At the high school this week, I was able to teach a warm up to the symphonic band on Monday and Friday. When I walked in to school early Monday morning, Mr. Johnston had told me to start planning what I wanted to do for that days symphonic band warm up and start jotting down a few ideas throughout the day to see what I ended up with coming class time. After doing just that and completing the warm up at the beginning of class, I was a little disappointed at my ending results when I began to critique myself. Through my video, I noticed myself doing random things that I’ve never done before, such as constantly looking up and stuttering. Maybe it was nerves from being in front of an older crowd of students compared to constantly interacting with elementary kids all day at my elementary placement? I don’t know! Check out my first video and see what you think.

*Due to the safety and privacy of previous students, all photographs and video recordings have been graciously taken down as of August 4th, 2015. Please contact the creator personally to grant access if desired to view independently.*

Title of Video: Student Teaching w/ Johnston Sym. Band Warm Up (9/8)

After watching this video a few times through and having a long discussion with Mr. Johnston, we decided that having another go at the same, but “tweaked” warm up would be really beneficial for my learning process. I decided to break down the warm up into smaller, more concrete aspects, allowing me to put more detail and time into those few things compared to my original warm up (in the video above) where I had too many concepts to teach/review in only 10 minutes. Reflecting back on my very first video, check out my finalized lesson plan I ended up with for my second run.

Johnston Sym. Band Warm Up 9-12

What a difference! I really enjoyed making this lesson plan in due part of allowing myself to dive into a deeper mentally that many people (including myself!) usually don’t tend to do when preparing for a 10 minute warm up. After talking to Mr. Johnston for a while regarding multiple aspects of this warm up (such as the objectives and closing task the students should be able to walk away with), my mentality towards my lesson started to evolve into something completely unexpected.

Title of Video: Student Teaching w/ Johnston Sym. Band Warm Up (9/12)

Regarding my ending results from my second attempt, I think it went fairly well! It was definitely not perfect, but I’ve grown to accept that perfection will always be too far of a goal to achieve (especially at my age with minimal experience). But as a young, striving music educator, I know that I’m on right track to gaining great knowledge and experiences that will help me out in the long run. Right now I’m only taking baby steps. That is surely nothing compared to being able to climb Mount Everest!