Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Town Miami
State FL
Grade(s)11th-12th
Pictures of rhythm and guitars, the circles of fifths, and scales. What I found interesting about the environment
was that the students who were not paying attention were just sent to the back of the room, in order to avoid
them being a distraction to the attentive students who were doing the work. The school environment definitely
makes a difference in this classroom. This is the largest high school in Miami-Dade County, with over 4,200 students; there wasnt much room for everyone given the size of this class was about 25-30 students. (Plus they are
all holding guitars)
The teachers goals were to work towards improving repertoire. On this particular lesson, the students worked on a piece
called Libertango and another one called Tantra, which was actually written by an FIU graduate who has been writing music
for big Hollywood films lately. The teachers goal was obvious: perform with good technique. Check question below to see
ho Lopez acted on that goal.
The students worked on specific warm-up for about 20 minutes at the beginning of class. The warm-ups included
arpeggios, flexibility, chromatic patterns, slur exercises and a Blues progression and improvisation. Lopez also
taught a lesson on diatonic progressions in minor: i iv ii V7 i.
After a while of warm-ups, the students looked bored, I would switch it up and not warm-up with the same old
warm-ups from each class. Maybe even warm-up with the actual repertoire.
Mr. Lopez would not move on until he was satisfied with the current activity. Even if this meant cutting some of
his plan. In this way, he made sure that the goals for that specific activity were met. I also heard Mr. Lopezs tone
be very positive toward the students improvements from last class until now, which proves that goals are constantly being met, not just on todays lesson
What evidence of critical thinking, critical feeling and/or critical action did you see?
I witnessed the students improvising over a Blues progression. As a jazz principal, I know their brains were definitely moving and thinking ahead at a very fast paced. In this exercise, you also have to be able to identify which
notes fit within the chords and which notes dont.
At the time of most focus, the students were improvising on the blues progression. Other times students were
engaged but not as much.
When one of the students kept playing the wrong rhythm in the song Libertango, Mr. Lopez took the opportunity
to review that rhythm and other similar rhythms.
What is your overall assessment of this teacher, the students and the lesson/rehearsal?
I thought the lesson was successful. The class had both student centered teaching (when students were improvising)
moments and teacher-centered (when Lopez just passed along information about playing right notes and rhythms). I
believe it is good to have a mix of both in the classroom. I also believe this teacher is doing a great job handling such
big classes.