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The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structure of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students. |
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Campbell, D.M. et al. (1997). How to develop a professional portfolio: A manual for teachers. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.] |
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Throughout many if not all of my MUSED courses, I have been asked to keep
some kind of log of the readings that I was required to do for each class
and each semester. During MUSED 352, we were asked to turn in reading
notes for our assigned chapters. These reading notes included
not only ideas from the text, but ideas from lessons taught in class, lesson
plans in the book, and standards addressed in each chapter. For me
these are helpful, because they are a good resource to use when the textbook
is not handy. Also, the inclusion of classroom activites in these
notes allows for us to refer to these notes at a later time for advice
and ideas about lessons we could develop to teach our students.
Since I have been here at Ball State, I have taken several courses involving the development of children both physically and mentally.However, I wasn’t ever really comfortable with how music and the development of children would coincide.Since I have begun my Elementary General Music class, I have a better idea now.We have been using a lot of knowledge we have talked about in class but actually now applied it to how it is going to affect us, as teachers, and our students in a music classroom.Students must understand the simplest concepts before they can move on to something more complex.It’s kind of like stair steps.The students have to be firmly planted on one step before they can think of moving on to the next one.Throughout the semester we worked on such concepts as rhythm, singing, creating, improvising, and moving within the elementary general music classroom.I taught a rhythm lesson, song lesson, and listening lesson to my peers, as well as my song lesson to a second grade class at a local school.I was also required to take competency tests on recorder, singing, and accompaniment.These competency tests ensured that I was able to lead my students by example when I have my own classroom.We were asked to choose several examples of varying difficulty and be able to talk about what concepts we would teach with these songs.
During the fall 2001 semester, I took a Choral Literature class, which
I found incredibly helpful. Before this class, one of my biggest
worries was being able to pick literature that my students would be able
to perform, yet be difficult enough to challenge them. During this
class, we learned about ranges, abilities, and voicing options for different
age levels.We also talked about publishers, arrangers, and composers that
cater to specific age levels. During this class, we sang an enormous
range of music that we would be able to use in our classroom.To help us
remember all the music that we looked at, we kept a choral literature database
of all the music we reviewed in the class with specifics about each piece
so that we would be able to refer back to it later in our careers.
As a music educator, my soul job is not to teach students to be in an ensemble;
my job is to teach students about music. There are many aspects of music
that students need to learn. Some of these include: rhythm, pitch, dynamics,
timbre, texture, and form. I have completed an entire 18-week curriculum
that addresses these fundamentals of music as well as other aspects,
such as styles of music. The 18-week curriculum includes lesson plans for
each week, worksheets, and handouts.The entire curriculum is not
present here, however an example unit is included. The other units are
available upon your request.
Throughout my undergraduate studies at Ball State University, I have been required to keep reading responses for all assigned readings for all most all of my mused classes.These have become a great resource tool for me as I have begun teaching. These reading logs summarize the chapters I have read and include a discussion area where I talk about my experience or my plans regarding that chapter's topic. I had the opportunity to gather all of the knowledge I have gained throughout my theory studies in one theory project while studying at Ball State; this would be my choral arranging project. I chose to write a four-part choral arrangement with piano accompaniment of Gypsy Rover.This project gave me the opportunity to use skills I have gained throughout my theory studies and apply them to something I may one day need to know how to do. Having the knowledge to arrange a piece of music can become very beneficial to a choir director when a specific arrangement of a piece is not available in the voicing of your choir.After doing this project, I am now a lot more comfortable arranging a piece of music from something as monophonic as a source melody. I have compiled several resource files and databases in my music education courses. One of these would be a resource file from a vocal techniques class. This resource file includes a listing of materials that can be used for vocal technique and music literacy training in the classroom. Each entry of this resource file includes the name of the specific resource, author, publisher, and a brief description about the resource. This file will come in very handy as I begin teaching on my own because I will have a list of excellent resources before I walk into the music room. This will help me when ordering new materials because I already have a starting point and can go from here instead of starting from scratch. The database is one I created for musicals, jazz music, show choir, and technical guides to audio equipment. These resources, especially the technical guides, will help me when I am required to set up my own stage equipment. The books listed here provide tips and suggestions for programs and for the way the programs are carried out. Both of these files will be an important starting point for me as I begin my teaching experiences. |
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