Reflection Self Evaluation Professional Development

429 Teacher Work Sample
Reflection, Self Evaluation & Professional Development
This lesson was my fifth, final and showcase lesson, taught on November 13, 2014. I felt
the most comfortable teaching this lesson compared to the other four lessons. I believe I was
most comfortable teaching this lesson because I had already done various activities with this
class, as well as observing Mrs. Owens teach them, so I knew their strengths and weaknesses as a
whole.
Overall, I felt like this lesson was the most effective lesson I taught. Both, the students
and I, had great communication with each other throughout the duration of the lesson, and the
students were more engaged in this lesson than any of the others.
We began this lesson with stretches and warm ups. I felt like my piano skills improved
drastically over the course of my field experience at Woodmont and for this lesson the warm ups
were the best that I had done. I played them well and the students sang the warm ups louder and
with more confidence than I had observed in my five lessons. Here, I learned that students feed
off of your confidence. I tried to consciously remind myself of this while teaching the rest of the
lesson. After warming up, we listened to a recording of Kyrie, and I had the students follow
along in their music and listen for their part in the recording. While we were doing this activity, I
stood at the music stand and followed in my music as well, while looking up every so often to
make sure the students were doing what was asked of them. Most were following in their music,
but I did have a few students that were not looking at their music at all and were just sitting in
their seats, some were looking around the room and some were just looking at me. In the middle
of the recording, I reassured the students of what I wanted them to be doing and more students
were engaged. After the recording, I had the students stand up and sing Kyrie from beginning
to end. I then passed out a self evaluation to each student to evaluate how they felt about the song

at this point. I wanted to know on a scale from 1 to 10 how they felt about things such as pitches,
rhythms, words and blending with other voices. Each student completed this activity and I had
them put their papers to the side, because I wanted them to pull them back out at the end of the
rehearsal and evaluate themselves again to see how much progress they made during the
rehearsal. We rehearsed Kyrie starting with the end first. The guys had the most difficulty
during our rehearsal, but I believe this is because there arent as many guys in this class
compared to the number of girls. For this issue, I played the guys part more than the girls
because I felt like the guys needed more stability. The sopranos and altos did need a little help
here and there, but once I gave them the note they needed, they were good to go!
I felt like the guys were the least responsive of the class while doing my field experience,
but on the day of this lesson, the guys asked lots of questions and were reaching for help. This
made me feel as if I were doing a better job of taking control of the class. The guys seemed more
comfortable with me teaching this lesson compared to the other four lessons and I fed off of that.
I could feel that they were comfortable and it made me feel more comfortable in teaching them
and made my teaching methods reflect that.
While working with the guys, I did ask the sopranos and altos to sing their parts as well,
and I did make sure that the girls felt comfortable in their parts, but I focused on getting the guys
where they needed to be. In the middle of rehearsal, I heard one of the basses singing an octave
lower than he was supposed to be. So, I called the guys down to come stand in a circle next to
the piano so that they were separated from the girls and so that they could hear each other better.
I identified which student was singing the lower octave, asked the guys to sing this particular
part of the piece alone, with no sopranos or altos, and sat at the piano to play the bass part. I then
asked the sopranos and altos to join us in singing that part, but I joined the basses in their circle

