and learning the Violin is a unique challenge that I really enjoy.
Third Time's a Charm
This whole practicing thing is finally coming together (as is my life). The internship is going great! Lorie asks for my opinion on things which is cool. She then incorporated them (which is even cooler!). I am also training my younger brother on how to teach piano lessons. So I'm teaching someone how to teach. I feel like I have gained a lot of experience just watching Lorie's methods these past few weeks.
Here are some pictures/videos of Let's Play Music that I have included so you can feel apart of everything that's happening.
Here are some pictures/videos of Let's Play Music that I have included so you can feel apart of everything that's happening.
Here are the kids, sitting on their rug and following Mrs. Lorie's instructions.
Mrs. Lorie, singing the welcome song.
Singing the "Valentine" song. "Will you be my V-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-e?" The song is designed to help the kids learn specific solfegge, sol, la, ti, and do which are "hiding"in the song. The kids get to pick out the increments they know, and sing the song again, this time with solfegge and hand signs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)