Teaching in Middle and Secondary Schools, 1 and 2
1. Introduces concepts and methods that enhance the teaching of specific academic disciplines (Music in this case) in combination with a field studies course EDCI 5964.
2. Intensive instruction in methods of teaching an academic discipline (Music in this case). Emphasis on classroom management, use of instructional technology, planning and delivery in combination with internship in the field course EDCI 5754
None
When I started at Virginia Tech in 2006, I was informed that
my students needed to produce an ePortfolio at the end of their year of study
with me. I decided to leverage the unique capacities of Scholar's teaching and
worksite platforms and worked with the Learning Technologies team to create a
matrix, where students could see which artifacts of work they were creating in
class could be used, in relation to State and National Standards for Teacher
Education. I have decisively merged technology practices into the required
courses to increase student understanding and to augment the skills my students
will take into their own classrooms and more importantly, to illustrate their
journeys from students to teacher practitioners. These practices allow me to also conduct effective program
assessment based on student goal achievement over time, semester-to-semester,
and year-to-year.
I am able to meet unit, state and national accreditation
requirements in a hybrid teaching approach using the Scholar platform. This
happens in two distinct phases with my use of Scholar along with other
technology resources that grow in usage across time. The first phase is the
teacher-centered approach that makes up their learning in the course Teaching
Music in Middle and Secondary Schools 1. Phase 2 relies on the use of Scholar
in a learner-centered approach in the course Teaching Music in Middle and
Secondary Schools 2, which is also supplemented with the use of blogs
(WebLogs), and vlogs (VideoLogs) which facilitate reflective practice, among
other skills. The products, and outcomes, are exemplified through the students'
creation of an ePortfolio, using a matrix and worksite developed specifically
for this program, which is additionally housed in Scholar. My students can
showcase their work, their journey, their learning, and their achievement of
goals clearly for me. These goals range from those set by the students
themselves, to my own curriculum goals; as well as program, unit, national, and
state licensure goals. The graduate pre-licensure students enrolled in my
program engage in interactive learning environments, in reflective practice,
and in self-assessment that improves their knowledge, their skills, and their
understanding of the discipline of being a music teacher and practitioner
(Table 1.)
|
Phase 1 |
Phase 2 |
|
Courses Teacher centered methods class
Teaching Music in Secondary and Middle School 1 - Field studies in Education - EDCI 5964 |
Courses
Learner centered methods class Internship in Education- EDCI 5754 |
|
Enriched |
Enriched |
|
Blog reflective practice |
Blog reflective practice |
|
Teacher work sample website |
Vlog reflective practice |
|
Videos of teaching |
Video collage of teaching practices |
|
Immediate feedback/ assessment |
Immediate feedback/ assessment and self assessment |
|
Discussion threads |
Student choice of work weight and due dates |
|
Online quizzes |
Blog hosted independently |
|
Cumulative online final exam |
Self assessment |
|
Product
Creation of a Matrix and Presentation ePortfolio - |
|
1. Learning course material: students experience new methods
of course delivery
By teaching the first semester as a teacher directed course,
my first year master's students are not taken too far out of their comfort
zone. I deliver course material from multiple perspectives; in face to face
short lecture, PowerPoints available online, video clips of related materials,
discussion threads, and website links that are designed to allow them to "actively
process lesson content" (Hooper and Rieber, 1995) before, during and after our
class meetings. The second course is much more student-directed where they have
impact on the structure of the course, and importantly this allows them to get
better at "managing, enriching, and amplifying their own learning" (Weimer, 2003). I move them from teacher directed to
learner centered so that they may truly understand the impact it has on their
own learning (Boyle, 2008) and it assists them by building on knowledge and
experience they already have, and also is grounded in the contexts of the
classrooms they are completing field and internship hours within. Experiences
in the courses that illustrate this are:
EDCI 5724 - Completing assigned work via Scholar in the Assignments
tab, use of Website design to create Teacher Work Sample Website, use of
digital video editing to create clips of micro teaching to peers, downloading
PowerPoints, exploring links, websites, and podcasts to supplement content of
class and readings
EDCI 5964 - Analyzing and reflecting on blogs about videos made by the TA of
their teaching practice
EDCI 5744 -Selecting weighting and due dates for course products, developing
website resources of their own
EDCI 5754 -Using a Flip Mino digital camera to video their
teaching practice for analyses and creation of thematic video collages, use of
streaming technology to publish videos, and vlog reflective narratives
2. Learning outcomes: students evaluate the depth of their
own understanding for multimodal presentation in the ePortfolio
By then populating their matrix with works they collect over
the year, they must select the most appropriate pieces for their portfolio, reflect
on why they are important in illustrating their journey, and most importantly, how
they connect. (Gibson & Barrett, 2003). They write a capstone reflective
piece that conveys to myself, and their Committee, the depth of their
understandings, their ways of knowing, and how they feel they are ready to
assume a teaching position. They show an increased ability to reflect on their
work over the two semesters and typically are able to assess what is happening
in their own classrooms. Experiences within the courses that illustrate this
are:
EDCI 5724- Creation of artifacts, assignments, and Teacher
Work Sample Website to examine, analyzed and reflect upon the impact their
teaching has on their own students
EDCI 5964-Use of Blogs as reflective writing on Scholar to scaffold to
independent blogs in EDCI 5754 and capstone in ePortfolio
EDCI 5744 - Creation of curriculum plans, literature plans, audio files,
website resources, travel and budget projects for use in their field setting
joining theory to practice in context
Students ask questions of each other in the first
semester through the email tool, and discussion thread feature. We examine
videos of our teaching on line and in class time for group interaction and they
comment on each other's work. Reflection is critical to their growth and they
receive feedback from me about their work , via the blog tool every week. See screen shot example 1. Example of feedback on blog page
Students learn, through
both courses, that everything they need will be in a folder (with the correct
name) in the resources tab. They learn to take quizzes through the quiz tool
and receive formative feedback there, before they take the final in Semester 1.
