Video Reflection 6: Questioning Techniques and Cooperative Learning Strategies

Date: 11/11/2022
School: Lee Elementary School
Grade: 2nd grade
Class: General music
# of Students: 19
Cooperating teacher: Gretchen Hartsook
https://youtu.be/6vBHDq9ykgQ

This lesson is part of my CT’s broader unit on Carnival of the Animals. She teaches several
lessons about the orchestral suite by Saint-Saens, in which every movement represents a different animal.
Although I’m presenting the lesson with my own delivery and style, just know that I’m following a rough
pattern that she has instructed. The students are also somewhat familiar with this pattern already, which
makes my job a little easier. To start, we reviewed the animals’ movements that we already identified in
previous lessons, first by listening and then asking for a volunteer to respond with what animal it
represents. Then I played a new movement of music, asking them to listen first and then respond with a
guess as to which animal they think it is (they have a list of all the possible choices in front of them).
Then I read short passages from a couple books that pertain to the animal in question, then we listen to it
again. For this lesson (the kangaroo), we had listening maps prepared for students to silently tap along to
the music and identify the song form. Then students write in their workbooks about the piece of music,
what they noticed about it, and how it made them feel. Altogether, that’s the general process with which
we’re introducing new animals into their brains, with some variation depending on the animal. We usually
have time to introduce two new animals per class period, while reviewing the ones they already know.
A lesson like this is a natural opportunity to ask students lots of questions, as well as different
types of questions. Firstly, I asked them to listen to multiple pieces of music and recall which animal
they’re meant to represent. This is a LOTS question, referring to lower-order thinking skills; in this case,
students are simply prompted to remember information they were already taught. However, when playing
for them movements they haven’t heard before, the same prompt becomes a HOTS question. Now they’re
prompted to guess which animal they think it is based on how the music sounds. For example, the music
for the kangaroo is fast, like the pianist’s fingers are hopping up and down the keyboard. In contrast, the
music for the tortoise is slow and deliberate, a recognizable melody that sounds almost like it’s being
played in slow-motion. When students offer a guess, even if it’s wrong, I’ll ask them something like
“What made you think of that one?” The goal is to get students thinking of the affective qualities of music
and why the composer might have chosen them to metaphorically represent certain ideas, even if they
can’t exactly articulate why they made the connection (they’re seven). When they guess, while the
question does have a correct answer, they’re asked to try and figure it out for themselves based on
subjective criteria. I also tried to add my own questions wherever I thought they fit, from objective
questions (“What instrument is playing?”) to subjective ones (“Why do you think the composer chose that
instrument?”). Lastly, their workbooks prompt students to answer questions about the music that have no
correct answers, other than dishonest ones. “How does the music make you feel?” is a question they can’t
possibly get wrong unless they don’t try to answer it sincerely. I really like this series of lessons because it
throws students several kinds of questions that they have to mentally approach in different ways; some are
objective, while others are subjective. The questions also become increasingly subjective as their
understanding and exposure to the material increases.