Self-Reflection on Peer Teaching of
"Shake the Papaya Down"
In our last class, I completed my first peer teaching of the semester on "Shake the Papaya Down." I was nervous going into this teaching because we had never reviewed an unaccompanied song as part of our peer teaching. Rather, we followed a strict path for teaching an unfamiliar song to students with and without piano accompaniment. Now, we were expected to stray from the traditional method and do whatever we felt was necessary for our students to be successful. Before I even began teaching, I decided not to sing my song to my students before I had them try to sing it on their own. I had looked up the teaching schedule and noticed that another student was working on the same song a few turns before me. I felt that the students wouldn't have trouble remembering the song since it would still be fresh in their heads, and not singing the song initially allowed me more time to work on other issues that might arise during my teaching session. In addition, I decided against doing some form of warm-up during my session since I realized that the students would be sufficiently warmed up by the time I got up to teach.
After completing my first teaching experience, I felt that I made notable progress in several areas. Some of the positive factors during my teaching session were projecting an infectious enthusiasm, maintaining a consistent tempo beat throughout the lesson, and having great proximity with the students. I also felt that I used the time I was allotted effectively by taking time to just listen to the students and making sure to stop and address errors that I heard. All of these things helped boost my confidence while teaching, allowing me to step away from my task analysis and decide what needed to be addressed as I went along.
While there were many positive aspects during this teaching experience, I noticed there were also some areas that could use more attention. First, my eye contact needs to shift from focusing on groups of students to making direct eye contact with individual students. Peers in my cohort commented on how it appeared that I was looking at an individual in a group when, in reality, I was looking back towards the wall or at empty chairs behind the student. Other areas that could use improvement for future lessons include smiling more, talking less about instructions, checking back in with the pitch, making smoother motions, and using more motions, especially with a short song like mine that has only one verse.
In the end, I felt that I did a great job remembering and applying the teaching procedures that were instilled in me last year while reviewing an unaccompanied song in front of my "students."
After completing my first teaching experience, I felt that I made notable progress in several areas. Some of the positive factors during my teaching session were projecting an infectious enthusiasm, maintaining a consistent tempo beat throughout the lesson, and having great proximity with the students. I also felt that I used the time I was allotted effectively by taking time to just listen to the students and making sure to stop and address errors that I heard. All of these things helped boost my confidence while teaching, allowing me to step away from my task analysis and decide what needed to be addressed as I went along.
While there were many positive aspects during this teaching experience, I noticed there were also some areas that could use more attention. First, my eye contact needs to shift from focusing on groups of students to making direct eye contact with individual students. Peers in my cohort commented on how it appeared that I was looking at an individual in a group when, in reality, I was looking back towards the wall or at empty chairs behind the student. Other areas that could use improvement for future lessons include smiling more, talking less about instructions, checking back in with the pitch, making smoother motions, and using more motions, especially with a short song like mine that has only one verse.
In the end, I felt that I did a great job remembering and applying the teaching procedures that were instilled in me last year while reviewing an unaccompanied song in front of my "students."