Music Education at Penn State
e-Portfolio - Partnership for Music Teacher Excellence
One of the biggest challenges of any undergraduate curriculum is helping students fit all the disparate parts of their curriculum together. The portfolio process is a framework for helping students see these connections. The e-portfolio can serve as an organizer, a goal setter, and a descriptor. It helps them collect evidence of their teaching skills, musicianship, technology skills, relationships with students in the schools, assessment abilities, professional development, and curriculum planning.
Most importantly, however, is the process of reflection necessary in the e-portfolio. The strength of the e-portfolio is the continuous accumulation of artifacts, the feedback from these, and their reflections on them. Reflecting on practice is an essential skill for teachers. This skill must be developed. The e-portfolio provides a structure for preservice teachers to reflect regularly on their strengths and weakness as they select evidence for their portfolio. It enables them to authentically assess their own progress.
Music Education requires the design and development of electronic portfolios as part of the educational development of its students. The format below indicates the year by year process designed to help music education students achieve these goals:
1st Year | 2nd Year | 3rd Year | 4th Year
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Music 040 - FYS in Music Education - (1st year students) |
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| Goal |
Introduce students to:
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| Evidence / Product |
'Scrapbook' reflections about themselves, their relationship with music, and their first semester at PSU. Assessment General e-Portfolio Evaluation Criteria
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| Audience | Themselves, classmates, family, Music Education faculty |
| Technical Skills |
Basic Web publishing skills including:
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| Examples of student work: | |
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Music 140 - Introduction to Music Education - (2nd year students) |
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| Goal | Begin the design and development of a Music e-Portfolio. |
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| Evidence / Product |
An e-Portfolio whose organizational scheme includes links to the following categories of evidence:
Assessment General e-Portfolio Evaluation Criteria
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| Audience | Classmates, Music Faculty |
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| Technical Skills |
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| Examples of student work: |
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Music 340 - Teaching of Music (3rd year students) |
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| Goal |
Collection and selections of evidence from experiences planning for and working with pre-school students at the Bennett Center Development of a personal philosophy of music education for the portfolio. Reflections on teaching and conducting |
| Evidence / Product |
Enhancement / revisions of their e-Portfolio to incorporate new evidence. Conducting samples Assessment Through faculty advising |
| Audience | Music Education Faculty |
| Technical Skills | Adding narration to digital video |
| Examples of student work: | |
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Music 495 D - Student Teaching Seminar in Teaching Music |
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| Goal |
To provide students with an opportunity to collect, select and reflect upon what they have learned at Penn State. To provide students with an opportunity to display evidence of their teaching skills in various musical settings. To provide students with a means of marketing themselves as music educators with prospective employers. To provide students with a strategy of continuing their own reflective professional development after graduation. |
| Evidence / Product |
A culminating e-Portfolio that showcases a range of evidence from their Music Education program of study. Categories include:
Assessment |
| Audience | Music Education Faculty, Prospective Employers |
| Technical Skills | no new skills |
| Examples of studentwork: | |