First Advisor

Montemayor, Mark

Document Type

Dissertation

Date Created

5-2020

Abstract

Reflective practice for teachers has become a significant area of interest in education literature and research (Coulson & Homewood, 2016; Loughran, 2002; & Wilson & Clarke, 2004). Student teaching allows pre-service teachers to practice instructional skills through their successes and failures. One way to examine these successes and failures is through reflective practices. Reflection allows for a pre-service teacher to study their habits, planning, and choices towards what would be the most effective plan for their students. The practice of reflection has been researched and shown to be useful for teachers in all areas of education, including music. The purpose of this study was to examine reflective concerns demonstrated by pre-service music educators through varied reflective modalities (in-person interviews, reflective journals, and video-stimulated recall reflection) and how those concerns differed in these different reflective modalities. The second purpose of the study was to determine if the concerns of the pre-service music educators changed throughout their student-teaching placement. The convenience sample of this study included 12 undergraduate music education majors enrolled in student teaching during the Spring 2019 semester at a medium-sized university (approximately 13,000 students) in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. There were five males and seven females with a variety of ethnic backgrounds, focus of study (e.g., general music, MS/HS [middle school/high school] band, MS/HS choir, and MS/HS orchestra) and varying amounts of prior field experiences (substitute teaching, assisting with local school programs, and practicums). The twelve participants demonstrated commonalities as well as unique features for their specific concern profiles. Concerns that the participants felt were unique to them (e.g., anxiety from job searching, unsureness of administration) were some of the concerns and fears that the peers endured throughout the student teaching process. Many of these concerns were likely brought on by challenges experienced with students and interactions with colleagues throughout the study. A discrepancy in the general trend emerged at the midpoint of the participant’s student teaching given that student impact and self-concerns decreased while task concerns increased, during the video-stimulated recall interview. Future research on the development of music educator concerns could be expanded if examined into the first few years of teaching. Also, collecting data at the beginning and end of field-based experiences would enable researchers to determine when and how specific concerns arise throughout the pre-service experience. Moreover, additional research will add to the growing body of knowledge that establishes patterns and at the same time, reveals unique individual and context-dependent aspects of pre-service music educator development.

Extent

151 pages

Local Identifiers

Chatwood_unco_0161D_10845.pdf

Rights Statement

Copyright is held by the author.

Share

COinS