The Possibilities of Situated Learning for Teacher Preparation: The Professional Development Partnership

Abstract

How do we learn to teach music? Do we learn by mastering body of musical knowledge and skills? What about the knowledge base presented to us in philosophy or psychology of education courses? Must we observe students in their music classrooms so that we acquire more direct understanding of typical development? Does this observation constitute learning to teach? Surprisingly, little research has focused on the question of how we learn to teach music, in spite of the relatively long history of formalized music teacher preparation in the United States. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger have proposed theory of situated learning, building on the idea of apprenticeship, which may help us. Lave and Wenger describe situated learning as participation in community of practice, which they define as a set of relations among persons, activity, and world ... A community of practice is an intrinsic condition for the existence of knowledge, not least because it provides the interpretive support necessary for making sense of its heritage.I They caution that situated learning is not pedagogical strategy; it is theory, or way to understand learning. Several models of music teacher preparation draw on this theory. They attempt to prepare preservice teachers for the realities of contemporary schooling through significant field-based experiences during the initial stages of learning to teach. Small cohort groups of preservice music teachers are based together at the same school site, under the combined supervision of one experienced school music teacher and university professor. One version of this kind of preparation is the Professional Development Partnership, described in more detail in the resources in the Suggested Reading list and modeled after what the Holmes Group has called Professional Development School (PDS): By spending extended amounts of time at school prior to student teaching, preservice music teachers can develop clearer image of the kind of teachers they want to be.