Middle School Student A Profile

Middle school student A was a first-year percussionist in the middle school beginning

band. While it was her first year on percussion, she had a musical background with bass in year

prior. Student A learned very quickly and I had to constantly think of ways to challenge her so

that she would not get bored in class.

For context, the beginning band at the middle school had roughly a dozen students in it.

Most of them were wind players, but there were a about four or so percussionists. In terms of

reading, understanding, and performing music, student A was pretty clearly more successful than

the rest of the class. In fact, student A was executing at a higher level than even some of the

musicians in the upper bands.

Because of this, one tactic we implemented was utilizing student A as sort of a helper in

the class. Since we knew that she would understand the material at a quicker rate than the others,

we would then ask her if she would be comfortable teaching some of the others. Thankfully for

us, student A was very enthusiastic about doing so. So, we would often have student A go to a

virtual breakout room with the other percussionists once she had demonstrated to us that she had

mastered whatever concept we were going over that day.

Student A was also very adamant about coming in during office hours and after school.

There, we would have to find ways to extend her knowledge and capabilities. So over the course

of the block, we were able to teach her all her major scales and to go around the circle of fifths. It

was easier to instruct her mallet technique than it was her snare technique. She would be very

good at reading the rhythms on snare, but her grip was not always great. Trying to remedy this

online proved to be rather difficult.

 Student A was a very fun student to have in class. She was enthusiastic about learning,

very fast at picking up new concepts, and always willing to help out others. She also made me

think about ways in which to engage students that are learning at a faster rate. Because of student

A, I now know some strategies I can utilize should I have more students like her in the future. I

can only hope to have many more.