Since entering the program at JMU, my teaching practice has evolved from a limited understanding of teaching to one that has fuller depth and breadth. I thought teaching meant telling a student what to do and consisted only of whatever I had seen my band teachers doing in class when I was in school. Coming to JMU and taking music education classes enlightened me and showed me that teaching consists of public relations, counseling, administration in addition to teaching. Ensuring students’ success means creating lesson plans that can be wound forward and backward with objectives, sequences, assessment, modalities, and standards. Teaching is not about what the teacher can do, but about how the teacher can create open spaces and facilitate discussions through asking good and appropriate questions to students to promote lifelong learning and music making.
In the fall semester of my sophomore year at JMU (Fall 2017), I wrote statements on leadership, musicianship, scholarship, and engagement and it was amazing to reread them and see how far I have grown and vast variety of activities I have completed since then. At the end of every statement I had written the phrase, “By the time I start student teaching…” and I have actually fulfilled every one of those hopes since then. The overarching theme for me was that I got out of my comfort zone. Music became much more than playing my flute in an ensemble, though I still love doing that. When it came to my thinking, improvement came as I became more knowledgeable in pedagogical topics and teaching methods (i.e. project based learning, assessment). I also became more articulate in my thoughts on certain methods and was better able to research specific topics of interest to me. For example, I wrote a reflection on project based learning my freshman year (Fall 2016) and another one this year (Spring 2019). The difference between the two responses is that I am now better able to synthesize the main points from the readings and write my own opinions on the topic, rather than just quoting what the book says what project based learning is. A similar relationship can be seen in my two posts (Post #1 and Post #2) on Dr. Hammel’s works on special education. In my first year at JMU, I wrote a lot of ideas and had small activities such as the Makey Makey experience in my MUS150 course. My planning has improved since then as I have been more logistically prepared and written a significant amount more emails to coordinate events. I also have gone from writing single experience designs to a creating a full curricula with standards, objectives, questions, and expected outcomes. I have improved in execution in the ways I have planned events and seen them occur from start to finish. Before I simply had ideas and thoughts of what I wanted to do, but had never actually executed them or they were done to a smaller scale. One example of this improvement is the Bridges International Thanksgiving Event that my MUED group helped coordinate and plan. Another example is that I got to facilitate and teach others how to facilitate a JMUke event. Musically I have gone out of my comfort zone by writing songs with secondary instruments and using my own voice. I have grown a lot since entering the program at JMU – I’ve become a more thoughtful, flexible, and intentional educator and I cannot wait to continue seeing where I will grow. Comments are closed.
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Davina MiawOn this page, I will present examples of my leadership through videos, lesson plans, and reflections. Archives
December 2019
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