The teacher collaborates with students, families, colleagues, other professionals, and community members to share responsibility for student growth and development, learning, and well-being.
Music teachers are required to collaborate with the other members of their students’ lives, and allow them to become involved with the musical activities students are involved in. Involving those other members, such as family, colleagues, other professionals, and community members in musical aspects of students’ education helps students to know that there are people who love that they are being active in music and that they want to be heard and seen performing. This is also a great opportunity for those members to see the necessity of music in schools and how it broadens students’ minds and thinking. It also provides for the working of the creative sides to students’ brains and they can be themselves when participating in music. There are many ways for teachers to collaborate with the other members of students’ lives. Some of these ways are to put on concerts for the community and everyone hear the progress the students have made, as well as for students to share the talents they truly have. Also, having students participate in IMEA or musical competitions like Solo and Ensemble give those members a chance to listen to the students under pressure and be awarded for how well they do at these competitions. Allowing students to participate in this creates the opportunity for them to receive criticism that benefits them as a musician, and for people to see how well their instructor has taught them when they perform on their own. This is important in the musical community so people truly see what good comes out of participation in music.
I do not believe that I have the experience in this standard that is required for music teachers. I have not been given the opportunity to teach in front of a large group or be in charge of an ensemble yet that would require me to collaborate those other members in students’ lives. I believe that I will achieve this standard with time and experience with teaching once I am given the opportunity to teach an ensemble.
As for the steps I will take to become more experienced with this standard, I know that I will continue taking Music Education classes to get me started with this standard. I will also continue participating in choirs and ensembles at Ball State and recognizing what those teachers do to collaborate with the other members of the community in the musical aspect of college. I will take note of what works and what doesn’t work to make those people active in our musical presentations and performances. I will also be doing student teachings later on in my college career that will allow me to see what those teachers I am observing do to collaborate with their students’ members. All of these steps will help me to master this standard and perform it in the best way that helps my students.
MUSE 356- Choral Methods 1 Artifact: Email exchange Rationale: Throughout my courses at Ball State, I have had to communicate with teachers at cooperating schools to come and observe/teach their classrooms, so I have done some collaborating and meeting InTASC #10. The artifact attached is an email exchange between a cooperating teacher and myself at a middle school. In my future teaching, I will continue to work on collaborating with fellow teachers, the community, students, families, and other professionals to share in the responsibility and work with others to benefit student growth and development.
MUSE 376- Choral Methods 2 Artifact: Email Exchange Rationale: I have learned that as a future educator, I will have to collaborate with many people throughout the school, community, etc. in order to ensure the best education for the students. This artifact I have attachedis another email exchange between a cooperating teacher and myself at a high school. I worked with this teacher to prepare lessons that would best benefit the students and give me experience teaching her classroom. The emails we exchanged helped me understand how important communication is and what it means to collaborate with teachers. I will continue to work with other teachers, the community, families, and fellow professionals in my future teaching to educate the students in the best way possible.
MUSE 350- Practicum Artifact: West View Elementary Lesson Plan Rationale: Throughout this practicum placement, I have been talking with my cooperating teacher on lesson plans and working out teaching her students. This artifact reflects a collaborative effort to teach a lesson to the students. She executed a lesson one day and I was to execute the same one the next day to one of her other classes, and she decided that she didn't like the sequence so she wanted to change it. I mentioned a few things to her that we could possibly do to change it and she decided these were good ideas, and when she did it next, she said it was very effective. This lesson plan reflects how we worked together a little bit. The portion where we worked together is in blue.
Student Teaching Artifact: Food Drive Flyer Rationale: While student teaching, a few of the teachers at West View Elementary School placed the student teachers in the building in charge of the food drive they have at the school. We were instructed on what to do to pick up the items, that we needed to make a flyer to send home with the students, and to count up all of the items after each day. I took the lead on this project, and made sure to pick up the items every morning and have the tally of the numbers per class to the principal so she could make an announcement. I also created a flyer that I sent home with the students on the basis of what the teachers before me had done in the past. I attached this artifact here to give the example of what I had done to help with this project. It was also a competition, so the winning class received a pizza party. All of this information is on the flyer that was created, and all of the students did their part to bring in items for the food drive. All of this went to a worthy cause, and I am happy I was able to lead in the direction of this project. By contributing to this food drive, the students are understanding what it means to give of themselves and help others.