Transitioning from music teacher education to professional life: spatially situated possible selves

This article is the account of a music teacher educator, a doctoral student (teaching assistant) and a pre-service music teacher regarding the impact that an innovative course offering at a large research university in the south-eastern United States had on students’ perceptions of their musicianship and notions of what a music teacher is and does. Elements of Tom Turino’s participatory music-making, hi-fidelity and studio audio art (in addition to presentational music-making) were infused into a new course sequence. Students formed independently operated small groups and worked on original arrangements of popular music selections and original songs for both live performance and recording. Pre-service music teachers’ developing musicianship and notions of what a music teacher is and does were impacted. While the scope of the class and complimentary lab class incorporated all of the areas of music-making that Turino details in his work, this piece will focus on the incorporation of participatory music-making into music teacher education. The authors would also like to bring the work of Keith Sawyer into the conversation surrounding participatory music-making that includes elements of improvisation.

Pre-service music teachers’ satisfaction with the curriculum has implications for student learning and curriculum development. It is necessary to investigate pre-service music teachers’ satisfaction with the curriculum to help universities respond to changing social needs. However, there is lack of empirical studies on this topic in China. This study aims to explore the degree of satisfaction of pre-service music teachers in northern China with the curriculum to reveal the current challenges and issues in music teacher education. For this, a quantitative statistical method was adopted to conduct a questionnaire survey among 421 pre-service music teachers who major in music education in four different universities in northern China. The satisfaction survey regarding curriculum content and curriculum design was conducted to identify challenges and issues in the current music teacher education curriculum. The results show that pre-service music teachers are moderately satisfied with the curriculum. The findings indicate the following: 1. Teaching methods are monotonous; 2. There is some ambiguity concerning teaching objectives and training standards; 3. Practical courses and practice mentors need to improve; and 4. Pre-service music teachers lack confidence in the preparation for teaching in the future. Universities can significantly contribute to improving curriculum satisfaction and students’ confidence in teaching preparation by actively providing teaching-related knowledge, skills, policies and goals. Universities should consider the learning needs of pre-service music teachers and improve traditional teacher-centered teaching methods to improve teaching quality.

Objectives This qualitative study aimed to examine Korean preservice music teachers’ perceptions of portfo-lio-based teacher education.
 Methods A focus group interview along with an open-ended survey was executed with five preservice music teachers who were enrolled in the same portfolio-based music history education course at a graduate school of education in Seoul, Korea. The collected data were transcribed in Korean, translated it into English, and then in-ductively analyzed.
 Results The findings show as follows. First, all the participants have rarely experienced portfolio-based learning. Second, the portfolio-based learning approach is perceived as a way to self-driven learning experience, which promoted their own growth and capacity for critical thinking and self-expression. Meanwhile, heavy-loaded as-signments and inconcrete learning objectives were found to form their negative perceptions of portfolio-based learning approach. Third, for succesful portfolio-based learning and teaching, teacher educators’ detailed learning objectives and guidelines along with good questions as well as assignment qualities are found to be essential.
 Conclusions In conclusion, portfolio-based teacher education approach can promote preservice music teachers’ capacity for self-driven learning and teaching. As for its open-ended nature, teacher educators’ role and attitude can be key components component for successful portfolio-based learning and teaching experiences. For future stud-ies, it is important to continue to discuss possibilities and limitations of portfolio-based music teacher education by reflecting the study’s findings and implications. It will ultimately optimize ways to empower music student teachers’ agency and capacity. This study contributes to underrepresented portfolio-based Korean music teacher education theory and practice.

The topic of music teacher education and training raises many issues for discussion. The purpose of the present study was to analyse the approach of pre-service music education teachers towards their professional activity and to discuss their expectations within the context of the competence-based education. Thirty four students (international and national), all pre-service music teachers studying in Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, were included. The results indicated that generally the expectations of students were (more or less) in line with the principles of the competence-based initial music teacher education. Prospective music teachers describe their professional activity as broad and multidimensional but they also emphasise the importance of personal and ethnic values, implementation of general, subject-specific and professional competences and continuous improvement. It has been revealed that in music education it is particularly important to combine orientation towards pedagogical activities with orientation towards the spread of the learner’s personality. Keywords: Competence-based education, music teacher education, competences, student’s expectations, Lithuania.

