Becoming music teacher educators: Learning from and with each other in a professional development community

Abstract

During this heuristic phenomenological inquiry, we examined our lived experiences as five women (three doctoral students, two early career faculty) in the process of becoming music teacher educators participating in a year-long, online, group-facilitated professional development community (PDC). Data included recorded meetings via Skype, journal entries via a private Facebook blog, and written introductory and final reflection statements. The three core themes that emerged from the data were as follows: (a) self-doubt and fear of failure as researchers; (b) struggle to establish balance; and (c) the PDC as a safe place. The essence of our lived experience in the group was developing our identities as music teacher educators through interactions in our PDC, which was a safe place for us to discuss our thoughts, concerns, and insecurities. We offer

Impostor Phenomenon Responses of Early Career Music Education Faculty

“…Preparation to conduct research is clearly one of the goals and components of a PhD degree. Several authors have lamented, however, that many recipients of the doctorate in music education do not publish a study based on their dissertation, do not continue to conduct and publish research after graduation, and are not prepared adequately or feel unprepared to do so (Humphreys, 2006; Pellegrino, Sweet, Kastner, Russell, & Reese, 2014; Sims, 2016; Sims & Cassidy, 2015). Although Martin (2016) found that the means for the music education doctoral student participants in her study placed them within her “very confident” category as K–12 teacher educators, their mean responses were only within her “confident” category in their abilities to contribute original research or train and mentor graduate students.…”

“…Given the complexity of the job of music teacher educator, the transition from doctoral student to music education faculty member is likely to present a variety of challenges and may even be considered a struggle for some (Martin, 2016). A growing body of literature in music education has begun to address related issues, including the development of identity (Bond & Koops, 2014; Conway, Eros, Pellegrino, & West, 2010), socialization into teaching (Conkling & Henry, 2008), learning to teach graduate students (Conway et al, 2016), peer mentoring (Draves & Koops, 2011), and the role of a professional development community (Pellegrino et al, 2014).…”

“…As Martin described, they “believed that others were less likely to see them in the roles of ‘music teacher educator,’ ‘teacher mentor,’ and ‘researcher,’ when compared with how participants saw themselves,” a “disparity between self-identity and others’ perspectives [that] may eventually affect overall confidence for succeeding in academia” (p. 23). One of the three main themes that emerged from a study about doctoral students and early career music education faculty was self-doubt and fear of failure (Pellegrino et al, 2014). This statement from that study provides a good description of IP feelings: “As a group of both graduate students and early career music teacher educators, we found a shared sense of fear about our abilities as researchers” (p. 469).…”

Doctoral Students in Music Education

“…Therefore, results from this study may reflect selection bias. Though researchers have suggested music education doctoral students may struggle to adopt the identity of "music teacher educator" (Bond & Koops, 2014;Conway et al, 2010;Pellegrino et al, 2014), results from this study showed that music education doctoral students identified more strongly with the identities of "music teacher educator" and "teacher mentor" than identities such as "student" or "K-12 music teacher." This association could be attributed to the fact that the majority of participants were relatively far into their programs, averaging around 44 hours completed toward the doctoral degree.…”

K-12 music teacher-to-teacher collaboration in Iowa

“…Goddard, et al, 2007;Bryk et al, 1999;Caron & M. J. McLaughlin, 2002;Hollins, 2004;McDuffie, 2009;Pounder, 1999;Ronfeldt et al, 2015;Rosenholtz, 1989;Shachar & Shmuelevitz, 1997;Sun, 2016). Concerning music teachers, a number of qualitative studies have documented the importance of collaboration (Battersby & Verdi, 2015;Gruenhagen, 2012;Kastner, 2014;Pellegrino, Sweet, Derges-Kastner, Russell, & Reese, 2014;Sindberg, 2011;Sindberg, 2016;Stanley, 2012;Stanley, Snell, & Edgar, 2014). I found no quantitative studies on collaboration amongst music teachers, prompting the current pilot study on K-12 music teachers in Iowa.…”