Developing Reflective Practitioners

Abstract

Developing reflective habits in preservice teachers is an important task of teacher education. The use of teaching cases in preservice and inservice teacher education has been strongly supported as a tool to promote this process of reflection in education research and music education research. More recently, education researchers have begun to explore the use of video-cases to promote reflection in preservice teacher education. This article first discusses the process of reflective thinking and its importance to preservice teacher education. Next are implications for using videocases to help preservice music teachers critically examine their beliefs and shift their focus from themselves to their students. Finally, research is presented for effectively structuring video-case experiences, along with recommendations for implementing video-cases in the music education classroom.

Music Teachers’ Perspectives on Live and Video-Mediated Peer Observation as Forms of Professional Development

“…Regarding our second goal, the 12 music teachers interviewed think that video-mediated peer observation should be used as a tool to foster their PD for two main reasons: (a) because video resources are convenient and easily accessible and (b) because video-mediated PD may provide contextualized examples of good classroom practice. The idea that videos can be used “on-the-go” was mentioned by our participants to justify their positive attitudes toward video-mediated PD, similar to music teachers in other international studies (West, 2013). The convenience and accessibility of video as a learning tool are in stark contrast with the many challenges experienced by teachers when participating in face-to-face PD, such as lack of access to PD courses and lack of time to attend when accepted due to busy schedules, and the difficulty associated with finding substitute teachers and commuting to PD sites.…”

“…They seem to find it more natural to learn by observing how a lesson is enacted, rather than reading about it. Indeed, words alone may be insufficient to capture the complexity and richness of the “moves” involved in a music lesson; hence the use of visual modeling might be a more powerful learning approach (West, 2013).…”

“…Live and video-mediated peer observation have great potential to improve the quality and level of preparation of school music teachers, who should be adequately supported with PD to become the experts in charge of delivering music instruction to students. We propose that schools, PD providers, and music associations should work toward the creation and dissemination of their own contextualized video repositories of good classroom practices (Blair, 2013; West, 2013). With the rise of video-sharing websites like YouTube and Vimeo, along with the proliferation of Web-enabled mobile devices, video resources showcasing how other music teachers conduct their lessons or specific music activities can be readily accessed by the rest of the music teacher fraternity (Bauer, 2010).…”

Problem-Based Learning in a Woodwind Methods Course: An Action Research Study

“…We also remain curious about the possibilities for more realistic problem-solving situations. For example, West (2012) suggested using Skype to watch live music rehearsals as cases and calls for researchers to explore the use of real-time music teaching in which preservice teachers could interact with teachers and students.…”

Student Vitality, Teacher Engagement, and Rapport in Studio Music Instruction

“…For example, novice teachers could view videos of successful pedagogues or discuss teaching cases that could help them understand these attributes by seeing them in action. The use of teaching cases (live via online technologies or video recorded) has been suggested as a potentially viable method for introducing students to real-life teaching scenarios in previous literature (i.e., West, 2012;Blackwell and Roseth, 2018). Alternatively, teachers could engage in reflection exercises to look for these behaviors by observing videos of their own teaching and assessing the degree to which they use what appear to be impactful teaching practices.…”