Metacognition in the Music Classroom: Music Teacher magazine

Towards the end of last year I wrote an article on how most music teachers use metacognition in the classroom. This is an area I feel passionate about as a teacher. I hope you find the strategies here useful. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reports: Part 1 - using a Google sheet (or other spreadsheet!)

Image
 Using a Google Sheet (or spreadsheet) to Write Reports It's that time of year when workload increases with report writing. Just this week I have had to write 180 two sentence reports (we also had Ofsted in this week and a year 7 parents evening...). Although I would love to write highly individualised and detailed reports it is just not possible if I want to also run my extra-curricular groups, keep on top of marking and planning and see my family at all. Therefore cheats have to be found!  I have created two systems over the last few years, one using spreadsheets which I will go through here, and another using google forms, which I will write up at a later date.  Set up So the first step is to write a standard report that makes sense. For example I want to report back on the effort they put into lessons and a comment on their homework. I then want to give them a target that will help improve their attainment. An example would be: In year 9 Harry has demonstrated excell...
Read more

Lesson planning

Image
 This blog is response to a request from a colleague who is new to teaching - how do you cope with lesson planning?! For me, this is my favourite part of the job. I love planning lessons as it is the one time I get to be creative rather than encouraging creativity in others. But I still get into the position of overwhelm very easily, and that is with a lot of years of teaching. There are so many elements to a good lesson, that it’s hard to codify exactly what you should do, and it is certainly a skill you develop over time. Your lesson plans become reflective of you as a teacher, but it is pure experience that gets you to that point. So what follows is designed to be a starting point, not a definitive list. Step 1: What is the purpose of this lesson? This has to be the key starting point. It is easy to get swept up in great ideas that will be fun and engaging to do, but it they don’t actually support the things they need to learn then you are entertaining and not teaching!  So...
Read more

Preparing for the future and how to say no!

It can be really helpful at times to think about your boundaries and plan ahead for when you will need to put these in place. Doing it when you’re feeling calm and seeing the big picture can allow you to make good decisions and have strategies ready for when they are needed. There are times when you’re going to need to dig deep into your energy reserves and really plough on, but there are also times when to not push yourself over the edge, you need to say the word no.  Each of us is different and will have ways of going about this. The advice in here is what I have found works for me and my personality. I will say that I do not say the word ‘no’ as a default position. In fact, I often find myself saying yes, even when inconvenient. As a result though, when I do say no, or ask for help myself, I often have a willing team around me who will go that extra mile.  Planning ahead  Get yourself a wall planner and put in all your dates for the academic year - your parents evening...
Read more