Erinne Phillips

5/5/2020

Professor Amy Lewis

Music Education: A Professional Practice

Final Project

My dream job is teaching chorus to high school students. Whether that be beginning chorus,

show choir, or collegiate level choirs, the high school setting is where I feel called to teach. From

my own personal experience, high school was full of questioning what would happen next, what

do I want to do after I graduate, where do I want to go, and how do I fit in. It was a very hard and

stressful yet rewarding point in my life to which I am so grateful to have had found guidance in

some of my teachers. A teacher’s job is to educate his/her/their students while helping them grow

as individuals at the same time. A teacher’s job is selfless and is what drives me to want to teach

in the first place. I want to help other students like I was helped, and to have an inclusive

classroom to which any students feel welcome.

For my example of a Backward Design Unit Plan “Understanding by Design”, I will be using

a ukulele unit plan for middle school students. For stage one, the main goal for my unit plan is

for students to be able to follow along with/play a song together as a class. The big ideas that I

would like for my students to understand participating in this unit would be knowing the

different string names, how to find different chords, how strum patterns work, how to correctly

tune a ukulele, how to keep a steady tempo when playing, and knowing the different parts of the

ukulele. Some essential questions for this unit would be: what are the note letters for the strings

on a ukulele, how do you place your fingers on the neck of the ukulele to create a chord, what is

the correct tuning of a ukulele, and what are the different parts of a ukulele? The knowledge and
skills need to be acquired given the understandings and related context standards would be how

to tune a ukulele, the note names of each of the strings, how to play different chords, how to

follow a strum pattern, and how to play along with a song.

For stage two of my unit plan, there are different sufficient ways in which the teacher can

show evidence of understanding the material: students helping other students with material,

experimentation, and assessment scores. With these goals in mind, performance tasks for this

unit include understanding the different parts of a ukulele, the different individual parts of a

ukulele, the different note names for the four strings, finger positions for the different chords,

and strum patterns. An assessment given to students to ensure understanding will include two

parts: a written assessment using diagrams for the names of the strings and the parts of the

ukulele, and an in-person playing assessment for finger positions with chords and strum patterns.

This assessment split into two parts will be able to really distinguish who really understands

material and who doesn’t. With the written portion, it’s easy for those who don’t truly

understand material to just memorize and then relay the information on the page, but with the in-

person playing portion, it’s very hard to fake understanding materials when you really don’t.

Finally, for stage three of my unit plan, I would start by handing out ukuleles to my

students to teach the different parts and string names by asking them questions and having them

guess the answers. I would then show the students how to correctly tune the ukulele so it

matched pitch with the right note on the piano and would follow by having them come up one by

one to tune their ukulele (if snarks aren’t available). After this process, we would move on to

easy chords (A, C, F, G) and strum patterns. Starting out with a C chord, we would start with an

easy strum pattern (down, up, down, up), and then move on with a little more complex strum

pattern (down, down, up, down, up, down) and so on and so forth. This would continue on with
each of the different chords. We would then move on from here, to playing an easy strum pattern

to practice changing fingerings between chords and continue on to hard strum patterns as we go

along.

For my practicum experience, I was given the opportunity to work with the Shenandoah

Valley Children’s Choir under the direction of Dr. Janet Hostetter and Dr. Anderson, and though

it was short, it was probably one of the most rewarding music education experiences that I have

had so far. Part of the reason that I loved working with the children’s choir was the sheer

intellectual level of the students themselves. The level of students I worked with were between

kindergarten aged to sixth grade, and they used hand signs and solfege when they were learning

their music. Dr. Hostetter used a lot of kinesthetic learning to help the students, which in my

opinion is one of the best ways to teach. For example, when learning the song Tongo, she had the

students rock back and forth in order to feel the beat and the tempo of the song, and then had the

students snap on their cut offs.

Another aspect that I loved about my experience was how Dr. Hostetter and Dr.

Anderson interacted with the students. For example, when Dr. Hostetter auditioned students for a

solo/group opportunity, she never made students audition if they weren’t comfortable doing so

and after the auditions were over, she made sure that all of the students who auditioned knew

how brave it was for them to audition, and how well of a job that they did. After she had picked

the soloists, she also made sure to stress the importance of good sportsmanship. Some students

were clearly upset, and she let them know that it was okay to be upset, but it was also important

to congratulate those who did get the solo.

My other favorite interaction that I had was with Dr. Anderson and the musicianship

classes. She assigned homework each week for musicianship class, and one week it was
particularly hard for this group of second graders. She assigned for students to go through

different triads, and after each one was sung through, they had to say what kind of triad it was

(e.g. major, minor, diminished, etc.). As they were reviewing the homework, one of the students

in particular was getting frustrated over the fact that he couldn’t understand what the difference

was between a major and a minor triad. We then went around the circle and gave our own

different examples of triads and what they were, and he started to figure it out on his own.

Afterwards, she let the students know that it’s okay to not understand, it’s okay to ask questions,

it’s okay to be confused, and it’s very okay to be wrong.

The other aspect about working with Dr. Hostetter that I loved was the fact that she was

teaching students the way that we at JMU are being taught to teach our students, and we got to

experience that kind of teaching first hand. Dr. Hostetter just received her doctoral degree from

JMU under the teaching of Dr. Jo-Ann van der vat Chromy in the 2018 – 2019 academic year.

She was teaching, as we are taught, to help students learn through the Kodaly method, which in a

way is like teaching through different games and puzzles. It was very helpful and was a great

example for me to follow watching her work with the students.

I personally believe that anyone can and has the right to sing and has the right to learn

and grow in a safe and welcoming environment where they are unashamed to be themselves. As

stated earlier, my dream job is to teach students in high school. Students at this age need a place

where they feel welcomed and safe, and where they can be unapologetically themselves.

Students also need an outlet to try new things, and figure out new aspects about themselves, and

a choir room is a perfect place to do so.

Music education is my way to make a difference and to impact others. I want to be a

guide for students as they move forward in life, and music is my path in doing so.