Back in the fall of junior year (Oct. - Nov. 2010), one of my professors asked if anyone would be interested in doing a self-study research project on our junior student teaching experiences. The goal was that this research would be accepted to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), which was being hosted at my college starting on March 31, 2011. Our group ended up being 3 people - Dana, Devon, and me. We gathered data by using the reflections that we had to write at the end of each lesson plan. So, the over-all data included about 27 reflections or so. We coded our data (aka looked for recurring themes), then swapped and coded the reflections of each other.
The coding part was really interesting and was the most valuable part of the whole experience, in my opinion. This was when we all learned more about ourselves and each other. It was nice to realize that I'm not the only one who feels totally inept at time management in lessons or the only one who feels a lot of pressure to make sure these students get a proper instrumental music experience. We ended up (with some wording help from our professor) having a snazzy sounding abstract to submit.
Our abstract was accepted! We made a PowerPoint, worked out a 10 minute presentation, and went over questions that we might be asked during the 5 minute question period. It went over very well so we decided to submit the same research to the Symposium on Music Teacher Education (Sept. 2011 at University of NC Greensboro) and the New York State School Music Association Conference (Dec. 2011 in Rochester, NY). We were accepted to both of those conferences as well! This was something that none of us really though would happen - especially being selected for SMTE.THE INITIAL TEACHING EXPERIENCES OF PRESERVICE MUSIC EDUCATORS
The student teaching experience is a critical phase of the occupational socialization of a professional educator. For most music teachers, this student teaching phase begins in the senior year of undergraduate study. The format of music student teaching varies considerably among music teacher preparation programs. Research on the impact of student teaching on the development of future music teachers has shown mixed results. The purpose of this study was to uncover information about the lived experience of three undergraduate students during the initial four months of their music student teaching experience. The participants in this study are members of a unique junior level student teaching program at a comprehensive college in the northeast United States. In this multiple case self-study, the researchers will collect qualitative data and present their personal experiences during the initial months of this unique junior teaching program. Data sources include self-reflections, cooperating teacher and supervisor feedback, and written self-analysis of videotaped teaching episodes. These data will be coded, salient themes extracted, and findings triangulated to ensure validity. Connections to the university preparation program and the impact on teacher confidence will be explored. Implications for music education and student teaching will also be presented.
Only Dana and I were able to go to SMTE because Devon was student teaching, but we had a big fancy poster and handouts to let everyone know that Devon was included too.
It was genuinely one of the best experiences in my college career. We were the only undergrads who did their own research and presented it at the symposium - there were other undergrads at the symposium, but they were the subjects of the study, not the researchers. So that was an accomplishment in itself! Another cool thing about being there was that all of the prestigious college professors who make their careers of researching education were impressed with what we had done. People who would normally be "Doctor" to us as students were introducing themselves to us by their first names. While reflecting on each day with Dana, we realized that this was something that we should continue because now, we could call ourselves "researchers". It was during this symposium that Dana and I got the idea to continue blogging about our experiences as actual teachers and not student teachers. Professors from other universities already use blogs to keep track of their students who are student teaching so Dana and I snagged that idea. These blog posts would be a way to track our progress, thoughts, feelings, etc. as we enter the "real world". Dana has already started in her blog to tag the posts. It's a very easy way to code the data as we go. I will wait and start tagging once I actually have a job (haha) so that the data doesn't get confused with my pre-employment feelings. Devon will not be entering the workforce yet, so for now it'll just be the two of us.
We really do hope that in 5 years or so, we will have data to publish a paper on the evolution from student to teacher and/or how student teaching helped/didn't help us in the real world or something else like that; we'll let the data lead us to a paper. I'm excited to see where the next chapter of this research project takes us!
