Instrumental Methods II

Fall

Instructor: Dr. Karen Koner

Office: 370

Email:

Office Phone: 859-572-6043

Course Description

This course is designed to prepare instrumental-emphasis music education majors to synthesize the knowledge and skills that will enable them to develop and maintain a comprehensive instrumental music program at the secondary level.

Course Structure

This course is designed to allow students to practice skills of teaching in individual, small group, and large group settings. Students will learn instrumental pedagogy, management, and organizational skills and apply to secondary instrumental music students. Students will receive a significant amount of practice time by actually teaching, since it is my belief that you learn to teach by teaching!

Students will meet as a class twice a week. Some of these class meetings will take place in a secondary instrumental music setting. We will visit both middle school and high school instrumental music programs. Students will have opportunities to work with students in secondary settings on a one-on-one setting, in small groups, and in front of large ensembles. They will experience teaching mini-lessons, partner teaching, and teaching on their own.

Student Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

  1. Plan learning objectives with specific outcomes
  2. Plan instruction to achieve objectives
  3. Implement procedures for instruction
  4. Employ effective instrumental music teaching strategies
  5. Plan assessments (formal and informal) to measure achievement of learning objectives
  6. Foster higher order thinking skills
  7. Vary teaching strategies to address learner needs
  8. Manage student behavior to enhance learning
  9. Choose appropriate literature for secondary instrumental ensembles
  10. Demonstrate knowledge of running ensembles that are specific to secondary instrumental music education (i.e. jazz band, marching band).
  11. Demonstrate teaching secondary instrumental music using a comprehensive model.
  12. Design an appropriate marching band show for an ensemble that will be assigned to them.
  13. Arrange musical selections for a secondary ensemble, including correct ranges, transpositions, and melodic and harmonic lines.

Required Textbooks

Colwell, R. J. & Hewitt, M. P. (2011).The teaching of instrumental music, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Grading Scale

Participation – 10%

Teaching/Fieldwork (Peer and in Schools) – 20%

Lesson Plans & Reflections – 20%

Literature Project – 10%

Comprehensive Musicianship Project – 10%

Marching Band Show Design– 10%

Arrangement Project – 10%

Final Exam – 10%

Participation

Attendance is required at all classes. This is a participatory/performance-based class and your attendance is mandatory for optimal learning. If you must miss class for religious observance, it should be brought to the instructor’s attention during the first week of classes to be considered excused. All students are permitted one absence with no penalty (no notification is necessary, however students will be required to make up any work missed). If there is an emergency or health issue in which a student needs to be excused for more than one class meeting, a doctor’s note will be required. After the one absence, students must notify the instructor as to why he/she will be absent at least two hours prior to class time. Depending on the reason for the absence, it is up to the instructor’s discretion if the absence will be considered excused. More than one unexcused absences may result in the lowering of your final grade.Tardiness will also not be acceptable. If a student arrives five minutes after class has begun, he or she will be considered tardy. Being tardy to class three times will be considered equivalent to one absence.

Weekly Teaching, Lesson Plans, and Reflections

Students will be expected to teach in a secondary instrumental music setting throughout the semester. Students will either be teaching individuals, small groups on a singular instrument, large instrumental ensembles, or peer ensembles. Students will be prepared for these teachings by preparing lesson plans that contain clear objectives, activities, and assessments. In addition, students will prepare a reflection based on their teaching, which will contain answers to guiding questions that will be provided by the instructor. When students are not teaching the ensemble, they will be expected to participate on a secondary instrument.

Literature Project

Students will create a repertoire list for all performances for a school year at either Norse Middle or High School. For the purpose of this assignment, students will choose music for “their” music program that contains a string orchestra, a concert band, and a jazz band.

Students will create a program for each concert or performance. The program should be formatted to include titles, composers, dates, arrangers, etc. In addition, students will complete a paper to support their decisions of why they chose the literature they did. This text should be three pages (one page for each ensemble). A rubric and more details will be discussed further during the first few weeks of class.

Comprehensive Musicianship Project

Students will choose a piece from their literature projects to complete a comprehensive musicianship model. This model will include at least five lesson plans (a week’s worth) of working on a piece with either a middle school or high school ensemble using the approach of CMP (comprehensive musicianship), as well as an overall curriculum plan for the piece. The CMP model contains five points; music selection, analysis, outcomes, strategies, and assessment. Students will be expected to design a curriculum plan to teach the piece of music using the five points of CMP.

Marching Band Show Design

Students will create a marching band showing according to the guidelines suggested by Colwell & Hewitt in chapter 28. The project will include, but is not limited to:

  1. Identification of a theme for the show
  2. A list of pieces for a marching band show, which would be approximately 7 – 10 minutes of music.
  3. A “highlight” chart as described in chapter 28 describing formations and ideas.

Arrangement Project

As instrumental music educators, we would all like full instrumentation for all of our ensembles, unfortunately this does not always happen. Therefore students will be expected to arrange a piece for the instrumentation of students that are enrolled in the course. This will allow students to explore tendencies and ranges for instruments other than their own primary instrument, as well as work on developing a piece with exemplary balance, blending, and correct transpositions for the instruments of their fellow classmates. This piece may not be a piece from the standard band or orchestra repertoire, but rather from the pop, folk, piano, or choir music genres that will then be arranged for the class of instruments we have. These pieces will be performed in class and at Recital Review.

Class Topics

Week 1:

Rehearsal Skills/Selecting Literature

Week 2:

Rehearsal Skills/Selecting Literature

Week 3:

Rehearsal Skills/Arranging

Week 4:

Lesson Planning/Objectives/Assessment

Week 5:

Comprehensive Musicianship

Week 6:

Comprehensive Musicianship

Week 7:

Marching Band

Week 8:

Marching Band

Week 9:

Presentation of Marching Band Projects

Week 10:

Jazz Band

Week 11:

Jazz Band

Week 12:

Administration and organization of an instrumental music program

Week 13:

Recruitment and Retention

Week 14:

Go through Arranging Projects

Week 15 & 16:

Review/Prepare for Final Exam