Composition-Focused Fieldwork: Developing Pedagogical Knowledge

Experiences based in classroom immersion may be the most critical component in the pre-service teacher’s journey to identify themselves as real teachers (Conkling, 2007). Classroom experiences help pre-service teachers become adept at recognizing teachable moments, anticipating students’ concerns, offering support without co-opting their students’ artistic processes, and interpreting how students process new information or grapple with ongoing challenges.

Active participation in classrooms allows pre-service teachers to observe experienced educators, to design lessons, and to interact with students in the composing process. Most importantly, novice teachers can critically reflect on their teaching practice so that their skills can evolve.

As many school-based mentors are not yet comfortable with or confident in their skills as composition teachers, it can be difficult to find field sites to support this work. Field work typically relies on a mentor-mentee relationship in which the pre-service teacher learns from the host-practitioner. To advance composition pedagogy, this relationship must be reframed as one of collaboration in which each partner possesses a particular expertise (Kaschub, 2019).

Success requires an awareness of experiential boundaries. Preservice teachers bring conceptual knowledge related to composition pedagogy to the partnership; host-practitioners bring their knowledge of the learner and an understanding of age-appropriate teaching strategies. Together, co-learners can design and implement lessons that allow students to experience composition. Through this work, pre-service teachers gain comfort in the classroom and become occupationally socialized, while host- practitioners learn new skills and extend their passion for teaching (Kruse, 2011).

Gaining Momentum. Creating opportunities for music education majors of all interests and specialty areas to experience composition and study composition pedagogy is an important first step toward advancing composition in music education. However, journeys are rarely completed in a single step. Just as there are students who wish to become music teachers because they are inspired by their experiences as performers and their interactions with their ensemble directors (Rickels, Hoffman, & Fredrickson, 2019), so too exist students who love composing music and wish to share that passion with others. How might music teacher education address these would-be teachers?