Hi everybody, and welcome back to Season 3 of the Common Time podcast. We're so glad to have you here to continue bringing our conversations, insights, and inspiration for music educators everywhere. Each week, we'll highlight voices from across the music world and share ideas that you can bring directly into your classroom and to your ensembles. And now let's turn to our guest. Our guest today is Colleen Conway. Welcome, Colleen.
Oh, I'm so happy to be here.
We're excited to have you. Colleen is a professor of music education at the University of Michigan, and she's currently editor in chief of the Journal of Music Teacher Education. And today, we're talking about success for student teachers. John, get us started.
Yes, hi, Colleen, it's so good to see you. Thanks for being on here with us. So I'm just going to start off right away by asking, what qualities or habits have you consistently seen in student teachers who are thriving during their student teacher placements?
Sure. So you know, I'd say initially the first quality is bravery, because even though we walk in and we think all right, I've got this, I've got this, there's so many things you can't plan for. So you have to plan for some of them, but you have to be ready to just jump in essentially when asked to do so. The second thing I'd say is humility a little bit. I think sometimes we go into student teaching things thinking it's actually going to be easier than our pre service work because you don't know how many 18 credits I've been taking and how hard my life has been. And I'm always saying to student teachers, you're about to experience a different kind of tired. Like you've been busy, you've been practicing, you've been in 10 chamber groups, but being in front of children all day long and having people give you feedback all day long. So you have to be ready to realize that it's a different kind of tired and you have to be nice to yourself a little bit along the way as well. So get out there and be brave, but also have that kind of reflective moment to say, oh, this is hard.
Yeah, I love those. So I'm curious, in your research and your experience, what are some of the biggest misconceptions that student teachers have about music Ed and the student teaching experience before they enter the classroom?
Yeah, that's a lovely question because I think it's an easy one to answer. Every student teacher in music, I think comes to that juncture of getting ready to student teach with the idea that they're about to take all they've learned in their music education degree and everything about the instruments and the rehearsals and the this and then that. And they're going to get there and they're going to teach music. And what they forget is that there's this thing called people in their own children in their room, young adults in their room, youth in the room. And really the best student teachers, the best teachers are those that recognize that relational capacity and that really no music making is going to happen unless you get to know the students, unless they get to know you. And so we talk a lot about how classroom management's always such a hard thing for student teachers and for first year teachers. And it's mainly because they go in thinking their job is to go make music and they forget that their job is actually to teach children and to create those relationships essentially first, because no music making can happen without those relationships.
And just in context, how many undergraduate music education students do you think you've taught?
I was actually thinking about this on the way here. First of all, if I back up, I had 15 student teachers myself when I was a public school educator. So I feel like I bring having worked with 15 student teachers as a cooperating teacher. And if you add up Rutgers University, Michigan State University and Michigan, I'm sure it's hundreds — high hundreds — of numbers of student teachers that I've had the opportunity to mentor and work with and teach. So yeah, that's a lot.
It is a lot, you know, but so when I see student teachers — even my own student teachers when I was teaching — trying to build trust and a rapport, I always felt was a challenging first step. Do you have any strategies to help incoming student teachers do either or both of those? Even though it's only a short term placement, but it's such an important part of the process.
Yeah. So, you know, to back up before the student teacher arrives, I think we have to put a little bit of responsibility on the cooperating teacher. So first of all, how is that cooperating teacher in the field preparing their own K12 students for what's about to happen? And I think the best placements occur when that happens before. So the band director gets up and says we're going to have a student teacher — and some big programs have a student teacher every semester — but rather than we got another one coming, I think it needs to be we have a student teacher starting and this particular person is from here and they play this as their primary instrument. And here's what they're going to bring to us. I recently did a study actually on cooperating teachers. And I would say the best co-op teachers would say they learned something from every single student teacher they had, right? Every student teacher is bringing something unique. So for me, step one — the student teacher can't really control it, but the university can — is to say co-op teachers, prepare your own students for essentially what's about to happen. And I guess the second thing I would say when the student teacher arrives, if we're going to build trust and get to know one another, is to start with this opportunity to get to know students. And so I say to student teachers, if you can get a roster of who's all in that ensemble and how many tenor saxes are in there and how many piccolo players there are and what are their names, you can start to memorize some of those things initially. And it goes a long way if you can walk up to a kid and tell them their name before they tell you their name — they recognize that you're trying very hard to essentially get to know them. So I think there's some pre work before you get there, but on the first day, you know, I think we want to make sure that we take time to get up in front of the group and say hi. My name is Colleen Conway and I've been in school to prepare for this my whole life. I really want to be a music teacher. I happen to be a horn player. So let me play a little bit for you. And I think the trust building piece really comes from sharing your musicianship, not in a show off way, but in an introduction kind of way. And I think most middle school and high school students step back a little and go, oh wow, look, she can play, or, you know, whatever that is. And so taking the time before you just get up and start rehearsing to really make sure that you're essentially making those connections — and then keeping those connections, continuing to study how to pronounce a name correctly before the next day if you messed up on it — and trying to build credibility. I think it is important, but not in a braggadocious sort of way.
