Lesson Reflection

            I was given the opportunity to present a small portion of my lesson plan to the class this past Monday. To prepare, I designed a PowerPoint presentation that would guide the class through learning more about folk music and specifically about Woody Guthrie. My plan was to go through slide by slide and receive student input and feedback along the way, but of course this did not work out as I had planned. I saw things working differently in my mind, and that turned out to be an important lesson for me to learn as a teacher moving forward.

            Because I had spent so long putting together a presentation, that is exactly what my lesson turned out to be – a presentation, in which I ended up doing most of the talking, leaving the students out of the learning (and creating) process. As I set up and plan and internally visualized the procedure, for some reason I thought that what I was planning was directly facilitating student participation and involvement. It didn’t. I fear what it ended up doing was leaving the students bored and indifferent about the subject.

            Here’s the huge thing I (and many others) overlooked: this was a music class, and I didn’t have anyone playing music. As soon as I finished the presentation and time was called, I knew what I had failed to do immediately. I have a few plans to remedy this, however.

            When I started listing examples of commonly known folk songs, perhaps the students should sing them, and I should accompany them on an acoustic guitar. When I put on the song, “This Land Is Your Land,” why not have students sing this as well? Perhaps the students should have copies of the lyrics so we can all sing together. Now, granted, I did have the students creating, presenting, and responding on Days 2-3 of the 3-day lesson plan, but Day 1 must also have this in order to balance the lesson and maintain interest. There certainly is a lot to think about – more than I had thought. At first, I actually felt a little dumb (how did I overlook these things?) but the reality is simple: I am learning. I’m in grad school because I didn’t fully understand all these things previously. So, I can take solace in the fact that I will continue to learn, and grow, and adapt so that I can become the teacher I see myself wanting to be.