Measures of music teacher expertise in three early career levels in America

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to observe the teaching of five early career music teachers in three early career levels (preservice, student teaching, and novice teaching) to determine if teaching expertise changes over time. A secondary purpose was to find if any specific teacher behaviors associated with effectiveness were more prominent when teaching their peers in pre-service, another educator’s students in student teaching, and their own students in novice teaching. Data consisted of rehearsal frames and instructional targets identified from teaching video transcriptions along with summative evaluations of the videos by expert teachers. Corroborative findings indicated a lack of specificity across all levels which improved somewhat during student teaching and novice teaching. Directives were the most frequently observed teacher verbal category and information and demonstrations were the highest ranked items across all levels in the summative evaluation. However, instructional directive scores were inconsistent. Teacher modeling doubled during novice teaching. Many of the evaluators commented on the overuse of rote teaching, concurrent performance model, and lack of competency-based education techniques. Implications for higher education training including self awareness and accountability are discussed.