ePortfolio Updates

While more teaching artifacts are always a welcome addition to an ePortfolio and the ePortfolio should always be a work in progress, I feel that there are a few areas in which I would like to specifically focus during the remainder of this semester and leading up to my student teaching. These additional artifacts will allow me to further demonstrate my competency in these areas. I feel that this course will afford me the opportunity to develop several very unique and powerful artifacts, not only for the diversity of learners outcome, but for my entire ePortfolio.

The first area that I would like to add additional artifacts to would be the subject matter knowledge. Throughout my coursework at CWRU, but more specifically this semester, I have begun to understand how world music is inherently linked to music, in general. I feel that a stronger basis of understanding in world music will allow for unique opportunities in the classroom in the future and also will help deepen my understanding of western music. For this section, I would hope to add several lesson plans on world music, perhaps even a video of myself teaching a short lesson on world music. I feel that the cultural context guide would be, specifically, a very good fit for this outcome.

The next area that I would like to focus on would be what I consider to be my weakest outcome, the diversity of learners outcome. Due to the nature of this outcome, accurate learning experiences are almost impossible to have in the controlled classroom environment. I feel that I am quite lucky to have this course to aid in my development in this area. I would, again, like to add several papers and lesson plans to this outcome. Of all the artifacts that we will generate in this course, I feel that the best ones for this outcome will be the interview of our collaborator, the listening lesson, and the arrangement. Finally, the last artifact that would do very will in this category would be a video of our curricular units being taught in the schools.

The final area that I would like to focus on updating this semester would be my planning instruction outcome. As I have stated before, my personal philosophy on music education now reflects the increased respect and inherent educational value that I understand world music has. While I have already designed several units and attached them to this outcome, I feel that a world music unit which echoes my educational philosophy would be a great addition. I very much hope to use the unit that we design in this course to fulfill that requirement.

Overall, I feel that my ePortfolio will significantly benefit from the artifacts that we will generate in this course. Many of these artifacts are going to be unique and very powerful and deserve inclusion into our ePortfolios.