Kansas Music Licensing Standard #7: The teacher of PK-12 music demonstrates professional responsibility and reflective practice.

Knowledge:

• The teacher understands cognitive, affective, and psychomotor aspects of music education to meet the needs of each learner.
• The teacher is aware of the impact of a music program within a community.
• The teacher understands appropriate professional, ethical, administrative (financial, management, organizational, and operational) aspects of an overall music program.

Skills:

• The teacher articulates a philosophy of music education.
• The teacher provides musical experiences that enhance students’ intellectual, personal, emotional, social, and career development.
• The teacher articulates the unique musical contributions of cultural diversity.
• The teacher manages the classroom and instructional time effectively through appropriately structured learning activities, efficient transitions and pacing, balanced presentations of music education materials, and music for performance.
• The teacher operates and maintains musical instruments and equipment.
• Teachers seek leadership roles and collaborative opportunities to ensure learner growth and to advance the profession.
• The teacher demonstrates abilities in knowledge of technology and its pedagogical application within the classroom to deepen the students’ understandings of musical content.

Reflective Essay

In order to best serve my students, I should constantly be reflecting on and improving myself and my teaching. I will constantly learn alongside my students by reflecting on all lessons given to determine what worked and what did not. If something did not work, I will work to tweak and adjust that portion of the lesson and try something new to be sure students are learning the skills they need. I will give my students a platform to safely express their thoughts on lessons as well, so that they may learn in the way that works the best for them. Feedback from students will allow me to reach every students in my classroom, no matter how different their learning styles are. As a teacher, I will be professional at all times. An important balance for a teacher is to be professional, but still be able to connect with students on a personal level. In order to achieve this, I will be empathetic to students. I will be approachable, encouraging them to ask questions and seek help as needed. However, there will be lines which cannot be crossed. These will be clearly established and will stay that way to maintain professionalism. I have also created a handbook that outlines my classroom expectations and discipline plan so that both students and parents will know what I expect of students who enter my classroom, to avoid any of this behavior early on.
I have worked on a philosophy that explains as much, but I plan to use the wide array of skills I have learned – from how to play instruments to creating curriculum to lesson planning and differentiation – to help my students learn, and will continue professional development as I go to expand these skills so that I may always have something new in my tool belt. This is important for a variety of reasons; I do not intend to ask anything of my students that I am unable to do myself, thus I must be able to do a lot of things. I also know that every students is different and that, not only do they learn in different ways, but they will contribute uniquely to each class and activity as well. Since I will continue to grow and expand my skills as I teach, I will be able to continue to reach a wider variety and larger number of my students in ways as unique as they are.

Artifacts

Artifact 1: Budget Plan

This artifact shows an example of a budget plan that I designed for a class project. It was difficult to do as an abstract project, but gave me a solid background of experience to work with in a real classroom setting. As this is a very important aspect of my job as a music teacher, I feel this is an important artifact to include for me to show my ability for financial management in this setting.

Artifact 2: Philosophy

This is my philosophy of music education. I have and will continue to develop it as I continue my teaching career, as personal reflection will continue to shape me as a person and as an educator.

Artifact 3: KMEA Session Notes

This artifact contains notes from a session that composer Brian Balmages gave at a KMEA Conference in Wichita. This shows a lot of things about my knowledge of aspects of music, but also shows my drive for professional development, which I intend to continue throughout my career to help both myself and my students.