scholarly journals Musical skills, or attitude and dress style? Meaning-making when assessing admission tests for Swedish specialist music teacher education

2021 ◽  
pp. 1321103X2098177
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Sandberg-Jurström ◽  
Monica Lindgren ◽  
Olle Zandén
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Musical Skills ◽  
Assessment Culture ◽  
Admission Tests ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
Entrance Test

Although entrance test criteria seem decisive for accessing higher music education programmes, and problems and challenges with the assessment process are reported, the area is largely unexplored. This article concerns how entrance auditions, specifically primary instrument auditions for Swedish specialist music teacher programmes, are examined and discussed. The data comprise video-documented auditions, focus group conversations, and stimulated-recall-based interviews involving assessor groups at four music education departments. Social-semiotic theory is used to study how assessors judge applicants’ knowledge representations in audition performances. A music-centred assessment culture is constructed, emphasising assessments of technical, communicative, and genre-anchored interpretation skills essential for meeting the demands of the education and profession. Also, a person-centred assessment culture is revealed, emphasising the assessment of personal traits suitable for education and profession. The discussion addresses the reliability, credibility, and validity of assessing abilities in terms of being and behaving in a particular way.

scholarly journals A Mozart Concert or Three Simple Chords? Limits for Approval in Admission Tests for Swedish Specialist Music Teacher Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Sandberg-Jurström ◽  
Monica Lindgren ◽  
Olle Zandén
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Striking Difference ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Minimum Requirement ◽  
Knowledge Representations ◽  
Admission Tests ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
Main Instrument

Against the background of problems with unarticulated concepts of quality and assessment criteria when assessing music, this article concerns how the limit for approval is constructed and legitimised by jurors when assessing entrance auditions to Swedish specialist music teacher education. The data comprise video documented auditions, focus group conversations, and stimulated-recall based interviews, involving jury members at four music education departments. Social semiotic theory is used to study how jurors assess applicants’ knowledge representations in main instrument tests, what is considered decisive for an approval, and how this set limit is legitimised. Four approaches have been constructed: the demanding education and profession, the supposed capacity of the applicant, the flexible admission situation, and the care of the applicant. What is considered to be the minimum requirement for approval in these constructions differs markedly, which shows a striking difference between the views of jurors within and between institutions on how the applicants’ musical performances on a main instrument should be assessed. These findings are discussed in relation to two possible scenarios of revised admission tests.

scholarly journals Care as technology for exclusion

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-73
Author(s):  
Monica Lindgren ◽  
Ragnhild Sandberg-Jurström ◽  
Olle Zandén
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Admission Tests ◽  
Stimulated Recall ◽  
The Future ◽  
Good For

In this article, we explore and problematise admission tests to specialist music teacher education in Sweden from a governing perspective, where higher music education is considered a discursive practice. It illustrates how power operates in legitimating the tests. The study uses stimulated recall in jury members’ talk about assessing applicants for music teacher education programmes, and uses Foucault’s concept of governmentality to reveal entrance tests as something regarded as generally good for all. This operating discourse is built on governmental rationality and processes that make it possible to reach conclusions about the applicants’ personalities and prospects for learning and developing in the future. Through care as technology of power, failing applicants are excluded from becoming music teachers and at the same time they are rescued from struggling in the future. The results are discussed in relation to issues of democratic music education, ethics and requirements for widened access to higher music education.

An Emerging Process of Assessment in Music Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 36-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip D. Payne ◽  
Frederick Burrack ◽  
Kelly A. Parkes ◽  
Brian Wesolowski
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Performance Guide ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Instructional Decisions ◽  
Assessment Culture ◽  
Music Program ◽  
Improve Student Performance ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Effective Assessment

An effective assessment process can improve student performance, guide instructional decisions, and advocate for a music program. Strategies include designing and administering reliable and valid measures of student learning and using assessments to enhance feedback, longitudinal documentation of assessment results for accountability, and a transparency of assessment processes and findings for increased advocacy. An emerging process of assessment is inherent through the Model Cornerstone Assessments and contributes to an evolving assessment culture within K–12 music education.

International Perspectives on Assessment in Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 511-527
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kertz-Welzel
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
Music Education ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Education Assessment ◽  
Teaching Philosophies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Assessment Culture ◽  
International Perspectives ◽  
Musical Knowledge ◽  
Music Education Policy

Music education is part of the public school curriculum in many countries, as either a compulsory or an elective subject. While it offers many young people an opportunity to acquire musical knowledge and skills, it also has its challenges. Being part of the public school curriculum results in a need for assessment in music education. While some problems related to assessment are similar internationally (e.g., concerning music as art), assessment in different countries varies. It depends on various factors such as the general assessment culture, the goals of education, music education policy, individual teaching philosophies, and school culture. By utilizing approaches from comparative music education, philosophy, and sociology of music education, this chapter analyzes music education assessment policies and practices in different countries. By scrutinizing global similarities and differences, it proposes new approaches to assessment that may help address some of the challenges the global music education community faces today.

