Summary
Planning for a
lesson should start with focusing on the big ideas that students should know. These
ideas can then be further discussed by using open ended questions which allow
the students to take time to comprehend and work out their thoughts. Students
and teachers will have a more meaningful lesson if the main goal is stated and
everyone involved can see the big picture. It is important that teachers have
an organized plan put together before teaching their lesson so that this can be
achieved. Reading and writing activities should be used to help students learn
the content and teachers should be aware of which strategies will be needed/taught
in order for the students to fully comprehend a text. Planning a lesson also
involves taking into consideration the diverse capabilities of students. Not
every student will be at the same reading and comprehension level, so using
instructional scaffolding and in-class grouping can help students. Another
strategy for planning a literacy lesson for diverse learners is to use
reciprocal teaching. This involves the teacher and students interacting with
each other, answering and asking questions in order to construct meanings from
text.
Critical Reflection
Reciprocal reading
is a lot like student-owned strategies, which were described in the module 5
lecture. Both of these strategies allow the student to take control of their
own learning and really analyze a text. Making predictions, self-questioning
and answering, reflecting, and retelling are all components of these two
strategies. The one difference is that the teacher is involved in reciprocal
teaching, and students communicate out loud through discussion with one
another. Student-owned strategies happen individually. These two strategies can
be very effective with helping student comprehension and should be incorporated
into the lesson plan.
Implications for teaching
In
the music classroom, I will definitely have to plan out how I can incorporate
more reading into my everyday lessons. Students usually come to music class
expecting to play their instruments the whole time, and do not usually think of
reading texts. The goal is to find texts that relevant to what the students are
playing with their instruments. These can include stories about composers,
musical time periods, and histories of certain pieces. Once the students are
given a text, I will make sure use strategies such as reciprocal teaching to
make sure my students comprehend the text. Having discussions about how the
musical pieces relate to the texts and summarizing histories can be fun when
the whole group is involved.
Connection to standards
Sub-strand B for music education
standards states that “students will use a variety of strategies to expand
reading, listening and speaking vocabulary.” Using strategies such as
reciprocal teaching and student-owned reading meets this standard because
students are able to expand their comprehension by having discussions,
summarizing, and predicting with each other and their teacher.
