Deirdre McKeever

MusEd 341

Final Reflection School B

Over the past semester, I have become a lot more confident teaching, and I feel like my
classroom demeanor has improved. I feel more comfortable with writing lesson plans, and I also
feel more comfortable responding in the moment when things don’t go according to plan. I feel
like I have become better at identifying age-appropriate repertoire and activities as well.
I feel less comfortable with classroom management. None of the classes I was teaching
ever got out of control, but I think that was partially due to the fact that the regular teachers were
always present. Although I know more strategies for classroom management now, I think I need
to have a little more experience before I feel fully comfortable with that aspect of teaching. I also
still have difficulty planning and teaching lessons where the students create, particularly at the
higher grade levels. I also still have difficulty with assessment, but that may just be because our
time with the students is so short that it’s difficult to include an assessment in every lesson.
I evaluate my own teaching by assessing student reactions in the moment and by
watching the video of my teaching after class. I can tell if a lesson is going well if the students
seem to know what to do and seem happy and engaged. When evaluating my own teaching, I try
to look for areas of growth as well as things that need to be improved. Even if a lesson goes
badly, I can often find aspects of my overall teaching which have shown growth. I consider a
lesson to be a success if the concept being taught is clear, the lesson is age-appropriate, and the
students are engaged.

Reflection Week 3: (forgot to include this in my Week 4 Lesson Plan)

This week I taught the class The Heel and Toe Polka. I had never taught a dance before,
so I wasn’t exactly sure how to sequence it. In hindsight, I think the lesson was either too
complicated for the age group or I didn’t break down the steps enough, because a lot of the
kindergartners didn’t seem to get the dance down. Katie Ryan gave me a few helpful suggestions
for sequencing dances with young children after class.
Two things I liked about this lesson were that I stayed calm when the lesson didn’t go
according to plan and that the kids still seemed to be having fun even if they didn’t get the dance
steps down. The main thing I’d like to improve in the future is better scaffolding my dance
teaching.