My name is Hui-Min Phang.
I am a pre-service teacher at Darwin High School.
I currently study full-time at Charles Darwin Uni
for the graduate diploma of teaching and learning.
I major in music and I minor in biology.
Since today's lesson is quite complicated,
I'm teaching four different levels of students -
doing level three, four and five.
Now, the level threes and fours are doing a very similar activity.
So what I will do is I'm going to write a simple melody on the board,
which has a simple melody and where they need to harmonise at the bottom.
Now, level fours, it's actually just an extension
of what you've done last term from level three.
It's very similar,
but instead of harmonising just one chord per bar
you're actually doing every beat instead.
HUI-MIN: While they're copying it down -
usually it takes them about 10 minutes to do it -
I provide level fives with a work sheet
and then I slowly deliver the content to them.
Now, level fives, I'm going to introduce to you today
a four-part harmony.
So any ideas what that involves?
-GIRL: Four parts? -(BOY SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
Four parts of...?
-GIRL: A harmony. (LAUGHS) -GIRL 2: Soprano, alto, tenor, bass.
Soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Good.
HUI-MIN: I'm using the performance standards
where it's just seeing if students can use their creativity,
to put it into music theory
and whether they can use statistical information provided to them
and analyse them properly.
With music theory, because there's different levels,
my mentor teacher designed this course
to accommodate different students who want to learn music
with different musical backgrounds.
I developed a course a few years ago now
where we allow for multi-strands to run in the classroom.
So the way it presents in music theory
is that we assess where the students are at, where they'd like to be
and then put them into
the appropriate group setting for a term.
So that means because there's not enough days in the week
to deliver content solely to that group,
we actually have to have multiple levels in the classroom.
It does present a huge challenge to the pre-service teachers
because just managing one classroom
with one set of instructions and content is difficult enough,
whereas in this setting they've got to manage three different groups
so they have to divide the board into three equal sections
and colour-code everything and be very explicit.
GIRL: This is just refreshing my memory
because I know I've done all this for a whole term.
I've just forgotten it all in a year.
OK.
-So we've got four beats in a bar. -Yep.
So what are the notes that I need to circle?
So this one. Where's the second one?
Level fours, we are skipping this part right now
because now you're harmonising every beat.
HUI MIN: At first it was very challenging.
I found it hard to manage my time.
But after repetition
and just with the advice from Alana,
I've become more accustomed to moving around the classroom
in a sequential order,
whereas at first it was very chaotic.
I jumped from one student to another
and every time people would go, "Miss, I need help,"
I would just go to them straightaway
rather than saying, "OK, I'll come back to you
"after I'm done with whoever I'm with."
I've noticed that the students,
even though they're in separate streams,
they felt more equal
because not just from the division of the board,
but I was able to sequence my lessons much better.
All the groups felt like they were learning
and they had the opportunity to learn from each other as well -
peer learning, which is very effective.
(PLAYS CHORD REPEATEDLY)
What do we feel like doing?
(ALANA SPEAKS INAUDIBLY)
Resolve! Ah, that's comforting, isn't it?
So that chord - that 7th degree five-seven -
just makes the perfect cadence a lot stronger.