Context is everything. There's a saying, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Too often in education, we take a little morsel of knowledge, perhaps acquired at a conference or hastily gleaned from an article or book, and then force it into a position of exclusivity and prominence that assures success will not prevail. I … Continue reading Lesson Planning and Marzano’s Nine Strategies
Classroom Management
Three Ingredients for Good Classroom Management
For whatever reason, I have noticed over the years that art and music teachers seem to get more than their fair share of misbehavior in their classes. I suppose the children regard these classes as a time to let down and blow off steam after sitting immobile in a classroom writing, reading and generally keeping … Continue reading Three Ingredients for Good Classroom Management
Setting Up Chairs and Desks in a Music Classroom
The arrangement of chairs, desks, and tables in any classroom is important in establishing the learning climate. Depending on how a class will be run, there are several options when it comes to setting up chairs and tables or desks. The days of rows of chairs all facing the front of the classroom, where a … Continue reading Setting Up Chairs and Desks in a Music Classroom
Student Engagement in the Music Classroom
Music is one of those areas where people seem to think natural ability has as much to do with success as anything. Whereas we assume that with differentiated instruction all children can learn to read, learn to reason and compute mathematically, and learn to use the scientific method to find and discover knowledge and understanding, … Continue reading Student Engagement in the Music Classroom
Staying In For the Long Haul
Teaching is hard work. I'm not trying to garner sympathy from anyone by writing this, I just know that after 32 years of teaching public school music in Connecticut, USA, it's always a tiring day. But it's more often than not an inspiring and fun day too. I come home often exhausted, but at the … Continue reading Staying In For the Long Haul
Music Teaching and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
When I learned Bloom's taxonomy as an undergraduate, I always thought that the arts were short changed. Sure, there was the affective domain, but it just didn't have the depth to it that the cognitive domain had, and the affective domain was often presented as a sort of afterthought. When the taxonomy was revised, this … Continue reading Music Teaching and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Balancing Attention Span with Time to Learn
It is well known that our youngest students, those ages 3 to 5 or 6, have shorter attention spans than older children. One way of handling this is planning many relatively short activities, so that the children go from one activity to the next before their attention is over taxed. With well practiced transitions, this … Continue reading Balancing Attention Span with Time to Learn
Planning Instruction, Part 1
Today I am starting a series of articles on planning instruction. These articles will include lesson planning, unit planning, classroom management, assessment, and student engagement. Each of these areas is critical to student success. Making classroom management and strategies for student engagement part of lesson and unit plans is particularly important, and sometimes overlooked. Unit planning … Continue reading Planning Instruction, Part 1
March Madness in Education
In many ways, teaching from March to June is the most challenging time of the year. It is the period in which students are overwhelmed with state mandated testing in the wake of NCLB, the period in which students and teachers tend to be burdened with colds and flu, and the period in which teachers … Continue reading March Madness in Education
Teaching the Once A Week Music Class
If there's one thing I don't like about teaching music, it is that I only see each class one time each week. This has at least two disadvantages; music can easily be regarded as less important because it meets less often than math, science, language arts, and social studies, and students struggle to remember what … Continue reading Teaching the Once A Week Music Class
mister a music place 
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