Pacing, Enthusiasm, and Classroom Management

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Pacing, Enthusiasm, and Classroom Management

• Teaching Instrumental Music
• Dr. Miksza

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General ideas regarding pacing

• Pace is brisk enough to keep kids active and
  engaged but also allows for time for students to
  understand and participate meaningfully in the
  lesson
• Too fast frustration, Too slow lack of
  on-task behavior
• Keeping students engaged and interested will give
  them less to time to create disruptions
• There is a balance of student/teacher directed
  activities

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Bauers tips on pacing

• Lag-time and inactivity leads to boredom which
  leads to discipline problems
• Use a variety of activities
• Vary the mode of instruction (aural, visual,
  etc.)
• Monitor ratio of student activity and teacher
  talk
• Clear conducting gestures can help eliminate
  teacher talk
• Monitor how much time is spent on one passage
• Monitor how much time is spent on one section of
  the ensemble
• Ask students to silently analyze while working
  with other sections
• Ask students questions to keep them engaged when
  not playing

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Pacing and planning

• Effective pacing is much more difficult to
  achieve without clear plans
• Plan to address one concept at a time
• Lack of planning and poor pacing can lead to
  student frustration
• Plan should be interesting
• Plan should incorporate multiple activities and
  activity types
• Plan extra activities in case plan goes quicker
  than expected
• Students can detect when a teacher is unprepared
  or winging it

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Price and Byo on enthusiasm

• Accuracy, clarity, and interest in delivery
• High levels of eye contact varying between
  group and individuals
• Proximity to and from the ensemble
• Variety of speech volume
• Expressive gesture
• Overall, varied rather than static

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Activity

• Teach the class
• Demonstrate one of the following
• Varied modes of instruction
• Switching activities quickly
• High enthusiasm
• Low enthusiasm

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Characteristics of a well-managed ensemble

• Students involved
• Students on-task
• Expectations are clear
• Goal-oriented
• Students feel comfortable and secure
• Time is used efficiently
• Disruptions are rare
• Successful in learning

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Proactive approaches

• Good planning/preparation
• Curricular
• Selecting literature
• Providing appropriate musical and technical
  challenges
• Learning outcomes
• Plan to address multiple types of objectives
  (e.g., cognitive, psychomotor, affective)

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Proactive approaches

• Instructional
• Mid-range and short-term goals lead to success
  and increased motivation
• Score study ahead of time so that can attend to
  students

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Proactive approaches

• Procedural
• Setting up class ahead of time
• As students come in build rapport, discuss
  assembly/maintenance, individual warm-up
  procedures
• Clock time to be in their seats
• Start on time to discourage stragglers
• Administrative duties out of class,
  parent/student helpers, quick attendance
  procedure, quick handing-out and collecting
  procedures
• Leaving the classroom come back and sit down

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Proactive approaches

• Good Teaching
• Mind-on warm-ups
• Goals stated
• Sequences logical and effective
• Feedback specific and detailed
• Professional appearance and rapport
• Vary proximity to students
• Eye contact
• Enthusiasm
• Gesture

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Reactive approaches

• Even with all else in place, inappropriate
  behavior will still occur
• Discipline plan
• As opposed to making up a consequence on the fly
• Must be consistent with school wide discipline
  plan
• Rules
• State expectations for acceptable behavior
• Limit rules to five or less
• Explain rules to students
• Perhaps involve students in development of rules
• Consequences
• Consequences for not following rules must be
  clear
• Consider keeping discipline consequences separate
  from academic issues
• Administer consequences quickly and as much as
  possible without interrupting the flow of the
  class
• Be careful not to reinforce poor behavior with
  the administration of the consequence
• Rewards
• Compliment, smile, privilege, certificates, phone
  call home
• Must be attractive and appropriate to that
  particular group of students

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More on the discipline plan

• Must be consistent when administration of plan
• Document discipline actions taken
• Have school administration check over discipline
  plan
• Share discipline plan with parents as well
• Call or supervise a student call to parents
  when major problems arise
• Austin continuum from Gordon

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Very general advice

• Cultivate an environment of mutual respect
• Be careful of I vs. we
• Have clear rules and a discipline plan
• Follow them and carry them out fairly and
  consistently
• Focus on the environment necessary for great
  music making
• Have high expectations of your students