and sang their part with them. I positioned myself to stand next to the student who was singing
an octave below the other basses and asked him to sing the notes I was singing. At the end of that
run, I looked at him and said, Do you hear that you are singing something different that him?
(Pointing to the student he was standing beside) He nodded his head in agreement, so I asked the
guys to sing these measures again. The student that was singing the low octave still had a little
trouble singing the right octave, but he did better as time went on. I think standing in a circle and
singing to each other helped the basses because they began to sing more confidently and with
more enthusiasm than they were in the beginning of the rehearsal. I was very happy with the
girls behavior throughout this lesson, as they could see that the basses needed a little more
attention than they did. I didnt have any behavior issues from the sopranos or altos while
working with the basses, which made it easier on me to teach and help the guys.
This concluded the rehearsal part of our lesson. I asked the students to take out their
evaluations and circle a number 1-10 on how they felt about the piece now that we had rehearsed
it more in detail and spent a little more time on the song. There was also a place for open
responses on anything that the students felt we need to work on in the future. Most all of the
students said dynamics of the piece, so if I were to teach another lesson to this class, I would use
my assessment data to instruct the students to emphasize their dynamics while singing Kyrie. I
passed this information on to Mrs. Owens after teaching so that she could work on dynamics
with the students as the next thing they did with this song.
My content area supervisor, Dr. Neufeld, came to observe this lesson and after the class
was dismissed, Dr. Neufeld, Mrs. Owens and I sat down to discuss how the lesson went. Dr.
Neufeld said that he thought I showed great improvement in a lot of areas in this lesson,
including: piano skills, comfort level in front of the students and confidence in teaching the

material. Mrs. Owens agreed that I had improved a lot in the short amount of time that I was with
her class and that she was proud of the progress I made. This made me feel like I was doing a
good job and that I had learned more about teaching than I originally thought I would. I think
this lesson was a great lesson to use as my showcase lesson because I was able to show what I
was capable of, not only to my supervisor, my cooperating teacher and the students, but to
myself as well. I am very proud of myself for the way this lesson went.
3 Individual Student reflective discussions:

I chose three individuals to closer analyze during this lesson. I chose student #27 as the
low performing student, student #15 as the average performing student and student number #44
as the high performing student.
Student #27 gave himself a pre-assessment score of 1 on the self evaluation. During our
rehearsal, he actively participated when I called all of the guys around the piano and participated
only a few other times when seated. At one point I asked the guys to sing by themselves and this
particular student was not looking at his music or singing along as asked. He was the only guy in
the class that wasnt singing. Later in the rehearsal when I addressed the guys attention, he
began to focus a little more. He gave himself a score of 4 on the post-assessment portion of the
self evaluation at the end of class, and when asked what he learned during the class period, his
response was, I still need help with the whole song, not just parts. Also, she said youre doing
good, but I dont know if she really heard us. I know that he, along with other students, still
need help with the whole song, but the point of these rehearsals are to help the students with the
individual parts in chunks so that they can put it together to make music. I believe that this
student was distracted and maybe even a little confused throughout the lesson, and I do not feel

that performed as well as the other students in the class. He had the lowest scores on both the
pre-assessment and post-assessment of the whole class.
Student #15 gave herself a pre-assessment score of 7 on the self evaluation. She actively
participated in class, but didnt stand out as a top performer. When asked what she learned
during the class period, her response was, The ending sounds much better. We still need to
work with dynamics. This leads me to believe she was listening to other parts and analyzing
what we were doing as a whole class during this rehearsal. She scored herself with an 8 on the
post-assessment, showing a little improvement.
The high performing student, in my opinion, was student #44. She gave herself a preassessment score of 10. Not only in this rehearsal, but in all lessons that I have taught, she has
stood out to me. She asks questions in class and is very willing to help those around her when
they seem to be stumped on a part or have a question. When asked what she learned during our
class time, she responded by saying, Today was a helpful reminder on the notes and the
crescendos/decrescendos. She mentioned that the rehearsal was a reminder of the things she had
learned from previous rehearsals, leading me to believe that she already knew the things that we
worked on that day, either from looking ahead or really paying attention in other rehearsals. She
gave herself a score of 10 on the post-assessment portion of the self evaluation.
Reflection on Additional 2-4 Lessons:
Lesson 1
My pre-assessment for this lesson was simply asking the students to show me by raising
their hands how many of them have never been in chorus before. Of the 48 students in the class,
about 8 students said they had never been in chorus. From that assessment, I kind of had an idea