Courses for Secondary Instruments

2019 ◽  
pp. 344-363
Author(s):  
Molly A. Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Promising Practices ◽  
Education Curriculum ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Teaching Activities ◽  
School Based ◽  
Secondary Instrument ◽  
Institutional Model

The main purpose of this chapter is to synthesize the literature regarding courses for secondary instruments in the interest of making recommendations for promising practices. The chapter also is intended to “push boundaries from within the system” of music teacher education. That is, it is intended to be a resource for those who prepare preservice music teachers (PMTs) for the realities of P-12 school-based music education and who aspire to instill in these new colleagues a disposition toward change. The chapter is divided into six sections: importance of secondary instrument courses, characteristics and configurations of secondary instrument courses, focus and content of secondary instrument courses, peer teaching activities and field experiences within secondary instrument courses, recommendations for promising practices (including professional development beyond the preservice music education curriculum and an institutional model for secondary instrument courses), and future considerations.

Developing Effective Dispositions for Teaching Music

2019 ◽  
pp. 321-344
Author(s):  
Michael Raiber
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Teacher Dispositions ◽  
Teacher Concerns ◽  
Teaching Music ◽  
The Impact

The impact of teacher dispositions on the professional development of preservice music teachers (PMTs) has been substantiated. This chapter describes an approach to dispositional development within the structure of an introduction to music education course. A teacher concerns model is used to organize this systematic approach through three developmental stages that include self-concerns, teaching task concerns, and student learning concerns. A series of 11 critical questions are presented for use in guiding PMTs’ dispositional development through these developmental stages. Activities to engage PMTs in the exploration of each of these questions are detailed for use by music teacher educators desiring to engage PMTs in dispositional development.

Diversifying Musical Experiences in Schools and Music Teacher Preparation Programs

2019 ◽  
pp. 891-901
Author(s):  
Robert H. Woody ◽  
Mark C. Adams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Large Ensembles ◽  
Classical Traditions

This chapter discusses the innate differences between vernacular music-making cultures and those oriented in Western classical traditions, and suggests students in traditional school music education programs in the United States are not typically afforded opportunities to learn skills used in vernacular and popular music-making cultures. The chapter emphasizes a need to diversify music-making experiences in schools and describes how vernacular musicianship may benefit students’ musical development. It suggests that, in order for substantive change to occur in music education in the United States, teachers will need to advance beyond simply considering how to integrate popular music into their traditional large ensembles—and how preservice music teacher education programs may be the key to help better prepare teachers to be more versatile and philosophically open to teaching a more musically diverse experience in their future classrooms.

Pushing the Boundaries from the Inside

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Colleen Conway ◽  
Shannan Hibbard
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Adaptive Expertise ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Classroom Relationships ◽  
School Based

This chapter situates the study of music teacher education within the larger body of music education and teacher education research. It problematizes the terms teacher training, teacher education, and best practice and introduces the concept of teaching as an “impossible profession.” Goals of teacher education, including reflective practice and adaptive expertise, are discussed. The chapter outlines the challenges that music teacher educators face as they try to prepare preservice teachers for the realities of P-12 school-based music education while instilling in these new colleagues a disposition toward change. It concludes with narratives that examine teachers’ descriptions of classroom relationships throughout the lens of presence in teaching as a way to remind teacher educators of the importance of their work to push the boundaries of music teacher education in order to serve the profession at large.

The Oxford Handbook of Preservice Music Teacher Education in the United States

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Education Faculty ◽  
Song Writing ◽  
Faculty And Administrators

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

scholarly journals “I Do Belong Here”: Identity Perceptions of Postgraduate Music Education Majors

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
Crystal Sieger
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Identity ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Axial Coding ◽  
Music Education Majors

Students choosing to enter the music teaching profession after having already obtained undergraduate degrees in other music fields may experience unique forms of socialization and teacher identity development. Participants were four students enrolled in a 3-year master’s program with a music teacher licensure component. Through individual and focus group interviews, participants shared their perspectives on program experiences, course elements, and interactions with peers and professors as important influences on their developing music teacher identity. I examined the data for emerging patterns and applied open and axial coding to the most prominent responses, resulting in themes centered on participants’ socialization experiences, desire for independence, need for self-justification, and “outsider” status among peers. To combat lack of peer recognition or support, participants developed strong, collaborative relations with each other. Implications for music teacher educators are considered.

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