Erin M. Grady's ePortfolio

Instructional Strategies

The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.

A teacher's "bag of tricks" is her most valuable possession. Especially in light of recent developments by Howard Gardner which theorize that students absorb information by using a number of intelligences, it is important that a teacher be comfortable with several different methods of conveying material to her students. In music, as in all other classes, teachers must incorporate these different learning styles into their everyday habits, so that all students achieve maximum benefits from their experiences.

Aside from differences in students' abilities to learn, diverse instructional strategies can be used to keep students actively engaged throughout rehearsal sessions. Using several methods of teaching throughout a class does not let students set themselves on "auto-pilot" the way they might within a set, unvarying routine.

In addition to the standard "drill and practice" or "lecture" class formats, there are many different instructional strategies which can be put t effective use in music classrooms. Modeling, both by peers and by teachers, can often be an efficient way to get musical ideas across to students. Students can learn about musical expression through movement exercises, or about musical form by creating and performing maps of pieces. Teachers can make use of verbal imagery and multimedia presentations - not just videos and sound recordings, but also websites for more interactive learning. These kinds of strategies not only vary the routine for music students, but they also promote critical thinking skills and foster a deeper personal connection to the music-making process, increasing students' chances for continuing on with music after they have left school.

Below, I provide some examples of my ability to incorporate such diverse instructional strategies into my lessons.

Instructional Strategies Artifacts

Lesson Plan for "Morning" from Peer Gynt (PDF File)
This is a lesson plan delivered to a sixth grade percussion class in the Fall of 2006. In the highlighted section, I introduce the piece to the students with a lesson on incidental music in plays. I relate this concept with the modern practice of writing music for movie soundtracks. I also lead the students in a discussion in which they evaluate different musical characteristics to guess what may be happening in the play of Peer Gynt while "Morning" is being played. An excerpt from this lesson can be seen in the video below.

Lesson on Incidental Music (Quicktime Movie File)

This video excerpt is a part of the lesson described above. In this clip, I lead the students in a discussion of possibilities for what may be occurring in the play Peer Gynt while the musical segment "Morning" is being played. After the students offer their ideas, I reveal what is really going on in the play, and with that idea in mind, we run through the piece.

Group Review in AP Music Theory (Quicktime Movie File)

In this video, I am leading students through a review of different kinds of non-harmonic tones. This review addresses a number of different learning-styles. The information is written on the ActivBoard, using color to separate ideas, for visual learners. The information is spoken aloud by both myself and students, for aural learners. Students copy down information onto their individual (blank) charts, for verbal-linguistic learners. Information is presented in a comparison chart for analytical learners. Later in the lesson, musical examples of each kind of non-harmonic tone are played on the piano for musical learners.

Imagery in teaching bow holds (Quicktime Movie File)

In this excerpt from a sample first lesson on the cello given in Fall 2006, I address the concept of bow hold with a beginning student. In delivering this lesson, I employ several instances of verbal and physical imagery to help the student get a clear idea of a proper bow hold.

Movement Exercise (Quicktime Movie File)

This excerpt from a rehearsal of the song "Bashana Haba'ah" by Nurit Hirsch, done in Spring 2007 for a Choral Methods class, demonstrates my use of a movement exercise to aid the students with feeling long phrases kinesthetically.

Using Mapping to Illustrate Compositional Techniques (Quicktime Movie File)

In this lesson from the fall of 2005, I am teaching a class of sixth grade general music students about the musical form of Theme and Variations using an instructional strategy called mapping. This video shows me tracing the first variation of Schubert's Trout Quintet shortly after tracing the theme using the same map. This strategy points out to students who are visual learners how composers can perform many variations on a theme while retaining the same building blocks.

WebQuest about Shape Notes (Web Link)
This WebQuest can be used as a supplementary unit for choirs learning the piece "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" as arranged by Virgil Thompson. It was developed in the Spring of 2007 for my Technology for Music Educators class. Technology can be a very important tool in expanding a teacher's instructional strategies.