What Is Everyone Saying About Teacher Evaluation? Framing the Intended and Inadvertent Causes and Consequences of Race to the Top

The purpose of this study was to understand how contributors to national media, education publications, and arts education publications interpret aspects of teacher evaluation enacted in response to Race to the Top. Using Stone's (1989) policy framework, researchers coded articles for intended and inadvertent causes. Analysis indicated that although the authors of Race to the Top explained that in order to win funds, states must take student growth into account, authors for both national media and journals aimed at teachers defined consequences directly resulting from such actions as unintended. Arts educators might hold policymakers accountable for intending or at least foreseeing many of the consequences from Race to the Top as well as consider their own potential role as policy creators and challengers.     

A View of Current Evaluative Practices in Instrumental Music Teacher Education

The purpose of this study was to examine how instrumental music educator skills are being evaluated in current undergraduate programs. While accrediting organizations mandate certain elements of these programs, they provide limited guidance on what evaluative approaches should be used. Instrumental music teacher educators in the College Music Society (n = 303) supplied data about their respective programs through an online survey. Participants reported using written and verbal feedback, self-evaluation, and rubrics most frequently. Similar evaluation processes used across program courses or experiences, such as rubrics and ePortfolios, were described by 35 percent of the music teacher educators. Most programs culminated in a semester-long student teaching period, during which preservice teachers were observed and evaluated by university supervisors three to four times. Weak correlations were indicated between some evaluative practices and music teacher educators’ expectations for program graduates’ music educator skills. Implications for music teacher education programs and suggestions for establishing evaluation policies are discussed.     

Designs Made in the Free Brush Manner

In this article, the author examines the current arts education policies in the United States through the lens of Matthew Arnold's work and prose during his time as one of Her Majesty's School Inspectors in England and Wales in the nineteenth century. Arnold argued for government funding of public school systems, setting standards of quality for teacher education, and many other issues that still affect us today. His passion for a liberal education that included everyone, reinforced by his belief in the moral and humanistic goals that could be reached through an education in the arts, helped open the public schools to the humanities that we teach today. The author provides a valuable overview of what Arnold saw, not only in the English and Welsh schools but also in the French and German approach to education. Finally, the author leaves us with a concise list of what Arnold can teach us today about arts education.     

Degas the Master without Emotion

This article provides a brief review of generally accepted ideas about creativity, followed by examples of music teachers teaching creatively and teaching their students to be more creative. Implications for teacher education and policy recommendations for music education are discussed     

青年教师卓越教学能力的提升对留学生人体解剖与组织胚胎学教学的影响

高校留学生教育迅速发展,我国高校青年教师教学能力的发展还存在诸多问题,"卓越计划"背景下高校青年教师的留学生教学能力亟待提高。根据我校青年教师的发展特点以及留学生教学现状,我们通过组织精彩示范课、教师系列培训等活动以及加强基础教师实践能力培养等一系列措施,形成了一套切实可行的提高青年教师人体解剖与组织胚胎学教学能力的有效策略。经过统计分析发现,教学效果显著提高。     

Children’s book series and associated curricula support elementary education and outreach in water resources

Background: Water resources are of fundamental importance to society, and are better managed by stakeholders who understand resource issues. Gaining such knowledge is a lifelong process best begun at an early age and best supported by educational approaches integrating across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Research scientists can bring resource education to young audiences through children’s books and curricula that emphasise and integrate across STEM principals.

Aims: To encourage empathy for the environment in younger students, researchers at the Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research site have developed a children’s book series and methods for training teachers in water science education.

Methods: Children’s books in the My Water series are paired with curricula, hands-on learning kits, teacher development training and dissemination of materials through school districts to further water science education.

Results: Thousands of children and educators have received training through the My Water book series, and a more broadly focused, federally funded Schoolyard Children’s Book Series has grown out of these efforts towards water resource education.

Conclusions: Children’s books and curricula that integrate STEM principals can play a key role in the development of environmental empathy and lifelong learning to support resource management.     

It's Not the Culture of Poverty, It's the Poverty of Culture: The Problem with Teacher Education

The preparation of novice teachers is dominated by psychological notions almost to the exclusion of other social science paradigms. The perspective that is least likely to be evident in teacher preparation is that of anthropology. However, prospective and novice teachers regularly and loosely use the word "culture" as an explanation for student patterns of behavior they cannot explain. This discussion focuses on the ways prospective and novice teachers construct culture simultaneously as both the problem and the answer to their struggles with students different from themseles.     

Tensions and perplexities within teacher education and P–12 schools for music teachers with visual impairments

We have written this article seeking to connect societal perceptions of disability with P–12 schools and higher education institutions toward the goal of greater understanding and equitable employment opportunities for music teachers with disabilities, specifically teacher candidates with visual impairment. In our investigation, we examine the following questions: (a) How have special education programs within P–12 schools, universities, and schools of music reflected societal perceptions of persons with disabilities and how do those in turn influence perceptions of teacher candidates? (b) How have the essential functions of teaching been articulated by accreditation programs and what tensions arise when music teachers with visual impairments are considered for employment? and (c) What are potential ways forward for P–12 education, teacher education programs, and schools of music? To disrupt binaries between able and disabled in schools, we recommend embracing a broader, interdependent view of music education, one that is defined by and includes all teaching professionals and school communities. Additionally, we support recruitment of teacher candidates with disabilities to music education programs and consistent advocacy through matriculation and job placement to encourage entry into P–12 schools.     

Community arts: (Re)contextualizing the narrative of teaching and learning

ABSTRACT

Education in the United States is often characterized by testing and standardized outcomes, and bears little relevance to the culture and the community that surrounds both students and teachers. Conversely, community arts connect the philosophies of art and education to the larger spheres of culture and community. The community thus becomes an educational space in which both the teachers and students are motivated to learn from each other through a reciprocal relationship that changes the dynamic of both teaching and learning. Consequently, the (re)contextualization of art and education within culture and community has distinct policy implications regarding both what we teach and the way we teach it. There is an opportunity to increase the significance of art education in a democratic society if we embrace practices that empower preservice teachers to analyze how artmaking practices shape their own sensibilities and those of the communities in which they live. This article suggests a field experience model for informing cross-cultural understandings of community-based pedagogy, participation, and collaboration that challenges existing educational policy while informing the values and beliefs of the preservice teacher. It presents the opportunity to develop socially relevant programs for use in the teaching of art that include community, social justice, democracy, collective responsibility, activism, and equity—among others—that confront established perceptions of both art and education.     

Teaching music in the flat world: Reflections on the work of Darling-Hammond and Rothman

Authors and scholars published within Arts Education Policy Review have been diligent to investigate various topics surrounding music educator preparation, mentoring, retention, as well as avenues for continued professional development and growth. Linda Darling-Hammond and Robert Rothman, along with various chapter authors, address education reform on an international level within Teaching in the Flat World: Learning from High-Performing Systems (2015 Rothman, R., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2015). Teaching quality initiatives in the United States. In L. Darling-Hammond & R. Rothman (Eds.), Teaching in the flat world: Learning from high-performing systems (pp. 6–27). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. [Google Scholar]). The purpose of this article is to examine the recommendations presented by Darling-Hammond, Rothman, and colleagues through the lens of music education research and policy review. Specific areas of focus include: (a) recruitment and rigor of teacher education programs, (b) alternative routes into the teaching profession, (c) teacher induction and new teacher support, (d) career advancement and professional development support, and (e) teacher evaluation.