Entry 2-1 | Content Knowledge

The candidate understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the
discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates content-specific learning and literacy
experiences that make the discipline accessible and relevant to assure mastery of the
content.

The candidate should complete a reflective essay illustrating appropriate content

knowledge utilized in teaching the content. Three artifacts are to be submitted and
may include Unit Plans, Lesson Plans, Course Plans, Class Syllabi, Teacher
Observations, and Teacher Evaluations.

In the classroom, it is important that the teacher is both knowledgeable and skilled in the
subject they teach. Their expansive understanding of their content helps them to effectively
plan lessons for long-term student achievement. Their fluency in their primary subject
provides them an amount of foresight which allows them to effectively scaffold through an
understanding of what students will need to develop proficiency in so that they can
successfully grasp larger concepts in the future.

This has shown itself differently for me in the secondary and elementary classrooms. At the
elementary level, I plan lessons using Kodaly’s “Prepare, Present, Practice” approach. I
demonstrate an idea and then have students perform that skill multiple times before
putting the activity into the larger musical context. This process can take several class
periods, and helps to slow down the experience and to preemptively bridge any possible
gaps in understanding for young children. In doing this I must utilize my knowledge of
music to work students toward any given objective. For example, when teaching my
students to read rhythms, I must first make sure that they can keep a steady beat, then that
they understand the concept of a “big beat” vs a “small beat” (that there are two small beats
in one big beat). After this I can teach them that a quarter note, or “Ta” will fall on a big
beat, and an eighth note, or “Ti” will fall on the small beats (there are two “ti’s” in a “ta”).
We continue by building rhythms with these notes and tapping or clapping those out. The
process builds until the students eventually can recognize rhythms at a glance.

At the secondary level, I’ve utilized a similar approach, but in the context of a significantly
shorter time frame. Also, my music teaching experience at the secondary level has largely
taken place in an ensemble setting, so the process occurred more through a mixture of both
pre-planned and on-the-spot modeling than through extensive lesson plans. In rehearsal,
this might look like the aural recognition that a section is not singing the music correctly or
a rhythm is wrong. However, my content knowledge is also used as I plan for the rehearsal
and scan the music for challenging concepts and areas where students will likely need
specific strategies to help their understanding.

Artifacts

● Video of “Carol Sing”

○ This is a video of a _________ (HS) rehearsal where we worked on the song
“Carol Sing” by John Leavitt. The video shows the feedback loop (the process
of running a song, providing specific feedback about what needs to be
improved, modeling it, having the choir attempt it again, providing more
effective feedback, and then hearing the problem corrected). I’ve included
this artifact because being able to provide specific feedback on the spot
requires content knowledge.
○ Carol Sing Clip

● Video of 4th Grade Folk Dance

○ In this video, I facilitate the creation of a folk dance for the French Canadian
song, La Bastringue. I make sure that students understand how many beats
they have and then move their choreography ideas into something that
works well.
 ○ 4th Grade Folk Dance

● Video of “Mouse, Mouse” (5th grade)

○ In response to the challenge my students were having reading dotted
quarter-eighth note rhythm patterns, I came up with a short chant to
translate into rhythmic notation. This demonstrates understanding that
students were having trouble reading the rhythms (1) because they didn’t
understand how they felt in context of the other rhythms they had learned,
and (2) needed a reference. This provided them with a reference using words
and practice in order to make the information more familiar.
○ Mouse Mouse