Knowledge

1. ■The teacher understands repertoire appropriate for various developmental stages.
   

2. ■The teacher knows representative works of the past and present from the solo, small ensemble, and large ensemble literature.
   

Performance

1. ■The teacher performs alone with musical understanding and technical proficiency sufficient to interpret representative works of the past and present.
   

2. ■The teacher performs in small and large vocal ensembles or instrumental ensembles.
   

3. ■The teacher demonstrates the ability to access musical and literary resources for vocal and/or instrumental music.
   

4. ■The teacher develops instrumental pedagogy appropriate for various developmental stages.
   

5. ■The teacher demonstrates singing effective for instructional purposes.
   

6. ■The teacher demonstrates functional knowledge of various band and orchestra instruments.

Reflection/Elaboration on Standard

    Effective teaching is about reaching all students so that each individual is able to grow in the classroom as a learner and a person.  The educator should have a pallet of approaches to teaching that he or she is comfortable with employing in the classroom.  These diverse options allows us to reach all students through multiple dynamics in a lesson.  Along with a variety of teaching approaches, this same pallet should include evaluation and assessment options that correspond with the teaching techniques being used.  For instance, if the teacher is having the students develop their ability to interpret the symbolic references presented aurally in a piece of music, it would make sense for them to be assessed by their abilities for aural interpretation, including listening to pieces being performed.  It is also expected that the educator understands teaching and evaluating techniques that are most applicable to the course, age, and the classroom dynamics.  As music educators are certified K-12 in all music disciplines, it is important that they have versatility to fit lessons well for each possible situation.

    While at Kansas State, I have worked to increase my knowledge and abilities as an educator both on and off campus.  While on campus, I have broadened my musical knowledge in techniques courses, spending time with each instrument in hand, including voice and piano, learning correct technique as well as effective pedagogical approaches.  I have also taken education courses specific to younger and older students, learning effective techniques that fit the age group as well as the basic curriculum for each. Finally, through my University Band experience, I was able to not only conduct a piece, but formulate rehearsal plans and work in individual weekly coaching sessions to refine my abilities as an effective educator of the ensemble.  Along with my experiences on campus, I have also spent many hours in the schools around the area, observing and evaluating teaching techniques in action, as well as being able to try some approaches on my own.  Being able to work with real students in practical learning environments has given me the chance to experiment a bit and see where I still have room to grow so that I can refine these areas through my future experiences.

    Finally, I believe that a teacher is only as effective as their own abilities.  In an effort to be the best that I can be, I performed in choral and instrumental ensembles, as well as taking private lessons on saxophone and organ.  I have been involved in marching band and jazz band to help broaden my understanding of the most common variations in the instrumental world.  I have also grown as a musician in chamber ensembles such as saxophone quartet and clarinet choir.

Artifacts

    My first example of my abilities in teaching and evaluating is shown in my elementary lesson plan.  I wrote this lesson plan for use in my apprenticeship at Woodrow Wilson Elementary school and taught the lesson on October 1, 2013.  The lesson plan had the students participate in a call/response game that emphasizes the difference between singing and speaking voices and then using a kinesthetic expansion for Hickory Dickory Dock emphasizing their understanding of beat.  This lesson plan includes objectives, a detailed lesson plan, and an assessment.

    When writing this lesson plan, I felt well-prepared and ready to teach the students.  The lesson went over fairly well, but I found that I need to over-plan.  The biggest problem that I ran into was that I wasn’t sure the best way to transition while teaching - this is an important part of the lesson planning though.  I also learned that assessment is pretty easy to include informally as this is something I have grown up doing all of the time.  Including formal assessment is a bit more difficult, especially in the elementary classroom where there are 20 excited young children to keep engaged during the lesson.  I found that I could assess by having the students repeat an activity multiple times so that I had the chance to assess the students individually while keeping everyone else still engaged.

    My second example is a lesson plan from a “secondary” setting.  This lesson plan is from when I taught a small ensemble as a part of university band on April 16, 2013.  The ensemble was an all-brass ensemble.  We were rehearsing a piece entitled Norse Song by Robert Schumann.  The lesson was focused primarily on musicality.  During the lesson, I used pictures to help students visualize what they are supposed to be portraying through the music to try and engage them in more musicality.  The lesson plan again includes objectives, detailed procedures, assessment, as well as evaluation questions for myself after the lesson.  One of the most important evaluation questions that I included was “Did i sensitize or desensitize the ensemble today?” This is a question that I was asked during one of my first University Band experiences that I now regularly ask myself. As a director, really those are the only two options - and desensitizing the ensemble is simply not-productive as a teacher.

    From this experience, I learned that I have a strong musical understanding, but need to continue to develop ways to portray this to the students that I work with and develop the same abilities in them.  The ensemble responded well to the pictures and were able to understand how to apply this to their instruments.  As a teacher, this requires a bit of extra planning and effort, but would be worth it if the results were as effective with other students as I found they were with this ensemble.