BRIDGE Report
Janet Cape, ME 582: Praxis in Secondary Music
Overview
ME 582: Praxis in Secondary Music is a major requirement in the music education program at
Westminster Choir College. Students pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree
typically take the course during their junior year, and Master of Music Education students take
the course in their first or second year of study. Some students in the course have already taken
ME 581: Praxis in Elementary Music while others enter with little or no previous teaching
experience.
We spend the first half of the semester exploring teaching strategies that help students to
perform, create, and respond to music. The students plan lessons that follow two learning
sequences created by Dr. Sandra L. Stauffer, and they practice teaching their peers. During the
second half of each semester, students go into the field to work with area teachers for four
mornings each week. Because “general music” at the secondary level could describe courses as
diverse as world drumming, composition, music history, music theory, hand bells, music
technology, and keyboard lab, students often venture into classrooms that look very different
from what they’ve experienced in our course. They need to be able to transfer the skills and
strategies we’ve learned in class to these disparate contexts, and I’ve noticed that students often
struggle to do this. Some initially cope by teaching in the ways that they were taught in high
school; others may feel overwhelmed or defensive and resist their cooperating teachers rather
than learn from them.
Project Goals and Outcomes
My primary goal for this BRIDGE project was to identify and pilot strategies that would help
inexperienced pre-service teachers to apply the teaching strategies modeled and practiced in the
first part of our course to their practicum teaching experiences. I chose an intervention entitled
“annotated portfolio” and detailed in Angelo & Cross (1993) Classroom Assessment Techniques.
I asked the students to collect evidence of their ability to adapt a variety of skills and strategies
from their course work to their general music practicum lessons, and to reflect upon their
learning. Students started collecting evidence during the first week and the portfolio served as a
framework throughout their practicum experiences.
The annotated portfolio intervention was successful in that students were far more conscious of
the teaching strategies they employed and careful to plan for elements required in the portfolio.
In a summative discussion at the end of the semester students shared that the portfolio tasks were
initially daunting but also challenged them to adapt the requirements to their particular settings.
The cooperating teachers were particularly helpful in suggesting lesson adaptations that would fit
within the parameters of the portfolio assignment. BRIDGE helped me to recognize the
importance of teachers’ buy-in and the value of specific “in-the-moment” guidance.
The majority of class members assembled high-quality teaching videos, plans, and reflections
that were suitable for their professional portfolios. For some, limited teaching time negatively
impacted their ability to fulfill the requirements. Due to a larger-than-usual class, the students at
each practicum site had to share their teaching time with several peers. Additionally, students
lost over a week of their practicum experience to Hurricane Sandy. The storm and subsequent
time away left practicum teachers scrambling to get their students back on track, and further
limited the time Praxis students had to teach and to collect evidence for their portfolios.
http://sarahmaelagascasecondarypraxis.weebly.com/index.html
http://edgarkmariano.weebly.com/secondary-praxis.html
http://victoriascheirer.weebly.com/secondary-practicum.html
A secondary goal of this project was to further explore a guided practicum-teaching model that I
piloted during the summer of 2012. I taught the course in a condensed format of just over four
weeks and structured the course in a four-day cycle. Day 1 was a content day, devoted to
exploring methods and strategies; Day 2 was a guided observation day, when we would watch a
veteran teacher work with his/her own students at a local school. On Day 3 the students would
practice teach their lessons for peers and, after making revisions, on Day 4 the students would
return to the local school they had observed and teach their lessons to the students there. I
wanted to know whether a similar model could work during the regular semester, and to see
whether students were more successful as a result of the guided practice.
I was able to use a modified four-day cycle model twice during the Fall 2012 semester and for
six weeks during the Spring 2013 semester. In the Fall semester—two weeks before students’
practicum experiences—we traveled as a class to watch two different general music teachers
teach and I returned with the students in smaller groups as they conducted brief group lessons.
These guided experiences were very time-intensive for me but served as an invaluable bridge
between the somewhat artificial peer-taught lessons and more independent practicum teaching.
