In my Music Education class, I along with three others had to create a lesson plan that incorporated Music and one of either Language Arts, Science, or Math. My group and I chose to do our Music lesson integrated with a Language Arts lesson. We also incorporated the First Peoples Principle of Learning into our lesson.

Going into teaching, I felt a little nervous, but mainly excited. I was excited about the activities we chose for our lesson and was eager to share them with my classmates. As a group, we taught the first 15 minutes of our lesson and divided this up into four equal parts so that we all had a chance to teach a part. I think overall this went smoothly and that we all had time to practice our teaching skills. Our first activity involved the use of alliteration in the song “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”, in which we gave each student a wooden stick to hit the ground or their desk with everytime the heard the “T’ sound. In this activity, you could see the students focus and accuracy, which as a teacher made me feel as though this activity was a success. Our next activity was the one that I co-teached with one of my group members. She started off the lesson, and I finished it. Together we did a good job of explaining the activity briefly, but concisely. Our peers were engaged with this lesson and seemed to be having a lot of fun with it. As the teacher, this was great to see and made me feel like our lesson was well planned out and engaging. We received a lot of great feedback at the end of our lesson, which made me feel more confident in both my lesson planning and teaching skills. Two things that we could work on for next time were, handing out the wooden rhythm sticks after the instructions are fully done otherwise some students play with them distracting others from the teachers instructions and clarifying what “T’ sound we were looking for (te as in teddy vs tuh as pronounced in the). Other than these two suggestions, I feel that our lesson ran smoothly and I am happy with our outcome. I personally felt like I accomplished the professional development goals we created for our lesson and that our lesson was a success! I also gained some valuable tips that would be helpful for me the next time I teach this lesson.

Within our lesson plan, we included the First Peoples Principle of Learning. Before this year I did not have a lot of knowledge or understanding of the FPPL, but with some discussions about it in class and some resources provided by my teacher, I gained a much deeper understanding on the FPPL and how to incorporate them into the classroom. For our lesson plan, we chose two principles that we believed best fit our lesson. Those were “Aboriginal spirituality is not about religious dogma, but rather is about establishing healthy relationships with all things, including one’s relatives, one’s nation, and the natural environment” (Stonechild, in Rebeiz & Cooke, 2017, p. 20) and In the past, “teaching was not didactic, but accomplished through storytelling, ceremony, experiential learning, reflection, and modeling” (Simpson, 2011, p. 137). We thought that these two were the most fitting for our lesson plan. I found I could incorporate these FPPL into our lesson plan and I felt that it was important to add these in. With a few good resources and a class discussion on these FPPL, I found I gained a much better understanding of the First Peoples Principles of Learning.

Overall, my first experience teaching a music lesson and incorporating the First Peoples Principle Learning went very well. I felt confident in my teaching and proud of the lesson plan we created. It was well received by our peers and everyone seemed to be engaged in the lesson. I am glad we had this opportunity.

I have now completed all of my goals for my musical and pedagogy growth plans. This has really shifted both my musical and professional identities and my confidence in both my ability and knowledge. Going into this course I had almost no musical knowledge and was nervous, now through these growth plans, I feel much more confident in both my musical and professional abilities. Since my midterm, I believe that my ukulele skills have improved significantly and I have gained quite a passion for playing. I have also obtained 5 more valuable resources that I can use when teaching students.

My musical identity has greatly shifted since the beginning of this course. I now know how to tune a ukulele, how to play 8 different chords – G, C, Am, F, A, Gm, Dm, and G7, and how to play 4 songs – I’m Yours by Jason Mraz, Riptide by Vance Joy, Sunday Morning by Maroon 5, and Yellow by Coldplay. The last 4 chords I learned really challenged me and allowed me to gain a more depth understanding of how to play the ukulele. I still struggled with moving my fingers quickly between chords, but I believe that I did improve at this and with a little more practice I will be able to move my fingers quickly to the different chords. The two new songs I learned for this half of my musical growth were both much more difficult songs, however, I thought the challenge allowed me to get better at my ukulele skills. I now feel confident in my ability to play the ukulele and I am excited to keep learning more to further my skills. My next goal is to get a capo and play around with that.

My professional identity has also greatly shifted from the testing of the apps I have done. Since my midterm, I have thoroughly tested and reviewed 5 more apps. By reviewing these apps I have gained many resources that will help me when teaching music to my future students. It has also allowed me to become more comfortable with using a variety of different apps and has improved my technology literacy. I have also further developed my skills in note reading, and rhythm from spending time using each app. I feel much more confident in my ability to teach music to students and I have gained many helpful resources that will be of use to me and my students.

Overall, creating both my music and pedagogy growth plans has allowed me to gain more experience both musically and professionally and I have gained many helpful resources from doing this. Since my midterm, I feel even more confident in my musical and professional identities. I am grateful I had the opportunity this term to work on my musical ability and knowledge because I now feel more confident in teaching elementary students about music and its importance in everyday life. I am excited to keep learning and expanding my skills!

Creating these growth plans for both my musical and professional identities has challenged me to learn more about music and how to effectively teach it. Coming into this course I did not have a ton of background knowledge about music or much musical experience. I am only half way through my growth plans and I already feel much more confident with my musical abilities.

My musical growth plan has greatly shifted my musical identity, as before I created my plan I did not know how to play the ukulele at all, any chords or how to tune it. I have now taught myself two songs on the ukulele (Riptide by Vance Joy and I’m Yours by Jason Mraz) and 4 different chords (G, C, Am, and F). I have also learned how to properly tune my ukulele to C and I have learned various different strumming patterns such us DDUUDDUUDDUU AND DDUDU (D=down and U=up). The plan I created has allowed me to stick to my goals and feel much more confident in my musical abilities. I feel like I have enough knowledge now to teach someone else the very basics in ukulele.

My pedagogy growth plan has shifted my professional identity as it has allowed me to review multiple music apps and find which ones would be helpful for me as an aspiring teacher. I have thoroughly reviewed five music apps varying from teaching students about notes and note reading to creating your own musical beat. I spent time using each app to gain the best knowledge on the performance of the app and to see if it would be helpful to use in a classroom setting. From doing this I have gained many resources that will be of use to me when teaching music to my future students. It has also taught me a lot more about music, note reading and integrating technology into the classroom.

All in all, creating my music and pedagogy growth plans has allowed me to shift my musical and professional identities to a place where I feel more confident with my abilities to play and teach music. I have gained many valuable resources that will be useful for me as I began teaching.