Marcel Williams

Music 670
Standard #1

Standard 1: The teacher of PK-12 music has skills in pedagogy (planning, delivering instruction, and
assessment) for vocal, instrumental, and general music.

This standard is the groundwork for a solid foundation as a music teacher. As I have studied
music I have been constantly surrounded by individuals with masterful skills in pedagogy and during
these years observed multiple pedagogical techniques and assimilated them into my own teaching
style. My education has allowed me to write countless lesson plans that are thoroughly refined by peers
and teachers prior to execution. During this process of growth my lesson plans have moved from
teacher based to student based by spending less emphasis on what I will do and more emphasis on
what students will be able to do. During my time at K-state I have managed to take almost all of the
instrumental technique courses offered including: percussion, high brass, woodwinds, double reeds,
strings. Within these courses I share experience with auxiliary percussion, drum-set, marching
percussion, pitched percussion, flute, oboe, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, cello, horn, and bassoon. I
have also taken drum lessons and piano lessons privately as well as through the university, voice lessons
for several semesters with Dr. Bryan Pinkall, and I also study several different styles of guitar. During
my studies at the university I have also spent a large amount of time teacher guitar lessons to students
of all ages around the Manhattan Kansas area. This has effectively give me an immense amount of
extracurricular time to work on my craft of teaching through planning lessons, assessing my students
and delivering the appropriate instruction as needed. At the university level I was able to spend a
semester co-conducting our “University Choir” nine different pieces of cinema music that led to a
performance with a professional orchestra at “The Folly Theatre” in Kansas City which allowed us to
learn many different aspects of classroom management and grow our sense of “withitness” i.e. the
ability to know what is going on in your classroom at all times.
Students will benefit from my instruction of this standard by receiving effective instruction that
is constantly adapting to the needs of the students. Through adept planning and anticipation, students
will be taught as an individual as well as a whole class. Because I understand the value of relationships
and the synergy that will create within the classroom, we will have many opportunities for peer review
that turns our students into critical thinkers as well as having opportunities for collaborative learning
and group work. Students in my classroom will be cultured into an environment that uses formative and
summative assessment. Students will also be encouraged to take part in small leadership activities such
as leading a sectional or creating a warm-up that they enjoy enough to share with the class. In my
classroom we will also have opportunities to perform in a small ensemble as well.