They ‘hand in' their assignments through that tool, and can see the rubrics
with which they will be graded on before they turn in their work, and they can also see which of our National
Standards (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) they are
meeting. They can access our
powerpoints from lectures, my
notes, they can replay videos I have shown, or mp3s I have created, and explore website
resources I have illustrated in their own time, before and after class.
Please see screen shots for examples 2.a Example of a resources tab , 2.b A sample folder of materials for one week - powerpoints, weblinks, mp3.
Students make purposeful
selections as to what work (learned material) best represents their growth, and
the process of then reflecting and connecting these pieces in the ePortfolios
is evidentiary in itself but the course goals are defined in the Syllabus and
each goal achievement is represented in the grade book. I communicate with
students in this class through the email tool, the blog tool, the discussion
thread tool, the announcements tool, the calendar tool, and the chat room, if
they are unable to make my office hours. I used quizzes to test knowledge, then
a cumulative final exam that increases the difficulty of the content by asking
practical application questions
that many of their assignments (used in the field) have assisted them to
learn. They get feedback on each assignment within one week after they handed
it in, as with the quizzes and final exam. We conduct peer review in class by
watching videos of teaching, commenting on what is working, using the formative
rubrics to grade each one another's work.
Students are encouraged in the second semester to not only a Blog that
illustrates their journey but to amplify it with Vlog clips and a Video collage
in which they take clips of their teaching over 2-3 weeks and represent a theme that they are identifying in the teaching skills or pedagogies. They add a sound track, or voice-over, titles, and
transitions to create a produce that illustrates to me (the professor) the
repeated strengths or weaknesses they are seeing in their teaching. I also link to the data points, and goal managment tools, in another site that I work from in Scholar, so that I am able to track my program assessment and provide aggregated assessment evidence for my unit, department, and school accreditions. Please see screen shot example 3.a Syllabi objectives, 3.b example of how the objectives are represented in the gradebook, 3.c examples of a video collage, 3.d rubrics used with assignments, 3.e assignments that also align with the gradebook for learning outcomes and clear assessment
I personally love the
usability and look of Scholar and don't do a lot to change the teaching platform
presentation. My students add photos and quotes and links to their ePortfolio
templates but I keep the format of all classes the same so they have a sense of
consistency and they know where to find information for the class. Please see example of screen shot 4. from a course to examine the simplicity of the course design and tools/tabs utilized.
Students know to contact Learning Technologies, here at
Virginia Tech for support and I teach them how to use the help menu within
Scholar as well. They know that the Reques4Help tab takes them to the
University help page, that the Knowledge Base tab allows them to search for
answers themselves, and that the support page can direct them to more specific
types of assistance. I believe that this is more important in teaching students
to gain lifelong learning skills , to find information, to search, to pinpoint and to help themselves. Life
doesn't give you answers and you often just need to know where to look to find
them. This aspect of Scholar gives them a feeling of success often, as they are
able to find answers themselves and therefore strengthen their own knowledge
base.
Being
a music educator means being a musician, and in that sense I mean to be an artist;
it also signifies to be a teacher. Our underpinnings as artists subscribe to
the belief that art must be, in some way, experienced, and therefore it is
natural to approach education with the same precept. Fundamental to my personal
teaching philosophy is the principle that learners will learn best by what they
experience in the most meaningful way. In the 21st century, art reflects our
time and culture in many ways and the methods by which we now access music art
is advancing at a tremendous rate. We can ‘stream' radio from all parts of the
globe and we are able to see and hear a master-class given by a virtuosic
artist-teacher in another part of the country in real-time. We are able to see
musical performance and share commentary, which is available on every facet of
the web, as evidenced in platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,
SmartMusic, and Pandora. Music, and therefore music teaching, require sight,
sound, and movement - it is a temporal discipline and the opportunities to
teach temporally (across time) with video, audio, and text in a rich and
meaningful process should not be overlooked in favor of simply ‘teaching the
way we were taught', which, in some cases, can mean learning in only one
dimension. The needs of my students illustrate to me that they learn in the
most meaningful way using the technology, the languages, and the tools of their
generation.
My students' learning is enhanced and transformed by experiencing and using
these technologies because they are firstly able to able to transfer out of the
specific learning context (in our college classroom) and secondly create new
ways to apply their skills (in their own classrooms). Ultimately they are able
to show me how they think, as well as what they know and can do firstly as a student
and finally as a teacher; they can illustrate this to me most effectively using
audio, video, text, and reflective practices within the Scholar teaching and
ePortfolio platforms. Their ePortfolios are rich multimodal products of their
journey from student to teacher.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| EDCI SecSch I 5724SyllabusFall09.doc | 80 KB |
| EDCISecSch II-5744Syllabus SP 10.doc | 70 KB |
| EDCI 5964 Field studies in EducationSyllabus Fall09.doc | 67 KB |
| EDCI 5754 SyllabusSP 10.doc | 74 KB |
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