The purpose of this study was to examine the intergenerational interactions between preservice music teachers and senior adult musicians engaged in music teaching and learning in a New Horizons ensemble within one university’s music teacher preparation program. This intrinsic qualitative case study included written reflections and observational data of 16 current undergraduate music education students and verbatim interview transcripts of 5 current and former students serving as teaching assistants who taught and conducted their university’s New Horizons ensemble. Findings distilled from the data included (a) how younger-aged preservice music teachers responded to generational differences while learning how to interact with senior adult musicians, (b) the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) learned and developed by participants as a result of teaching in a New Horizons ensemble, and (c) the connections made by participants teaching senior adults to their future careers as professional music educators. Future discussion and directions from this study highlight emerging connections of research between adult and community music settings and music teacher education. Implications include (a) how to create best practices so that the missions and objectives of both music teacher education programs and cooperating community adult ensembles support and enhance each other, (b) fostering outcomes that prepare music education majors for experiences in adult music education, and (c) reimagining New Horizons and music teacher education partnerships that result in more national, racial, cultural, and musical diversity and inclusion.

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of student-written cases as part of an instrumental music methods course. Research questions included the following: (a) What are the positive and negative issues associated with student-written cases? (b) What are preservice music teachers' perceptions as to the value of case writing as part of an instrumental music methods class? Five preservice instrumental music students who were enrolled in music teacher education at a large midwestern university agreed to participate in this study. A qualitative comparable case study design was used in this investigation. Student-written cases, the researcher's feedback, and interviews with the participants served as data for this study. Positive issues included student reflection and the building of music teacher identity through revisions and feedback. Negative issues included lack of time, the need for discussion of cases, and the need for peer feedback. Participants expressed that case writing was a valuable activity.

Occupational identity development is an important, complex component of music teacher education. Preservice teachers may experience dissonance between and/or integration of their musician and teacher identities, and scholars have found early field experiences to be important in undergraduates’ transitions into the teacher role. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to examine the occupational socialization and identity development of preservice music teachers in an early field teaching experience with a focus on preservice teacher and P–12 student interactions. I conducted observations, interviews, and a demographic survey during a semester-long early field experience. Findings centered around (a) the dynamic nature of preservice teachers’ identities; (b) the importance of peers, music teacher educators, and students to preservice participants as they engaged in the process of becoming music teachers, and (c) the momentary embodiment of music teacher and student roles. I connect these findings to prior research and suggest implications.

In this study, we employ a participatory action research framework to investigate how preservice music teachers can take part in developing their own education. The main focus is on how two music teacher educators at two institutions in Norway work to create a space for student voice and participation. The study’s data are analysed and presented through a combination of self-study methodology and narrative analysis conducted by two of the authors, followed by reflections by the two other authors. In these analytical steps, we identify four teacher roles in the form of metaphors: ‘the impatient manager’, ‘the conflicted gatekeeper’, ‘the balancing artist’ and ‘the reluctant host’. These roles are further discussed in light of theoretical perspectives on student voice and participation. The results reveal challenges in the use of participatory action research and in making changes to music teacher education.

To facilitate cultural competency among preservice music teachers, music teacher educators must create ongoing opportunities for discourse and situated learning. The purpose of this collective case study was to examine four preservice music teachers’ experiences in the Arranger-in-Residence Program (AIRP)—a community engagement project emphasizing service-learning and placed within a socioeconomically diverse urban school district. Research questions included (1) How did the participants describe their experiences in the AIRP? and (2) What challenges, if any, did the participants experience during the service-learning initiative. The AIRP involved music education students enrolled in an undergraduate-level orchestration course. Overwhelmingly, the participants’ experiences with the AIRP were considered positive and signaled unique opportunities for personal growth as novice teachers. Each of the participants described moments where they acknowledged and confronted their implicit biases.

The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to examine how preservice music teachers’ participation in a 4-year lab choir setting contributed to their teacher identity construction. This lab choir represents an uncommon case of peer teaching because preservice teachers enroll in the course each semester of their undergraduate career and participate as singers for multiple semesters before taking on the teacher role, at which point they are teaching an ensemble made up largely of younger students. The eight participants in this study were choral music education majors who had been members of the lab choir since their first semester at the university. Three themes emerged from the data: culture of identity construction, evolution through coursework, and peers as future selves. Participants felt the lab choir experience contributed positively to their identity construction and skill acquisition. Implications for music teacher education are discussed.

