The Project
This entire experience was very new to me. 6 months ago, I had never played a single guitar chord. At the beginning of my Senior year at JMU, I got a guitar and decided to learn! At that point, I had no idea how much I was going to be able to use that acoustic guitar in my future.
A few weeks before I started student teaching, I discovered that my cooperating teacher had two guitar classes. I was immediately excited, but also nervous. I decided to learn as much guitar as I could in the following weeks to best prepare me to teach students that I hadn’t even met yet. Within the first week of student teaching, I had basically completely taken over both of the guitar classes. While getting to know these students through jam sessions and conversations, I had a student tell me that he would love to one day learn how to use a loop pedal while he played. I told him that I owned a loop pedal of my own, and I immediately started brainstorming a way to incorporate this technology into the class. I knew then what my end goal for my time in the classes was: a loop pedal project in which students will compose or arrange a loop for themselves,! I now had to ask myself “how do we get there?” I thought immensely about scaffolding. What did these kids know when I got there, and what should they know in order to utilize a looper in a creative way? I typed out numerous lessons, and even drew flow charts to visually map out the entire project. This being said, this project was not completely planned in one day. I had to adapt and re-plan many times after experiencing where students individually were in their progress toward our final goal. During classes, I made sure my “lecture” time in front of the class was limited. For example, teaching chord progressions would take me less than 10 minutes. After I was done instructing the whole class, they practiced on their own. During these practice times, I physically sat down with every single student in the class and got the opportunity to teach them one-on-one. This part was my favorite part of my whole time teaching this class. Not only could I individually assess every students’ progress, but I also got to know them as people. Another favorite part of this project was getting the opportunity to hear their Own-Choice and Pedal Project songs. They were able to pick songs that best interested them, as long as they fit into the requirements of the projects. The final loop pedal projects ranged from gospel songs, to the Cops theme song, to songs from middle-eastern countries. The requirements of the final loop pedal project were almost non-existent. They needed to pick a song and prepare a chord progression, and a melody to play over it. They could also work in small groups. The largest group I had was four students. The only additional stipulation in groups was that each member had to contribute in a different way! But, ultimately as long as the progression and melody could be looped, it worked for me! I feel that letting the students have so much freedom with their loop choice really influenced how much they enjoyed the project. When they “performed” their loops for me, we sat together in a room with an amp, the looper, a mic, and two guitars. The environment was low-stress, and very one-on-one. I knew that some of them would be nervous, so I encouraged and helped them through the loop as much as possible. I gave them the option to use the pedal themselves, play while I operated the pedal, or to not use the pedal at all (as long as they could loop their chords/melody without one). All of them chose to use the pedal, and some even wanted to learn how to use it themselves! Ultimately, this project was one of the most exciting and fun experiences I have had as a teacher so far. I would absolutely try to modify a project like this into any classroom I get to teach in in the future. I feel that the students enjoyed this project, and I know that I had SO much fun with it too Unit Outline
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five_little_monkeys.pdf | |
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elkton_field_experience_observation_form.pdf | |
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This page will be for videos of myself teaching, lesson plans, and reflections.
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