Since my time has begun at James Madison University I have developed an array of skills and abilities to draw on not only in a musical sense but in a general education and social sense as well. It all started from my freshman year where I begin to develop my ideas of “what is a teacher” as well as “what should a good teacher look like”. I developed my first thoughts in a music education class I had called Mus Tech. You can see that in link #1 that I had posted below the beginning of my ideal teacher process. I had a very simple baseline idea of what a teacher is to me, however this has completely changed since then. Through my time at JMU I have gotten to learn new ways to engage students in ways I've never thought off. I have also been given chances to practice my teaching with my peers and received great feedback.
By my sophomore year I had been engaged in not only my thoughts but the other prospective teachers around me. I began to give feedback as well as take it, I also became more involved in discussions within my class in my core MUED courses. From their we were talking about theories and discussing book topics and reflecting that onto our own ideas as a teacher. Little did I know this would be most of music education, finding no right answer but only finding new ways to ask the right questions. This whole year was the first big swing at my major and it went great, I got some teaching time and I learned a few new instruments in my tech classes, at the end of the semester however we had a whole music education event where everybody got to present and discuss topics they were working as well as spread knowledge to others. Afterwards there was a debate that we were able to observe and watch real teachers debate on real topics. I have linked the entire reflection on that night under #2. Rolling into my junior year, I now have reached full teaching capacity. At this point I am not only teaching in my mued classes but I am regularly rehearsing my jazz combo and saxophone quartet, as well as being a section leader in the marching band and teaching through that outlet, as giving lessons to local high school students. My junior year had hit me like a wall of responsibilities, but I charged right over that wall and have since grown immensely. These new leadership positions not only provided me with leadership expense but gave me an environment where I can test different teaching theories and apply concepts. Not only am I being told what to research at this point but I am being challenged to go research different sources of my choice and bring back ideas for projects to become invested in, this is where I wrote about Multi-Musician Engagement. This was a project where I discovered the limitations to young musicians and learning multiple instruments, surprisingly I had found their are little to no limitations because young musicians begin absorbing the training and music like sponges, I have linked that as #3. Since then I have been continuing my learning and developing over this semester and I have plenty planned for future engagement to help myself become the most informed teacher I can be, always making sure to ask the right questions.
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Brandon RhinehartHere I will be posting lesson plans and reflections. Archives
December 2019
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