of how many students would understand the content as I was teaching and how many would not.
Those students that have been in chorus before, whether it is elementary or middle school would
probably have a better grasp of the material than the ones that havent.
In this lesson, I introduced the names of the notes on the treble staff. I used the white
board with staves to show the students how to relate the note names to one another when on the
staff. We talked about ways to remember the names of the notes on both lines and spaces. After
discussing with the students which notes were which and giving them time to ask their own
questions, I gave the students a handout that made them identify certain note names and had
them turn the worksheets in. Of 48 papers I graded, there were 39 As, 2 Bs, 0 Cs, 4 Ds and 3
Fs. A few students asked for help while completing their work and I assisted them individually
as needed. As they were asking questions I thought of things I could have said or could have
done differently when teaching the lesson. Looking back on the lesson, and knowing that some
of the students had never seen this before, I felt like I should have taken more time to explain.
Based on student performance and the papers I graded it seemed as if the number of papers that
had failing grades were almost exact in the number of students that said they had never been in
chorus before, leading me to feel as if I didnt deliver the material well enough. I think I could
have done more student participation in this lesson. I should have drawn out notes different notes
and had students raise their hands to tell me the name of the note I would have drawn, and done
that with at least 10 notes or so. I feel like that would have helped those that didnt understand
the information to better grasp how to identify the notes. After all students had turned their work
in, I warmed them up for rehearsal.

During our warm up time, I taught the students two new warm ups. We had to take them
slow to begin with, but the students caught on pretty quickly. We did these warm ups a few times
each since they were new and I thought that helped them lock them in their memory.
After rehearsal I met with Mrs. Owens and I talked about my teaching. We both agreed
that I had some strong points, but there were a few things that I could have done differently
while teaching the material, which I explained above.
The warm up section went very well. I felt comfortable in front of the students and they
reacted to me in a positive way. The students werent used to the way I do warm ups compared
to how their teacher does them, and I wasnt used to the way they did them, so teaching them
new warm ups ended up being a learning experience for both the students and me. We had fun
together and I wasnt as nervous as I thought I would be.
Going into a high school for the first time and teaching my first lesson in a secondary
setting, I was apprehensive Ill admit, but after teaching this lesson I feel much better about this
experience. I am ready to take what I have done, reflect on it, realize what I could have done
differently, fix it and make my next lesson better. For instance, I will make sure I have fully
explained the material in more than one way to reach those students that so need a little extra
help but do not want to speak out in class, and to make sure that all other students are fully on
board with the concepts. After teaching my first lesson, I will do better with adjusting my lesson
plans and activities to the students needs. I have learned very quickly that things dont always
go as planned and I should be flexible in my teaching to meet the needs of all students.

Lesson 2
At the beginning of this lesson, I asked the class if they knew what the word dynamics
meant. One student raised her hand and told me the correct answer, it means the volume level of
the music. This acted as a pre assessment question, even though only one student answered. She
was the only student to raise her hand, leading me to believe that the majority of the class did not
know the answer.
I wrote the abbreviations for 6 dynamic markings on the board: pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff,
standing for pianissimo, piano, mezzo piano, mezzo forte, forte, and fortissimo respectively. The
words are Italian, so we talked about why they are written in Italian as opposed to having the
English meaning written in their music. At that, we went over the English meaning of these
words so that they could put the two together and understand what the abbreviations mean in
their music. After going over the meanings, we talked about crescendos and decrescendos and
how they can do a crescendo or decrescendo to or from any of the markings to another.
After going over all the meanings of our new terms, I asked the students to get their
music out and we went through it as a class and talked about each of the dynamic markings in
the music that they are actually singing. I felt that this was important because they were already
working on the pitches to the new piece and I was adding to new material and making them think
about all of what they had already learned while putting it together with what I was teaching
them. I feel like I gave a good amount of wait time for the students to identify the dynamic
markings and interpret their meanings within the music. We went through a few pages so that I
felt comfortable in knowing that the students knew what the abbreviations mean.
Next, I had the students sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat as a class at different dynamic
levels. I felt that this was appropriate because it is a song that everyone knows and didnt require

