Music teachers’ professional development: assessing a three-year collaborative online course (original) (raw)
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Music teacher education: Teachers’ knowledge and collaboration in distance learning
2010
Distance Learning (DL) is a growing field in Brazil and has been offering new possibilities to use information and communication technology (ICT) in our music teaching practices. In addition, it has broadened our views of different musical contexts and of the knowledge required in such contexts. Subscribing to the idea that teacher education courses contribute to the acquisition of teachers’ experiential knowledge, the need for music making and for real teaching practices seem essential to the education of prospective music teachers. Such practices will be part of a music education course if teachers who write these subject courses consider them a valid kind of knowledge. Hence, this paper presents some results of data collected from a questionnaire and interviews with teachers who plan some subject courses. Since they have agreed that students need practical experiences as musicians and as teachers to develop both musical and pedagogical knowledge, the activities planned for both online and face-to-face instructional episodes try to reflect such conceptions. Collaboration is presented as a possible strategy to promote interaction among peers, aiming at stimulating practical musical experiences, teaching practices and reflection on each one’s action in the learning process.
Music Teachers Oz Online: A New Approach to School-University Collaboration in Teacher Education
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International Journal of Music Education, 2006
Previous research with classical instrumental musicians has highlighted the intrinsic benefits of teaching in addition to the perhaps more obvious benefits of securing a regular income. Yet, despite the presence of educational activities in the portfolio of most musicians, teaching remains on the periphery of many music performance programmes in universities and conservatoria. The hierarchical inference in musicians' self-report of success as a soloist, instrumentalist or teacher is perpetuated in the separation of education and performance students during their university education. This study investigated the effects of providing a positive engagement with teaching through a unit of study delivered to a combined cohort of 2nd-year undergraduate music education, composition and performance students. The unit was designed to increase students' understanding of the realities of professional practice, and to form productive and mutually beneficial partnerships: promoting a bet...
This project bridges the gaps between research, teaching, and academics in Australian music teacher education through the collaborative development and implementation of innovative curriculum models that respond to research recommendations. The outcomes of this project are improved higher education student learning, academic development and 'teaching' collaboration within/across institutions. This project will involve academics collaborating to develop exemplary practice models in music teacher education across institutions. The curriculum models developed during this project will reflect research in the area and will be continually refined throughout the life of the project in response to student, staff and consultative expert evaluations. These models will: utilise school-based practicum to ensure that the theoretical aspects of preservice learning are seen as relevant to future teachers; use problem-based teaching and assessment to ensure that learning is holistic, integr...
With the intent of understanding the music teacher’s experience in informal music pedagogy, the purpose of this study was to explore the processes, perceptions, and practices of music teachers as they participated in a professional development community (PDC) to discuss and implement informal music learning practices. This study also investigated the nature of the teachers’ participation within the PDC. While many studies have explored the characteristics and processes of students engaged in informal music learning, little research has focused specifically on the experience of music teachers who may have little or no experience with informal music learning practices. There is a need for research that explores how music teachers respond to exploring and implementing informal music pedagogy with their students and the role that a professional development community with other music teachers can play in this process. This study was an instrumental case study using ethnographic techniques. In this study, the case was a professional development group (PDC) of four elementary general and choral music teachers who read research articles about, discussed, and implemented informal music learning. Data forms included video-recordings of PDC meetings, audio-recordings of semi- structured individual interviews, observations of music classes, comments from a private Facebook group, and collected artifacts. Data were coded and analyzed for emerging themes and trustworthiness was ensured through member checks, peer review, and data triangulation. Themes emerged in four main areas: (1) “Applications and Perspectives,” (2) “Pedagogical Practices Supporting Informal Music Learning,” (3) “New Windows into Students’ Musicianship,” and (4) “The Professional Development Community.” The participants developed a variety of applications of informal music learning activities that they implemented in their classrooms, and they began to value the engagement, motivation, and independent musicianship that they saw blossoming in students, although they were concerned about the activities’ logistics and the perceptions of others. They employed several pedagogical strategies in implementing informal music learning activities; these strategies fell along a continuum ranging from having more teacher control to more student freedom. The teachers recognized the change in their practice and appreciated how their classrooms were becoming more democratic. As they stepped back to observe students’ “messy” processes, they valued the new windows they gained into students’ musicianship, including the development of unexpected student performers and leaders. Finally, in the PDC, the teachers developed a collaborative community, felt validated and encouraged by reading research articles, and enjoyed having autonomy in their professional development experience. Based on the results, I recommended that informal music learning may serve as an approach for music teachers to support independent musicianship and develop a more democratic classroom, but they need support and validation when implementing these concepts. Music teacher education should continue to introduce informal music learning to undergraduates and find ways to help practicing music teachers explore these ideas, and PDCs may serve as a way for music teachers to have autonomy in their professional development, leading to more effective and long-lasting teaching change. Ideas for future research are also discussed.
