Kaitlyn Laprise

7/28/16
Journal 4
After reading Jellisons chapter of Vision 2020 in Psych, I would have told you
that it would have a huge impact on my future teaching and that, since then, Ive
been really motivated to find ways to take a new approach to help enable and
encourage my students life-long musical involvement. Because of that, I really
surprised myself the other day when you mentioned wed be reading the chapter as
part of what we should be thinking about for our curriculum because it hadnt even
crossed my mind in the context of this class. Im still pretty frustrated by how I
could have ignored something that has become so important to me, but
nevertheless, I started looking through my curriculum to try to see if it had been
informed by Jellison, even if unintentionally. What I noticed is that I think using the
UBD approach to curriculum design naturally lends itself to teaching fewer things
more deeply, focusing on concepts not isolated facts, and giving opportunities to
apply skills to new contexts. Enduring understandings force thinking on a broader
and more conceptual level and ask us to think about which few things we really
need to focus on, while using the standards to reach each those understandings
helps students apply it to new contexts. The element of Jellisons writing (and
Deweys) that I think I have missed the most is how to design experiences that are
similar to those that students will see in normal life in order to aid in transfer. Ive
included activities in my curriculum where students have to choose and rehearse
their own repertoire in groups and respond to recordings on their own, but this
doesnt seem like enough. The more I struggle to think of other experiences to
include that look like life, the more I realize that I dont think I actually know
enough about what musical life really looks like after high school to know how to

incorporate those activities in my classroom. For me, I found a band to play in which
is not an available option for everyone and I play duets with Richard, but not
everyone will marry their duet partner. I can think of obvious options like community
ensembles, private lessons, and going to concerts, but in what other ways and in
what other contexts to people make music outside of school? I think I have a lot of
learning to do about this in order to make Jellison not only important but truly and
practically influential to my teaching.