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Into the Great Unknown: Part 2 Planning Routines and Teaching Procedures

appropriately “switching gears.” You want to monitor pivot to something new. But be sure to close your feed-
how much time you are spending on an activity and not back cycles before moving on. Also, be mindful of your
spend too much time on one aspect of rehearsal. goals and feedback. Are you always asking for goals re-
Want to challenge yourself and have fun in the pro- lated to dynamics or rhythm? You might consider plac-
cess? Play the “Rule-of-7” game with your class. The ing a choral evaluation rubric/scale nearby while you
goal of the game is to tell your choir what you want listen to your ensemble. By looking at those categories
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them to do in seven words or less. You can only say (tone, intonation, vowel uniformity, rhythm precision,
seven words, then the students must do something (e.g., phrasing, etc.), you will be inspired to create goals and
a musical task). If you go over seven words and students provide feedback in more areas.
have not done something to participate, have someone
ring a bell or play a fun noise on a phone to cut you Instruction delivery checklist:
off. At that point, students must do something before The checklist below will help you to monitor your de-
you can talk again (e.g., sing a passage, clap a rhythm, livery of instruction. You can use this tool as your lesson
etc.). Dr. Sharon Paul from the University of Oregon plan or as a self-assessment tool (video record your lesson
has done this exercise with graduate conductors using and fill out the form after). You can also invite a trust-
a ten-word limit. ed mentor to your classroom to fill out this form as you
teach. See what patterns arise and use this as a guide in
Feedback cycle: your own professional development.
We need to make sure we are giving clear goals, in-
structions, and feedback to engage students. We want
to aim to teach in feedback cycles: Delivery of Instruction Rubric
Note: this list is based upon course content created by Dr. Melissa
1) Teacher instruction Brunkan. It has been modified and included with permission.

2) Student task Content:

3) Teacher feedback on that task • An introduction (related to goal)

In order to be efficient, you may find you are speak- • A closure (related to goal/review)
ing in bullet points instead of prose. We encourage you
to give one goal at a time (that you can effectively as- • Clear goals that are observable/measurable & specific
sess—i.e., see them do something, hear it, write it). For (student-friendly language)
example:
• An assessment task that accurately assesses the goal.
1) “Sing m. 1-8 and snap on all final consonants.” For example, if you are interested in knowing how ac-
curately students can label notes on a staff, do not grade
2) Students sing and snap (can visually assess who them based upon a concert performance, but rather an
does/doesn’t know where to place the conso- activity that required them to label notes. Ask yourself,
nants). “Can my student be successful at this task using my tar-
geted assessment skill alone?”
3) Give feedback specific to the goal. Avoid the urge
to speak about all that just happened; stick to your • A hands-on activity (i.e., not lecture, not just written
stated goal. tasks) that applies the concept being taught (can also be
used to assess student learning—something you can see/
At this point, you can continue with your first goal or hear them do). This could be as simple as asking students

52 CHORAL JOURNAL June/July 2025 Volume 65 Number 9