There's a story I will never forget about my dear friend and colleague, David Clemmer, who was — we were teaching drum corps one summer and the guys were giving him hell. Like, you can't do this, old man. He takes the trumpet and just throws down this lick that was damn hard. And after that, David, remember that you didn't have any issues — there was trust.
Whatsoever it was, I was just like, you know, but then — I was over it.
But then also Colleen, on the other side of the coin about trust and rapport — how do you destroy that rapidly? Do you have any suggestions about what not to do?
Absolutely. I mean, I get the ego — you're kind of already going there, right. So if it comes off to students at all like you think you're all that, boy, are they going to notice that right away. And so I think in our effort to look like we're quote in charge, it goes back to the relationships piece. We sometimes get up there and just boss kids around and they can tell it, right? They can tell if you don't really know what you're talking about, but you're pretending to be up there doing your thing. So it's a funny little border because of course you don't want to be wimpy either, right? You want to get up and be confident, but you have to be confident in a very authentic kind of way or kids really will respond to that well or not well. The other piece I think we have to think about is this age difference — the very little age difference sometimes between a student teacher and high school and middle school students. And I think that's hard for student teachers as well. It feels like, my goodness, these students feel more like my friends than they do my students. And so that's another thing that can go really wrong — if you go in and you're just trying too hard to be their friend, then you're never going to get that trust and respect that you essentially need. It's a tricky little road to navigate.
It really is. I really do love the first portion of that answer about preparing the cooperating teacher because I've been in situations, seen situations where that planning aspect wasn't in place and then the student teacher arrives and there's really no direction from either one and it can be pretty difficult to navigate when no one knows what's really happening. So the idea of having the cooperating teacher on board and then creating a situation where they're introducing this new person not as like, oh, we got another one — no, this is someone that's here to help us, and we're here to help them, right? The idea of cooperating teacher — I just love that you prioritize that at the beginning.
And I think that idea goes beyond the beginning. So the way I like to think about it is really, if you're a cooperating teacher, all right, you have your high school students, you're teaching, but now you're also a teacher educator. You have to see yourself as a cooperating teacher and as a teacher educator. And you have to understand that development. So, you know, we don't really want to just throw somebody up on the podium that very first day and say, good luck, sink or swim, because now the students don't trust you because you weren't very good at it and the student teacher has been blown. So I see that there's, in my mind, a curriculum here that, you know, you start out — we can talk about what you might do those first couple weeks while you're observing, you know, how do you be in the room and watch and learn from that? But then you have some sectional experience and you make some fans in a small group experience. And by the time you get to that podium experience, it's for 8 minutes in a warm up. And so in my mind, there's a whole curriculum there that a good cooperating teacher knows how to plan for and assess, just like any other curriculum.
So that is actually a perfect segue into my next question because I'm curious — obviously the first thing that happens is typically not someone getting on the podium. So there are times that the student teachers are observing, they're in the room. How can student teachers make the most of that sort of observation period before they're on the podium? And then as a second step of that, what is the healthiest way for them to receive and apply feedback from the cooperating teacher during this whole growth period?