the students to think too hard about pitches or words, but allowed them to really focus on the
dynamics that I asked them to sing. We started off singing pianissimo, and then sang it at forte. I
then asked them to start at forte and decrescendo to pianissimo while singing the phrase and then
reversed it and asked them to sing pianissimo and crescendo to forte. This addressed many
things. It helped me to see if the students understood the terminology that I was addressing as
well as being able to see if they could not only identify what I wanted them to, but to
demonstrate it as well. I consider this to be the during assessment activity. The students did a
great job in this activity!
Finally, I gave the students a handout that had two sections. The first section asked them
to put the dynamic abbreviations in order from softest to loudest, and then from loudest to
softest. The second section gave each Italian name and asked for the English definition. This was
used as my post assessment. It showed me whether or not the students understood the factual
knowledge about this lesson. Out of 44 students that day, 42 made As on the handout, 1 made a
D and 1 made an F. So, ninety five percent of the class mastered the skill that I proposed for this
lesson.
During our warm up time, we did a warm up that focuses on vowels and while doing that
warm up, which they had learned prior to this lesson, I asked them to add in dynamics as they
sang that particular warm up that day. I was very impressed at how well the students did with
this and I was proud of myself for the improvement made from the previous lesson I taught.
Lesson 3
I began this lesson by reviewing the following note values: whole note, half note, quarter
note and eighth notes, as well as half rests and whole rests. I wrote the time signature 4/4 on the

board and explained to the students what each of the numbers meant and why they were placed
on the staff in music the way they are. I gave time in between descriptions for the students to ask
questions if they didnt understand something I was going over. After reviewing note values and
going over the description of a time signature, I put up a sheet of complete and incomplete
measures in 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 time on the Promethean Board to helped the students understand
why the measures were complete or incomplete. Following this, I put up a sheet of random
measures of music and asked the students to identify whether the measures were complete or
incomplete. This allowed the students to read the time signature and count the beats in the
measure to see if they corresponded correctly. In this activity the students engaged fully and
were answering the questions aloud. If they answered that the measure was incomplete, I asked
them to tell me why it was incomplete, forcing them to think about the time signature given and
how it related to the beats and note values in the measure. The students engaged and responded
in a way that made me feel that they understood the material.
After our lesson, I gave the students a time signature worksheet that included two
sections. The first section required the students to look at the beats per measure and decide which
time signature correlated to that particular example. The second section provided the time
signature and allowed the students to add the missing bar lines to the measures. I think this
worksheet was efficient in displaying the students knowledge of what they learned from this
lesson. I did have some students that had questions while doing this activity because they didnt
understand the directions fully. When the students asked questions, I made sure to address the
answer aloud to the class because I felt that the questions that were being asked were questions
that other students may have had. I wrote example number one of the second section from the
work sheet on the board and we walked through with the class because I had so many students

with questions about it. After doing this, the students understood what to do and they completed
the worksheet.
I feel that I could have been clearer with my directions because of the number of
questions that were asked, but I think I handled it to the best of my ability and all of the students
questions were answered. After my lesson was over and the class had gone, Mrs. Owens and I
talked about how I did and she assured me that even though some students had questions after
they had gotten started, I did what I thought was the best thing to do at the moment. I just went
back and better explained what I wanted them to do. I adjusted a lot better than I had been in
previous lessons and I felt like I was more aware of the students understanding. For example, I
could tell by the look on at least 3 students faces that they did not comprehend either the
directions or the material itself. This allowed me to step in and go to these students individually
and ask them questions. It allowed for them to have one on one interaction with me as opposed
to me against the whole class. After addressing these students, they understood the material and
were able to apply their knowledge to complete the activity.
I think I learned the most from the teacher point of view in this lesson of all three lessons
I have taught up to this point.
Lesson 4
This lesson was different than any lesson I have taught thus far, I led a sectional for the
alto section on the song Kyrie. This was different because I was only teaching the altos their
part as opposed to teaching the whole class various parts of the song. We worked on a certain
chunk of the song, measures 25-39. This enabled me to teach a smaller group than I am used to

