Florida Educator Accomplished Practice #5

Bryan Rodin
2/17/2020

Application of Understanding Assignment #5: Write a narrative description of a chosen class

including number of students, curriculum content, teaching strategies observed, and types of
assessment used. You can choose either placement for this FEAP.

At Jackson Heights Middle School, the 3rd period Beginning Band is a highly organized

and well-structured class. It contains approximately 50-60 students, most of whom are in 6 th

grade. There are a handful of beginners who are in 7th or 8th grade as well, and one or two

students who are retaking beginning band after not doing great in it last year. In Mr.

Williamson’s beginning band, he will start students on flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, horn,

euphonium, and tuba. He will start students on oboe of bassoon only if they are taking private

lessons, and he will not have students play saxophone until they have taken beginning band for

a year, that way they do not develop poor embouchure habits that are hard to fix down the

line.

From what I’ve seen so far this semester, the students are consistently working on

elements of clear and supported tone production, embouchure finessing, rhythmic reading

accuracy, and general music literacy. Over the past few weeks Mr. Williamson and I have begun

elaborating on the concept of key signatures by explaining the orders of sharps and flats and

relating them to the major scales. We have also been progressing through the rhythm reading

units in their band book.

 Mr. Williamson is not afraid to call out individuals in front of the whole class as a form of

assessment. For example, the flute section had their descending chromatic scale quiz last

Tuesday during class instead of before or after school. I do see how this can be more time

efficient for the director. It is quite common for students to independently work on something

then be asked to play it in front of the rest of the band. I was initially a bit taken aback by this

strategy, but I do see some of the benefit in doing this now, as it creates a personal

accountability for the students to work on what they need to outside of the classroom. I would

want to tread lightly at first with this tactic, as I know it can be very stressful for the students of

they are not accustomed to it being a part of the band room culture.

I do thoroughly enjoy working with the beginners, as I feel I have learned a substantial

amount about the working of instruments I do not already play, and I have learned many

strategies for how to achieve a characteristic sound on them. I look forward to implementing

these strategies.