Friday, January 11, 2013

Failed Lessons

I was sitting in a meeting yesterday listening to a reading consultant tell us how to teach guided reading and she said something profound.  She said "never think of a failed lesson as a disaster.  Failed lessons are opportunities."  I probably didn't hear anything she said after that point because I was thinking so much about what she said.  It is so true.

Failed lessons are opportunities to reflect - what could I have done better?  Where did my lesson fall apart?  Why did my lesson fall apart?  How can I teach this lesson better next time?  The great thing about being a music teacher is that we get multiple opportunities to teach the same lesson and make it better.  I was teaching a class last week and we got through my whole lesson with about 15 minutes left of class.  I tried to improvise, but as we all know improvising doesn't always work.  So after school that day I thought about that class.  I found out that I had skipped an entire part of my lesson and didn't even realize it.  I also decided that a part of it didn't go so well because I didn't explain it well enough.  So the next day I changed my lesson with the next class...and it was so much better!

Failed lessons are opportunities to regroup - Just like I said about reflecting, I used this lesson to regroup my thoughts and rethink how I was attacking the lesson plan.  The next day I changed the way I taught the activity and I didn't have as many issues.

Failed lessons are opportunities to reteach - I had that same class again yesterday, and I was honest with them.  I told them that I didn't teach the activity very well last week and that we were going to try again.  Not only did the classroom management work better, but the students were able to do the activity and it was great!