S15: E280 Peer Teaching in the Music Classroom
When I first started teaching middle school general music, I had no idea about how to incorporate peer leadership into my music classroom. I was comfortable with group work, centers, and whole group teaching, but didn’t know quite how to teach students how to teach each other. A huge thanks to music educator Chris Judah-Lauder for her guidance, patience, and wisdom in helping me learn the importance of student leadership and teaching me how to use peer teaching in the classroom. I can’t do this episode without acknowledging what I learned from her in this area because I wouldn’t have known where to begin or how to do it without her! I’ll refer to this as both peer leadership and peer teaching throughout the episode. I realize these terms can refer to different things, but in today’s episode, they’re going to refer to the same idea: that of guiding one student in your room to helping or working with another student in the room.
What is Peer Teaching/Leadership?
Peer teaching/leadership is where one student is sharing, reviewing, or providing feedback with another student. Peer teaching is also where one student teaches another student, but I want to share a few perimeters for how this looks. I’m not referring to having one student teach another student content that hasn’t been taught. As the teacher, I’m still teaching the content to students. The peer teaching aspect comes into play after the class or a small group of students have been taught how to play a melody or rhythmic pattern.
First Steps: The first thing that needs to happen is for you to teach a melody or rhythm to students. I’ll talk through the rest of the steps by talking about how I move from this step to peer teaching.
Let’s say that I’m teaching a bass line for a xylophone piece. I’m going to go through the process I want to use to teach it - whatever that may look like (speaking text, reading rhythms, patting the rhythm on laps, singing the melody of it - if relevant, etc and breaking down the part into sections, measures or phrases)
Provide time for the class to practice the melody all together. As they’re repeating the pattern or the melody, look for those students who are playing it accurately. If it helps, jot down notes of those students who have the melody accurately. Those are the students who will be your peer leaders. I also look to identify the students who are struggling and those who have part or most of the melody, but may need some guidance that will take less time. This skill of identifying students’ abilities can take some time! I strengthened this skill as I used peer teaching more and more over the years.
If you find that there are only 1-2 students who are understanding the melody, then students aren’t ready for peer teaching. They still need whole group instruction and feedback. Depending on the size of your class, it’s best if there is at least a third of the students who are able to play the melody or rhythm accurately. That way the peer groups can be small and not overwhelming to the peer leader and learning will move more quickly.
After you’ve provided opportunities for students to learn the melody, time for them to practice it as a whole class, and identified at least 1/3 of the class has learned the material well enough to play it accurately, provide time for peer leadership/teaching to occur. You’re going to break the class into either partners or small groups. I try to keep groups to no more than 3 students so that the peer leader is only helping 2 students. Use the list of student names to help share which students will be leading/reviewing the small groups. I always start with the student leader names and then share two student names of students who I had observed needing extra practice or help in learning parts. I repeat this process until everyone is in a group.
Side Note: If there is a student or more who are really struggling, I work with them specifically. As I’m calling out groups, I say something like “Betty and George, we’ll be together.” I’ve never made a big deal out of that. And there’s plenty of times where there are tons of student leaders in the class and a small group of students needing practice so I’ll pull a few students who already have the part we’re learning and begin teaching them a section of something coming up. OR add the next layer of that part. This pulls the class forward. It provides differentiation so that the needs of my struggling students and my excelling students are both being met. At the same time. Beautiful. And it gives me an opportunity to start scaffolding towards the next part or adding the next element of the current melody so that when we get there, a few students already know it or have some experience with it and it preps the next time we are doing peer leadership on that new melody or rhythm. Keeps the class engaged all the way around.
If I’m not working with a student, I’m walking around the room and observing the peer teaching and asking groups to play for me. This is when I share feedback with the peer group for what to work on “I can see that they’ve got the beginning of the melody. Great job! Let’s work on this part now.” I’ll either sing it or play it. And I will often share something specific with the leader. Something like “Listen for the rhythm in that part. They’ve got the melody, but can you help them with getting the rhythm right here.” This gives the peer leader direction and purpose if they’re not certain how to proceed.
How do we help peer leaders lead? What exactly do they do?
Allow students to move their instruments to sit in small groups in the room. Many times students want to show their peers how to do it. I’ll see a student go “here - I’ll show you” and then just play it for them. So it’s important that we teach students, as leaders, how to let the student they’re helping be the one playing the part and as a leader, to provide feedback and guidance. The student who is the leader is not the one playing. They are watching, observing, pointing out the next pitch or explaining what the correct rhythm is for a part. You’ll be amazed at how this can invigorate those students who need something more because they’ve now got a chance to share and explain something they understand!!
I also ask students to turn their mallets over so that they’re using the tips of the mallet (learned this from Chris!) so that it keeps the sound softer in the room and students can better hear what they’re playing.
If all of the students in a group have the melody and can play it accurately, I ask students to practice it together as a group four times in a row. This takes it that next step to have them not only checking to see if they know the melody individually, but if they are able to play it with a small group of students and play it more than once with accuracy.
Other things to consider:
This takes time to implement and learn how to do. Be patient with yourself as you figure out how it works in the classroom and with your students.
I recommend doing this with an older elementary (4th-6th) and not with your youngest students.
Peer leadership in the classroom can often be loud. But it’s a productive loud! You’ll know it’s a productive loud when students are on task, practicing, talking about what they’re learning. You’ll know it’s time to move on or to give them a next step (try playing the melody together four times in a row as a group) if you see them standing and talking and there’s no playing happening.
Sometimes I use peer teaching more than once in a lesson. We might do whole group instruction - peer groups - whole group instruction - review again in peer groups.
Set boundaries around expectations in group work: Students need to stay with the peer group they are assigned and not wander. They need to be respectful in asking for help or providing help.
Feel free to reach out with questions about peer leadership in the classroom! It has been one of the biggest factors in building community, peer relationships, leadership and overall musical learning in my classroom. I definitely encourage you to try it!