In the Spring semester our local general music teachers were unable to take the students for the
usual six-week practicums. Instead I traveled with the entire class to observe, practice, and then
teach in a variety of schools. Again, students said that they appreciated exposure to a variety of
teaching situations and styles but felt they missed out on the benefits of spending extended time
teaching in one setting. A hybrid model in which students peer teach, conduct guided lessons in
a variety of schools, and then spend a longer practicum teaching in one setting, seems to offer the
most advantages for these students. I look forward to additional opportunities to tweak this
model.
Guiding Resources
The problems that I addressed in this project related to issues common to pre-service teachers:
lack of flexibility in their thinking and planning; difficulty adapting content knowledge to other
contexts; and a superficial understanding of classroom dynamics and teaching strategies
encountered in field teaching observations. The BRIDGE reading “How Experts Differ From
Novices” (Bransford et al., 1999) helped to inform my thinking throughout this project.
Bransford et al. identify several ways that experts differ from novices, including two that were
particularly relevant.
First, experts “notice features and meaningful patterns of information that are not noticed by
novices” (p. 19). Bransford et al. provide an example of expert teachers who made far more
detailed and nuanced observations about a classroom video than novices. As part of the guided
teaching model that I investigated in Secondary Praxis, I accompanied students into the field and
served as a facilitator and “tour guide.” I was able to draw their attention to particular teaching
strategies were subtle, seamless, and therefore easy to miss, and I pointed out interactions that
were more significant than they first appeared. Subsequent observations became richer as more
nuanced a result of this guided practice.
Second, Bransford et al. report that “experts’ knowledge . . . reflects contexts of applicability” (p.
19). Not only do experts know a vast amount about the subject of their expertise, but their
knowledge is “contextualized”—experts know what knowledge is most useful in particular
contexts. Bransford argues that students need frequent opportunities to contextualize knowledge
and to apply it to novel situations. In the Secondary Praxis course, the annotated portfolio
assignment required students to make decisions about when and in what ways to use the teaching
strategies studied in class in their own teaching contexts.
Future Revisions
I plan to use the annotated portfolio project in subsequent semesters, and will continue to tweak
the parameters of the assignments. I would also like to help students contextualize their
knowledge before entering the field, and will plan additional assignments that help students to
build these skills during the in-class portion of the course. Finally, I will continue to experiment
with strategies for providing a guided teaching portion of the course. I may use teaching videos
in addition to guided field observations to spur discussion and build students’ observation skills.
I may also work more closely with cooperating teachers to provide students with meaningful
guidance.
ME582 Secondary Praxis Practicum Portfolio: General Music
During your general music practicum experience you will need to plan, collect, and present
evidence of your ability to use the strategies discussed in class in a “real world” setting.
Evidence should be presented in a Weebly portfolio, which you may continue to develop as you
student teach. If you need help setting up a Weebly portfolio or uploading videos, please contact
Jake Ezzo.
The goal of this assignment is for you to provide satisfactory evidence of each competency in
your online portfolio.
Competency
Demonstrate essential musicianship skills
Plan effective and engaging lessons
Teach effective and engaging lessons
Evidence
Video excerpts
Written (typed) lesson plans
Video excerpts
Reflect on your teaching
Written (typed) reflections
You will likely need assistance from someone in your practicum group to assist with
videography. Please do not show student faces in the videos if this is a problem at the school.
Edit and upload evidence to your portfolio and send Dr. Cape the link no later than 48 hours after
the last day of your general music practicum experience.
Musicianship Skills
Video excerpts should be no longer than two to three minutes.
1. Capture evidence of your ability to:
 Make music with students
 Provide feedback that helps students to develop their musicality
 Perform written music accurately and expressively during a lesson.
 Lead group music making with accuracy and use of gestures that promote technical skill
and expression.
2. Provide a brief written narrative explaining how the video excerpt(s) serve as evidence of
your musicianship.
