“Don’t waste a good mistake…learn from it.” Robert Kiyosaki

One of the successful byproducts of flipping the recorder classroom is tons of student examples in various stages of mastery. If your teach recorder, I’m sure you’re with me on this one…I feel like a doctor at the minute clinic who observes the symptoms, diagnoses the problem, and writes a prescription. My stock-pile of student examples inspired one of my all-time favorite activities for recorder students: The Recorder Minute Clinic Activity.

Doctors Needed

You won’t believe what I did…I greeted my students at the door wearing my surgical face mask and gloves. Gasps galore! I handed out individual face masks and gloves to each student (before they even entered my music room) and led the fresh team of doctors into the Recorder Minute Clinic. Playing the part of the head nurse to the hilt, I explained that, due to the flu, there was a shortage of doctors available to see all of the recorder patients in the clinic. Their expertise was desperately needed to attend to the ailing musicians, especially if they were specialists in

• Ophthalmology – some patients can’t read the notes correctly,
• Diagnostic Radiology – patients need help diagnosing the X-rays
• Pulmonology – patients are overblowing
• Cardiology – tempo is so fast it is causing heart attacks
• Anesthesiology – pain meds for the teacher!
• Orthopaedic Surgeons – incorrect hand position, fingers not working
• Neurosurgery – a few patients need brain surgery
• Physical Therapist – to repair the muscle strains
• Psychologist – to provide emotional support during frustration

The Recorder Minute Clinic is open for business!

Recorder Minute Clinic Materials

I grouped the doctors into teams having one advanced student who was the Doctor and one less advanced student who was the Physician’s Assistant. The students came with their own iPads and recorders and received a clipboard, pencil, and a symptom checklist for their assigned patient.

Recorder Patient Symptoms

The challenge of the day was to watch a recorder patient’s video and use the checklist to help make a diagnosis. Here is a closer look at the symptom checklist I designed.

“Sick” Patient Examples

Let me elaborate… To prepare for this activity, I used student examples that I have curated for several years. Creating the videos in Screenflow allowed me to layer the background and hide the face of each student behind the open frame. With Screenflow, it was easy to trim down to just a small section with a focused problem to correct. I created the various images using Laughingbird Software, which I use to create almost every graphic I need.

Here is a video collage of some of the “sick” examples included in the Recorder Minute Clinic Activity:

Recorder Patient Video Delivery

I tried two ways to deliver the videos to the doctors. The first time I did this activity, I uploaded all of the Recorder patient videos to Seesaw as an activity. It worked, but not perfectly. The best solution I found is to deliver the video examples through a Safe YouTube link / QR code posted on each patient checklist. This way, students can scan the QR code, watch the video and then use Seesaw to create their video response. Here is an example of the Recorder Patient Checklist given to students:

Notice that I included a passage of music to go with the video example. Often times, note names were included to help the Physician’s Assistant.

Doctor’s Orders

It gets better… For each patient, the Doctor had to make a video prescription identifying the problem and explaining or demonstrating how to fix it. Here is a brief video collage of a few of the Recorder minute Clinic doctor videos turned in during this activity.

Follow Up Appointment

I always encourage my more motivated students to create Recorder Repair videos. Students know they can look for help in the Recorder Repair Shop on our recorder site. You can read more about that in this post.

The Recorder Minute Clinic is similar, but much more engaging for all the students. It worked well to group a strong student with a weaker student, and it was interesting to hear the weaker students step up to explain how to prevent squeaking or how to slow down to fix stumbles. When I listen to the videos, the “Mom” in me smiles because I can tell the kids really are listening even though they seem to be ignoring me at times.

“Don’t waste a good mistake…learn from it.” Robert Kiyosaki

The Recorder Minute Clinic is a perfect use for the plethora of “Good mistakes” saved since I began flipping the recorder unit years ago. There is much to learn by analyzing the mistakes of others and Robert Kiyosaki would be proud! Although I’ve used this activity with only two of my classes so far, it completely engaged my student as they learn in new ways with technology. When students teach one another, they are more likely to remember it. I am using Recorder Minute Clinic with fourth grade toward the end of their recorder unit of study.

Recorder Minute Clinic on TpT

This activity is available for purchase on my TpT site. What are you doing to sum up your recorder unit of study? Have you been saving your students’ good mistakes? Leave a comment; I’d love to hear your ideas or thoughts.

Happy spring!

The following two tabs change content below.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Cherie Herring

Music/Technology Integration at Hammond School

I teach elementary music, am passionate about integrating technology into my teaching, am obsessed with my SMARTBoard and iPad, and enjoy creating lessons and sharing ideas. I love technology almost as much as I love cheesecake, and with more energy and ideas than I know what to do with, I can't wait for the sun to come up each morning! I'm wife to Prince Charming and mom to three incredible girls who keep me balanced. . . sort of!

Latest posts by Cherie Herring (see all)

• Stop Motion Lip Sync and the County Song - February 4, 2024
• Stop Motion Animation and the Musical Staff - January 28, 2024
• 1st Grade CHARACTER Musical Program - January 26, 2024