having in this class, therefore, let me have more individual reactions with the students in this
section.
Mrs. Owens took the bass and soprano section to the band room to rehearse their parts
individually with them while I rehearsed with the altos. I sat at the piano so that I could play their
part, and since we were the only ones in the room, I had the girls come stand around the piano so
that I could hear them better. There were times in this rehearsal that I felt like I didnt have all of
the girls full attention while trying to teach them this part of the song. Some girls were sitting
down on the first row of chairs, other girls were talking amongst each other and some were
standing there but werent singing. I felt like this was an off day for them. I addressed the issues
and most of the students seemed to get right back on track. I did have to stop the rehearsal a few
times to address some constant talking, but by this time I felt like those students had checked out
for that day and werent going to pay attention anyway. So, at this point I chose not to fight that
battle. The girls around them were participating and didnt seem distracted by their talking so we
kept moving.
After every few measures, I would stop and make sure none of the girls had problems
with pitches and if they did, I just went back over that part until they were singing the correct
notes. This didnt take long at all and once the altos felt secure in their part, we ran measures 2539 from top to bottom for me to see if the girls could apply what they just learned and put it all
together without having to stop. It only took two times for them to do it correctly, so I sent one of
the girls to get the sopranos. Once the sopranos came back into the room, we put both parts
together in those same measures for the students to get used to what the soprano and alto section
sounded like in those particular measures. I had some difficulty here. The entrances for the
sopranos and altos were on different beats and I was trying to play both parts at the piano, which

I didnt demonstrate very well. In retrospect, I could have gotten up from the piano and went to
stand in front of the sopranos and altos and sang either the soprano or alto part and let the other
part stand on its own. That is what I would do differently if I could do this lesson again. Its not
about being able to play the piano; I am not a piano teacher. It is about making sure that the
students can sing their parts individually and together with another section. So, I could have gone
over and sang the part and vocally demonstrated the notes rather than stressing on playing two
parts at once, which I should have practiced ahead of time, just in case something like this
happened. I did eventually get up from the piano and played the soprano and alto starting pitch
and just tapped the beat and had the girls sing their parts individually and they did pretty well for
their putting it together at that point.
I was satisfied with the number of students that had questions and suggestions on what to
do to make it easier for them to correctly sing with another part once we put two parts together. I
felt like I did the best that I could in leading my first sectional.
Reflection on possibilities for Professional Development:

In my time at Woodmont High School, I have set two professional development goals to
work on to better myself for student teaching. The main goal I have set is to become better at the
piano. I progressively got better during my 429 clinical and my progress showed. I still feel like I
struggle with playing more than I should and it makes teaching some lessons harder because of
the difficulty I have. Another goal I have set for myself is to have better classroom management.
Being a fine arts teacher, I will sometimes have more students in my class that a general
education teacher may have, which I experienced in this clinical. Sometimes I felt like I
struggled when students were not paying attention or talking during class to get them back on

task. Some of this may have been because I had a classroom of about 50 students and only met
with them once or twice a week for an hour, and didnt know everyones name. I felt like I got
really overwhelmed and intimidated by the students at times and I know I need to simply take
control in these situations.
I will work to achieve these goals. I will practice sight reading music on the piano in my
spare time in order to get better at it. If I am teaching a lesson that requires me to play piano, I
will sit down at the piano and practice what it is I will be teaching, and talk myself through the
lesson to better prepare myself. I think having better classroom management will come with
more experience. I will try to focus on it more as I am student teaching. My cooperating teacher
at Woodmont told me that I dont need to be nervous in front of the class, because the students
feed off of how the teacher is acting. If I get up in front of the classroom and act nervous, the
students are going to see that and some will take advantage of that and begin to misbehave or see
that as an opportunity to check out. I think that I can improve my classroom management skills
over time and by showing the students that I am in control of the classroom. One of the first
things I will do when I meet my cooperating teacher for student teaching will be to ask her some
tips on classroom management and try to incorporate those into my student teaching experience.


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429 Teacher Work Sample