Planning Skills
Create a detailed lesson plan each time you teach. Make sure you clearly identify objectives that
show linkage to the NJ Common Core Curriculum Standards and/or National Standards. Also
specify in detail how you will assess student learning. You may include as many lesson plans in
your portfolio as you wish, but you must include lesson plans associated with each of the three
teaching assignments detailed below.
Teaching Skills
1. Provide video footage of no less than 5 minutes (no maximum length) of yourself teaching
at least one lesson or lesson portion that follows the Stauffer listening sequence
addressed in class. Lessons may be taught alone or with one teaching partner. If you
teach with a partner you must present video of yourself teaching a substantial portion of
the lesson (your video will likely exceed 10 minutes if teaching with a partner).
2. Provide video footage of no less than 5 minutes (no maximum length) of yourself teaching
at least one lesson or lesson portion that follows the Stauffer music creating sequence
addressed in class. Lessons may be taught alone or with one teaching partner. If you
teach with a partner you must present video of yourself teaching a substantial portion of
the lesson (your video will likely exceed 10 minutes if teaching with a partner).
3. Provide video footage of yourself teaching one complete lesson from start to finish. The
lesson should be no less than 10 minutes in length (no maximum length) and can follow
any sound pedagogical sequence you deem appropriate.
Reflecting Documents
1. For each teaching video included in your portfolio, include a written narrative of no fewer
than 500 words. Each document may not be written with a partner teacher – it’s
documentation of your ability to think and reflect as an educator. The narrative should
include:
a.
Your thinking process in developing this lesson.
b.
How this lesson fits within the context of a larger unit or course objective
c.
What, if anything, students have done before this lesson that you will build
upon in this lesson
d.
Points to notice as I watch your video. What are you proud of? What do you
wish you could do over? How do students respond to the lesson?
e.
A detailed reflection on your teaching and on the lesson overall. Points to
address may include:
i. Was your teaching effective? How do you know?
ii. Were students engaged or disengaged during various points of the lesson?
How do you know?
iii. Did you achieve the lesson objectives? How do you know?
iv. Were there any unplanned responses that caused you to alter your plan?
Explain what happened, what you did to respond, and why.
v. What would you change if you could re-teach this lesson?
vi. What did you learn about teaching or about yourself as a teacher as a
result of this teaching experience?
2. Provide a summative reflection on your teaching experience at your general music
placement. What did you learn as a result of the experience? In what ways have you
grown as a teacher?
Website Grading Rubrics
Musicianship
A – Exemplary
Singing/playing is accurate and expressive
Leadership and feedback demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of how to promote
student musicianship
B – Proficient
Singing/playing is accurate but at times lacks expression or musicality
Leadership and feedback demonstrate a developing understanding of how to promote
student musicianship
C – Below Expectations
Singing/playing is inaccurate and/or lacks musicality
Leadership and feedback demonstrate little understanding of how to promote student
musicianship
Planning/Teaching
A – Exemplary
Plan shows linkage to State and/or National Standards
Clear and specific objectives are evident
Activities are appropriate and implemented in a logical sequence
Engages students actively in music
Creates a positive experience where students are motivated to participate
Asks questions that promote critical thinking and musical problem solving
B – Proficient
Plan shows no linkage to State and/or National Standards
Objectives are included but are not specific or are unclear
Activities are appropriate but may not occur in a logical or smooth sequence
Seeks to engage students actively in music
Attempts to create a positive experience; seeks to motivate
Asks at least one question to promote critical thinking and musical problem
solving
C – Below Expectations
Plan shows no linkage to State and/or National Standards
No objectives communicated
Activities are ineffective and do not support objectives
Does not engage students actively in music
Does not create a positive experience for students
Does not ask questions that promote critical thinking and musical problem
solving
Reflection
A – Exemplary
Reflection is detailed, perceptive, and shows depth of thinking
Recognizes strengths and details strategies for continued improvement
B – Proficient
Reflection is somewhat detailed, and shows developing ability to reflect
Recognizes strengths and areas in need of improvement; may not know what
is needed to improve
C – Below Expectations
Reflection lacks detail, is surface-level
Fails to identify, or inaccurately identifies strengths and areas in need of improvement