Providing Effective Professional Development for Users of an Online Music Education Tool
Even though there are demonstrated benefits for using online web-based tools to support student musicians, there is the persistent challenge of providing sufficient and effective professional development for independent music teachers to use such tools successfully. This paper describes several methods for engaging teachers, including embedded online support, targeted email messages, webinars, and face-to-face workshops. The success of each of these approaches, separately and in combination, is considered through an examination of teacher feedback, the uptake of the tool by students, and the interview data from an advisory board made up of teachers, educators, software designers and developers, publishers, and business leaders.
Building communities of music education practice: peer collaboration in music teacher education
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Isolation is a theme that is synonymous with Australia's demography and geography, with its population concentrated in clusters and separated by large distances. The distribution of the tertiary music education community in Australia tends to reflect aspects of the country's physical make-up, specifically the separation of individuals or small groups of academics by vast distances. Consequently, music teacher education in Australia suffers from a sense of solitude. Academics in the field typically work alone in institutions and their students, beginning music teachers, also suffer from the experience of being alone in their work environment. In a funded cross-institutional project, aspects of mentoring and peer collaboration have been explored to address this phenomenon. This paper reports on the initial stages of the project. Problem-based learning through virtual learning sites and discussion groups has been employed in the project design. These strategies have been employ...
Examining Online Video-based Professional Development for Music Teachers
This paper reports a qualitative study that investigates how five different video-based online prototypes impacted in-service music teachers’ professional knowledge and their learning experiences. Through an examination of participants’ posts and interviews, the findings showed that video-based professional development (PD) could impact teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge as they afforded reflections that could change participants’ thinking and provided a vicarious experience for music teaching. Situated in a forum, the video-based PD sessions allowed for co-construction of knowledge amongst participants. The findings also revealed challenges in participants’ active and sustained participation. The findings are discussed with extant research on effective PD and video-based PD, and take cognisance of heutagogy. We discuss considerations for online video-based PD in terms of PD content design in presenting and exploiting the video material, how we could include the diverse and flexible ways of participation, and the role of the facilitator in providing a safe environment and encouraging multiple perspectives.
High-quality music teacher professional development: A review of the literature
Music Education Research, 2017
Most published journal articles describing professional development (PD) initiatives for K-12 ures of hightheoretical framework arisen in content areas with more tradition in PD research (e.g., mathematics and science education). The goal of this review was to examine the musicspecific PD literature using this framework. We reviewed seven mainstream music education journals from 1990 to 2015, identifying 17 articles reporting on a total of 24 PD initiatives (e.g., workshops, courses, programs, school-based PD). Results show interesting differences in the extent to which the different features considered (i.e., content focus, active learning opportunities, collective participation, duration, and coherence) are exhibited in these musicspecific initiatives. This analysis is relevant for music education theory, policy, and practice, as it suggests concrete ways of improving the quality of the PD offered to school music teachers.