Quality Standard 1: Teachers demonstrate mastery of and pedagogical expertise in the content they teach.

Element A

Teachers provide instruction that is aligned with the Colorado Academic Standards, their District's organized plan of instruction, and the individual needs of their students.

Artifacts: Fourth Grade Lesson Plan from August 10th and 13th (two period lesson plan), photo from the lesson, and completed student assignment.

Rationale: In this lesson, students were asked to make up rhythms using MegaBloks with rhythms on them in order to form 4/4 measures. They did so as a timed game, aiming to create as many measures of 4 as possible in the time given, and winning when they had the most completed. They then used Orff instruments to add pitches to their rhythms. Students were invited to work alone or with others, and I circulated to assist students with these tasks. Students who were less familiar with notation received direct assistance, reteaching, or deeper explanation (and reassurance), and students who were more familiar with notation were encouraged to add more complex rhythms, accidentals, and ostinatos to their assignments.

Element B

Teachers develop and implement lessons that connect to a variety of content areas/disciplines and emphasize literacy and mathematical practices.

Artifact: Kindergarten Lesson Plan from September 23rd and 24th

Rationale: In this lesson, I used a book called "Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea" by Jan Peck and illustrated by Valeria Petrone as a significant portion of my lesson. It formed the basis of the primary activity, which was singing the book, deciding the natural rhythm of various sea creatures, and then adding sol and mi notes to those rhythms. For kindergarteners, the repetitive nature of the book worked well and they sang along with enthusiasm.

Element C

Teachers demonstrate knowledge of the content, central concepts, inquiry, appropriate evidence-based instructional practices, and specialized characteristics of the disciplines being taught.

Artifact: Arranged song

Rationale: I arranged a book into a song using melodic and rhythmic patterns appropriate and easy for Kindergarteners to sing in a key that was appropriate for their voices. This demonstrates knowledge of the book and goals of the lesson, concepts central to children's vocal abilities within the bounds of safety, evidence-based instructional practices in that reading (and singing!) to children helps deeply with their literacy, and the lesson focused on building simple rhythms and melodies unique to elementary music curriculum, as well as the ability to use Dorico as composition software.

Quality Standard 1 Reflection

As I have been teaching for quite some time, I found this standard relatively straightforward. When I first began teaching music, I struggled with effective planning because I did not have a curriculum provided to me and therefore was randomly selecting topics to teach and hoping it would be enough. As I have grown as a teacher, I have not only researched and used a variety of curriculums but have now developed multiple curriculums of my own, each one drawing on my ever growing background knowledge of how to teach specific skills and the general routes to success in combining these skills into an overall musical competency in my students. Since I have used previous iterations of the Colorado Standards for Music, applying what I knew to these standards was fairly comfortable. I focused this time on applying new information I had found in recent professional development readings and classes and found deeper success in developing student independence and growth.

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