This article draws on a classroom project to explore the complexities of collaborative teaching within the music classroom, where a professional team collaborated to facilitate digital music-making at a lower secondary school in Norway during a student teacher practicum placement. The collaborative team, including in-service and pre-service teachers, researchers, and a professional musician, facilitated a composing project by means of the digital audio workstation (DAW) Soundtrap. The purpose was to shed light on the complexity and emergence of the collaborative music project; how material, structural, and educational conditions impacted the process; and the pre-service music teachers’ ways of handling a complex situation. The study was theoretically guided by a socio-material perspective, more specifically by complexity theory, and an abductive analysis was performed. In keeping with the nonlinearity and complex causality of socio-materialism and complexity theory, the researchers created three reflexive viewpoints: emergence, enabling constraints, and entanglements. The results show that technological and technical issues permeated the classroom work, making it difficult to separate social and material aspects of the project. Awareness of the entanglement of social, institutional, historical, and material dimensions of education thus can provide a useful framework for emerging music teachers’ professional development. In this way, our findings support the claim that music teacher education should aim at helping pre-service teachers prepare for encounters with complex and versatile educational situations.

  The purpose of this study is to identify how a four-semester music teacher education programme on self-regulation changes as they progress through the programme. The participants of the study included a total of 101 music teachers in four different semesters of their teacher preparation programme. The instrument used in this study is the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). It has 81 items. It is composed of two parts: the first part deals with motivation and contains six subscales and the second part deals with learning strategies and contains nine subscales. The cronbach alpha reliability coefficients of these subscales ranged between .86 and .41, whereas the collected item-total correlation ranged between .19 and .66. One-way ANOVA was used to identify patterns within cohorts regarding pre-service teachers’ beliefs about self- regulation skills. The inquiries of this study included that preservice music teachers’ motivation areas of self-regulated learning skills improved at only one specific category during four years’ music teacher education preparatory programme. In the motivation area, freshman and sophomore; freshman and senior pre-service teachers scored significantly higher on the scales of Extrinsic Goal Orientation. In the learning strategy area, freshman and junior pre-service teachers scored significantly higher on the scales of Critical Thinking.   Key words: Self-regulation, preservice music teacher, teacher education, teacher education programme.

The purpose of this study was to examine agentic thinking among preservice music teachers through a “directed content analysis” (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) of the written coursework of 2 cohorts of preservice music teachers (N = 66) enrolled in an introduction to music education course in order to advance knowledge of agentic thinking in music teacher education research and practice. We used a theoretical framework informed by Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) triadic conception of agency that positions human agency at the nexus of 3 temporally oriented elements: iteration (past), projectivity (future), and practical evaluation (present). We investigated the agentic temporalities of different assignment types and analyzed the agentic vocabulary usage in premidterm and postmidterm assignments by cohort, identified gender, year in school, residency status, major, and applied instrument. We found slight differences in overall agentic vocabulary and vocabulary by agentic element between cohorts. Unexpectedly, we noted a marked decline in overall agentic vocabulary usage in postmidterm written assignments compared to premidterm written assignments. Analysis of change over time by agentic element found decreases in iterative and practical evaluative vocabulary and an increase in projective vocabulary usage in postmidterm written assignments. Findings from key-word-in-context analysis, however, suggest that a decline in agentic vocabulary may be related to a refinement in agentic vocabulary usage and an increased openness to different perspectives and career options. Based on our results, we argue that Emirbayer and Mische’s framework may provide music teacher educators and researchers with a nuanced tool by which to investigate, understand, and foster music teacher agency.

The Oxford Handbook of Preservice Music Teacher Education in the United States aims to work from within the profession of music teacher education to push the boundaries of P-12 music education. In this book, we will provide all of those working in music teacher education—music education faculty and administrators, music researchers, graduate students, department of education faculty and administrators, and state-level certification agencies—with research and promising practices for all areas of traditional preservice music teacher preparation. We define the areas of music teacher education as encompassing the more traditional structures, such as band, jazz band, marching band, orchestra, choir, musical theater, and elementary and secondary general music, as well as less common or newer areas: alternative string ensembles, guitar and song-writing, vernacular and popular music, early childhood music, and adult learners

In this article, three researchers and music teacher educators reflect upon the possibilities for and challenges of fostering preservice teachers’ critical and democratic capacities and agency in music teacher education in line with recent 21st-century skills-oriented policy reforms. Based on experiences from participatory action research with preservice music teachers in general teacher education at two Norwegian institutions, the authors problematise how critical reflection is defined in educational literature, in policy documents, and by students participating in the referred participatory action research. The authors further discuss the different understandings of critical reflection, considering concepts such as student-centredness, students as customers, student resistance, and student voice. Inspired by critical pedagogy, the authors suggest that the preservice teachers’ articulated reflections represent important steps in their progress toward becoming professional music teachers and that enduring the discomfort of loosening up the student-teacher dyad benefits the development of students’ agency and critical reflection.