Yeah. So I think a good student teaching experience starts with this opportunity to observe what the cooperating teacher does, right, because that just gets at that personality. I might come and have a very different personality than the cooperating teacher and I need to get a sense of what's essentially happening in the room. And so I always say to student teachers, however many rehearsals it is — it could be 3 rehearsals, maybe you get to have 10 — make sure that you're not sitting in the back of the room just doing what I just said about let's figure out what the co-op's doing, but actually make it an opportunity to learn to hear what's happening in the room. So make sure you are sitting with a student on each side of you. You're in the middle of the flute section and there is one flute on this side and there's one flute on this side, because you're going to hear things sitting in that flute section that you need to hear when you get on the podium and you won't. So when you get on the podium, it's just so overwhelming — there are so many different things happening. We have this imposter syndrome of like, what if someone asks me a fingering and I don't know it, right? And so I think you have to use those observations as: I'm going to sit in the flute section for a little while. Oh, wait, there's more activity happening back in percussion. I'm going to get up, I'm going to go back to percussion right now and I'm going to take some notes on like, oh, what's going on here? My guess is after rehearsal, you can literally go up to the co-op and say, did you know this was happening in percussion? And they may or may not have known it, right? Because there's so many things to hear. So I think you can make yourself valuable in the room right away by getting into different places and hearing individual students, hearing sections, hearing groups of students, taking notes for yourself. If I was on the podium and I heard that, what would I have done about it, right? And in my mind, the longer you have to do that, also the more opportunity you have to say, remind me of your name, and did you know that your finger is not quite covering the holes the way it needs to be? No wonder the clarinet's squeaking, right? So you have this opportunity to work with individuals, and I think that's very important. The score study part of it is interesting. I think a lot of people would say, well, bring the score and sit and watch the score. I would say that's a part of it, but I wouldn't want that to be the only thing we do. Because I think what happens when we look at the score, we hear certain things that we're seeing. And I feel like if we put the score away and sit in the sections, we start to hear things differently. And so I feel like doing lots of different kinds of ways in which to prepare your ears for that terrifying moment of trying to hear everybody at the same time is my best recommendation.
Yeah, that's great. And I would say that for not just student teachers, just for teachers in general, because I've team taught in a couple of different scenarios where my colleague would sit in the ensemble and move around and it really changed what we both could do together because of what we were hearing. And I would allow him time to provide feedback during the rehearsal — I don't know if a cooperating teacher would do that — but what are you hearing? Oh, I'm hearing this. But that was really unique too. And the students also sat up a little taller and were aware that we were out there with them. It's pretty unique.
Well, and my advice is the first place you go sit is in your primary instrument section so that you can really give some advice. And students sit up a lot taller because they go, whoa, you know, he just said something that was really helpful. So the second part of your question about how to receive feedback — again, I think it comes back to the cooperating teacher first. So in my mind, they're the teacher and the student teacher is the learner. And if you are the co-op teacher who's working with an undergraduate learner, you have to be thinking about sequencing your feedback, right? So whatever they do, even if it's a sectional, even if it's a warm up, there's going to be 10 or 15 things to fix in that 10 minutes you just saw them do. But how do you as a co-op teacher put on your pedagogical hat and say, well, I'm just going to go for two things right now and really go after those couple of things. So it starts with the co-op teacher understanding how to not overwhelm a student teacher such that they can't fix anything. And then I think multiple means of giving feedback is really important. So some days you say to the student teacher, you know what, you've got 25 minutes on the march right now — I'm going to sit in the back of the room and I'm just going to script everything I heard. I'm going to say, yes, I liked it, no, I didn't like it. Or I'm going to keep a checks, plus and minus column — here's the great things you did, here's the negative things you did. I'm just going to hand you that on the way out the door and you can think about it and you can process it. That's one way. You know, a different day, you say, let's make sure we can talk right after you get off. That's harder because there's usually another class coming in the room. But you know, can we have some opportunity over lunch for me to give you that feedback? I do think written feedback in some way is very helpful. I mean, I can remember back when sticky notes were really a thing — I can remember lots of student teachers who said after every rehearsal he comes up and just hands me a sticky note with three things to remember. Because if the co-op doesn't write it down and the student teacher doesn't see it, then they're never going to remember after five class periods essentially what has happened. And then the last thing I'll say about the feedback loop is in my mind, if the co-op teacher has prepared their students well to know that the student teacher is also learning, the ideal way to give feedback is in real time in the classroom. And the teachers up there, because student teachers up there doing their work and they make kind of an error where the Co Op's like, I don't think I'd work on that now, right? Ideally, you can set up an environment where Co-op says, hang on just a second, Mr. Johnson can you go back a set to bar 3? Because I think there's something else that there's over there that we need to take a look at. And now the ensemble hasn't lost time by not working on the things they need to be working on. And the student teacher just learned about a better decision. But I think you have to be cautious at that. You have to set up the room so it doesn't feel to the student teacher like it's embarrassing and it doesn't feel that the high school students like the student teacher doesn't know what they're doing. So there's a there's a balance there. But I do feel like that's ideal. By the end of a really good student teaching experience, you've got two teachers in the room who are doing that to each other, who are in the back of the room saying even to the 25 year veteran, can you go back for a second? Because I'm a percussionist and I saw that they're not in the triangle the way they need to, right? And that and ideally that's what happens at the end. We don't always get there. Depends on the people, right?
