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John Koh

Dr. Dominick Ferrara

Secondary Classroom Methods (ME-311)

05.05.2020

ME-311 busted the myth that anyone can teach, because as I come to the end of the

semester, I realized that some can stand, but not everyone would. This class gave me an honest

outlook on the behind-the-scenes preparation that is required before every lesson is executed.

This, however, didn’t leave me demoralized, because this course took us through exhaustive

training to prepare us to be future teachers in the music classroom. To be specific, this shed light

on the importance of having structure in our lessons, it gave us valuable experience in teaching,

and consequently, helped us to formulate personal strategies to increase our versatility in any

teaching scenario. I would like to talk about these three points.

We focused on two main structures during the course: the lesson plan, and the unit plan.

Most of us (students) were already familiar with the lesson plan, because a prerequisite class

introduced us to the use of a lesson plan template and introduced us to the fundamentals of it. In

our prerequisite classes, however, we didn’t plan lessons that went beyond 15 minutes, wherein

the shortest lesson we were to teach in this course was 30 minutes. Consequently, the challenge

was to fill up the lesson time with material that was constantly engaging with the class but at the

same time, be sure that the objectives for the lesson are met, and therefore, I began to see the

advantage of using the lesson plan template. What I really appreciated about the lesson plan

template was the fact that it took us through an exhaustive list of items to consider before

planning out the lesson, that by the time it came to actually think about lesson material, (in the

‘Lesson Sequence’ column) it becomes almost effortless. I agree with the sequence of the lesson
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template, wherein the first things to consider would be the National Standards as well as the

lesson objectives, i.e. the ‘what’s’ of the lesson. Following that really answered the ‘how’s’,

going from more general into specific.

The unit plan was a new thing to us, and it did seem daunting at first, and without the unit

plan template provided for us, it would have remained that way. As with the lesson plan

template, however, the unit plan template took us step by step, wherein it drew our attention first

to the MA and national frameworks. Upon establishing our guidelines within the frameworks,

our attention was drawn to the ‘why’s’ in the following two columns; the ‘rationale’ column and

the ‘essential questions’ column. Prior to this structured approach to planning, my passion in

teaching often took me ahead of myself, where I’d find myself thinking about the lesson content

before establishing the ‘why’s’ to the lesson. As I reflected on the ‘why’s’ of the unit plan,

however, my passion in the philosophical aspect of education began to grow, and I saw myself

asking more essential questions, such as, “why do students need to learn this stuff in the first

place?” or, “how will this music help these students with their cognitive development?”. In other

words, I had to ask myself the essential questions first, to which, would shed light on the

rationale behind my lesson. Upon establishing the rationale of the unit plan, I found it much

easier and much more meaningful in filling out the rest of the unit plan that contained the

‘what’s’ of the unit.

The second essential point of ME-311 was the experiential aspect to it. Our two lesson

plan assignments required us to simulate the lessons in person, with our colleagues simulating

the students. Having taught these two lesson plans, I gathered three major takeaways, and the

first is that teaching in front of an actual (physical) group of people is a whole new skill set.

Having performed for countless occasions, in numerous band setups, I would say that I’m pretty
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comfortable playing music in front of any given audience. It did require courage to overcome the

initial fear, but after a while, the fear diminished. However, the stage comfort that I’ve acquired

over the years did not translate into the classroom environment. One word I would use to

describe it is ‘awkward.’ It’s not easy to articulate instructions clearly to students without being

too self-aware. This was especially the case when it came to sing out musical examples. As for

me, it took a while to get comfortable singing, let alone presenting it to others, but I have

acknowledged that this is an expectation to all able-bodied music teachers. What did help,

however, was the fact that as I observed other students and noticed that I wasn’t alone in feeling

this way, this gave me hope in knowing that it was part of the process in becoming a music

teacher.

The second takeaway is the accommodation for students of diverse backgrounds and

abilities. Although it can be a sensitive subject, I noticed that in the educational environment, the

trust between the teacher and the student that needs additional accommodation is established

firstly with the student’s acknowledgement of his/her needs, and the teacher’s responsibility to

accommodate for these needs. In our class, we had one student who was visually impaired, and

because of which, we had the privilege of gaining experience in applying our special needs

accommodation to our lesson plans. Ultimately, what I learned was that accommodation for

those with sensory impairment wasn’t too big of a challenge. For example, in the case for this

student who was visually impaired, it was best to reduce visual material for the lesson and find

other ways to pass down information to the students, i.e. aurally. We did not have much

experience dealing with students with a language barrier, however.

The third takeaway is the fact that not everything would go exactly as planned. In my

second lesson, I prepared a slideshow for a lesson on the different recordings of the famous song,
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Autumn Leaves. Because this took place during the COVID lockdown period, our class met

through the webcam in a virtual conference room, and the closest thing we had to a PowerPoint

projector was the ‘share-screen’ function. Little did I realize that not every virtual conferencing

platform had the function to ‘share computer audio’ from my device to the rest of the conference

participants. Having had experience in successfully doing so in other platforms, I wrongly

assumed that this was so for other platforms. As a result, the audio that I wished to share for my

prepared lesson could not be heard by the students. Furthermore, I did not foresee any technical

issues with the lesson, and therefore had no remedy for this issue. The biggest takeaway from

this experience is the fact that problems can arise in any shape or form, and as we plan our

lessons, it is vital to list all the possible issues and their respective remedies if these problems do

arise.

Having gained these experiences and acquired the fundamental tools in lesson planning,

I’ve begun to develop my own personal teaching strategies. When put into perspective, teaching

can be an art, wherein the creative process is the reflection and development of our own personal

teaching strategies in order to succeed in any given scenario. And in the same way that I spend

hours in the practice room refining the areas that I am still weak in; I’ve seen great benefit in

journaling my progress as an educator and pondering on ways to remedy my weaknesses. Upon

reflection, what really stood out to me was my weakness in time management. I had a strong

inclination to get carried away with the material, that sometimes even the lesson plan wouldn’t

be able to keep me on track. I knew that I needed a strategy of my own to tackle this problem. A

strategy I found useful was to; prior to the lesson, record myself simulating the lesson. It usually

required me to repeat the process twice in order to get a good feel of what I would teach on the

actual day itself. Of course, this remedy isn’t ultimate, because I would assume that in the future,
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I wouldn’t have that much time to prepare for every lesson, but while I’m still in the

developmental stage in becoming an educator, I see the value in finding ways that suit me best

right now. Another thing I noticed upon my reflection was the power of eye contact. When a

teacher makes eye contact with a student during a lecture, it not only does it bring the student to

attention, but there’s also an establishment of trust, wherein the student would feel like he is a

part of the class. A strategy that I developed in making sure that I always made eye contact with

the students was to look at their noses. I’ve always felt awkward making direct eye contact with

people, and it may be due to my cultural background. But from a distance, it’s almost impossible

notice if one is looking at your eyes or your nose. In these ways, I’ve developed my own

strategies in teaching, and the joy in gaining more experience in teaching and beginning to see

the teacher in me unravel pushes me to continue pursuing music education.

Ultimately, ME-311 added on to that joy of teaching. I also greatly appreciated the fact

that Prof. Ferrara gave us a very sobering perspective on the realities behind teaching, which

helped me to take an honest look at my own level as an educator. From this point onward, I don’t

assume that the challenges will diminish, but I feel much more confident in tackling these

challenges that will only chisel me into a better educator, and it wouldn’t be so if it wasn’t for the

experiences that I gained from this class.