Vocal Music Teacher, MaryBeth Benesch was intrigued when she first heard of teachers using small-group instruction in their classrooms. She knew the strategy targeted students who had misconceptions or gaps in their learning. The conundrum was: how could she bring this into her vocal music classes? Deer Park Elementary Music Teacher, Kirsten Chalk, an enthusiastic adopter of the learning method, happily invited Benesch into her 5th grade classroom to observe the practice in action. Benesch spent a class period studying Chalk’s procedures and asking student’s questions about the process. The very next day, on her drive into work, Benesch had a Eureka! moment and saw a way to incorporate small-group instruction into her class that very day. A handful of students had joined her class a few weeks into the new semester and needed to learn the basics of sight-reading. Benesch pulled the students at the beginning of class to directly target the gaps in their learning, while the remainder of the class worked in collaborative groups. World Language teacher, Mr. Gaul, joined the impromptu lesson and began to plan his own version of small-group instruction into his Spanish I and II classes.
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