You know, so in the observation loop, excuse me, just as a follow up to, to that before I change topics for a second, what if a student teacher during the observation period is realizing, Yep, that's I'm not gonna work. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna approach it that way, you know, because there are times where the student teacher is going to disagree with the cooperating teacher, right? How do you Do you have any advice? For. That situation.
Sure, sure. And you know what I'd say is first of all, you're absolutely right. And there's times when the student teacher's idea is gonna be better than what that Co-op teacher did. With that said, you are a visitor in the classroom of this particular teacher. And so I think what you do as a student teacher is you say note to self outside, but not in front of kids. I'm going to have a conversation that says, tell me more about why you did this. Because I learned in my classes from Professor Conway that it'd be much better to do this instead, right? I think you have to have a conversation, frankly, in the same way you'll have to have a conversation with your colleagues when you get a job because we don't always agree on what these approaches are. But I, I think you have to be a little bit cautious about it because you essentially you're a visitor in someone else's classroom and you have to understand why they're doing what they're doing. And it could be that you thought they should do something different. And they said, well, actually, I tried what you just said last week and it didn't work, which is why I'm, I'm trying something different. And so understanding the broader context, like you're here for seven weeks or maybe 14 weeks, but they may have been here for three years and they've been working towards certain things that they can do. So it's OK to disagree, but I think you need to ask first. You don't just get up and say I'm going to try this instead. I'm just gonna, yeah, we're just gonna, we're gonna articulate on the, on the like, be a major scale today just because. Gonna try it out. That'd be great.
So all right, just to kind of change topics, how do cooperating teachers in your opinion best support student teachers in the classroom and especially in a performance based setting, but also in any scenario?
Yeah, So I feel like, as I said earlier, you have to see it as a curricular thing. I don't think we should have student teachers being surprised. I don't think they should walk in and on a day when they thought that they were going to teach clarinets and all of a sudden you're teaching saxophones. At least not in the beginning. Right Now, obviously, once you become a teacher, all of these things are going to be your world. And so we have to inch into these. But I find too often student teachers get destroyed a little in the first couple of weeks. And sometimes I feel like it was done on purpose. Like, all right, if you're going to be a band director, let's see what you got. And I don't think anybody learns well in, in that context. So I think as much planning as possible, like here's the three scores that you're going to be conducting. Why don't you take a stab at studying them and marking them. And then let's look at those together before you get up in front of the ensemble, make sure that you are hearing and seeing the things that I'm wanting to do with this particular piece. And so, you know, there's, there's a lot of outside of class mentoring, which is hard because I said earlier, there isn't a lot of outside of class time, right? Trying to have the time to talk regularly about what we're about to do today at 6:00 in the morning and then what we just did today at 4:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes just doesn't really fall into place. But I think ideally there's just a lot of communication that students are preparing. I think sometimes Co-op teachers forget that student teachers need more preparation than they do, right. If you conducted this piece before you get up and you're like, I know this piece, let's go. But if a student teacher doesn't know this work, it takes a while to get it in your ears. If you don't have it in your ears, you're not going to be able to get up in front of the group and, and rehearse well. So I feel like that preparation pieces is a really important part of it, albeit challenging.
Yeah, I, I'm just kind of thinking through this because I've been in, I've seen situations where the collaborating teacher or cooperative teacher is nowhere to be found. Like the student teacher goes in and he's doing, she's doing their thing and there's no one in the room like.
First of all, that's illegal in most states, but it happens a lot, right? If you're not a certified teacher in most states, you're actually not supposed to be completely left alone. For me, I used to sequence it so that if I had them for a whole semester, for the whole, let's say 15 weeks. I did try to take if the concert cycle worked out the last three weeks and pretty much not be in the room because guess what? Kids act differently when the Co-op teachers not in the room. And sometimes it's really important for us to teachers to feel that. So I did try to sequence it that by the time we got to the end and they knew the kids and they knew what worked, I'd say, look, I'm going to be right next door. I'm going to be over tuning timpani or whatever it is. I'm going to do something else today and you come get me if you need me. But I need you to feel not only what it feels like when I'm not in the room, but I need you to feel what it feels like to teach every class all day long. Rich it you have to have some opportunity to do that in those fifteen weeks to decide whether or not you can handle being a teacher. And so I, I feel like that being alone part is important, but it has to be sequenced. And it's too often.
Yeah. OK, So I have a, another question about this because I the student, we're talking about student teachers, but a lot of this now is revolving really around the cooperative teacher. And that really is taking on a pretty significant responsibility. And especially when you look at it as you are a, you are a teacher now of teachers, you're not just there to give them a space to learn, but you're to help them learn. And that could be overwhelming, it seems. I would think like I can tell obviously you have like a sequence of events that you would do if you were the cooperating teacher. Are there resources or any kind of planning guides that would be available for, you know, people?
That yeah, you know, there are. And it's interesting, I would say every single study that anybody has ever done on either the field work like junior year field work partnership or the student teaching partnership, every single one of those studies is probably 100 of them has ended with, it's too bad the cooperating teacher in the university doesn't have more time to plan this together and talk about these things together because just the logistical piece is essentially really challenging. Most universities have a guide to student teaching that they hand out. And a lot of them, ours has this sequence like start the first week with sectionals only, go to this, go to that, go to this. Sometimes the jump between providing that resource and the teachers actually doing that resource are different. I have a book with Gia that I wrote in 2010 called Handbook for the Music Mentor. That's about how do you mentor student teachers? How do you mentor juniors? And how is a junior different than a student teacher, Right. So like there are resources, but I think the time factor is usually the hardest thing. I mean, you just get a phone call from university. Are you good to go? OK, great. Camp starts next week. OK, bye. Right. And that's that's not, that's not the way to go.
Absolutely. Well, I just wanted to know because I haven't read about that. And I, I would think, I mean, I haven't had a student teacher in a while, but I would want to go into it with a plan. And if I didn't have a resource, I might be flying blind for a while. So if they, if you're listening out there and you're thinking about taking on that responsibility, then there are some resources you can look at before you decide to take that on and then kind of get into that mindset. Because I would love for every, everyone that's listening that does have student teachers also understand that is a pretty significant responsibility that can make a huge difference in that student's success when they, yeah, do get a job.
I would say if you looked across most state MEA journals, probably one of the most popular articles is what to do if you're taking a student teacher or you know, And so I think there really are, you know, now that we have AI put into perplexity, you know, research on how to be a Co-op teacher and you're going to find all kinds of really valuable things about that sequencing for sure. But you are right to go back to student teachers though, I think there's a lot that a student teacher can also do to advocate for the kinds of things that I'm talking about, right? So don't wait for the cooperating teacher to write to you in the middle of July to say, here's what I want you to do at band camp. Write to the cooperating teacher in July and say I'm planning to be at band camp and you know, I'm I'm ready to do whatever you want me to do. My preference might be to start over here with the group I'm comfortable with or whatever. So I feel like it is a two way St. a little bit. I mean, I'm always saying to student teachers, if you're not getting written feedback, blame it on the university and say, I went to student teaching seminar this week and professor so and so told me we're supposed to be getting written feedback. Like, you know, the state says we have to have written feedback, Blame it on us, then see if you can get some written feedback because written feedback is something you can reflect on, right? You can take it home, you can think about it. And sometimes you get off the podium, someone comes up and says, you should have done this, this, this, this, this. And you can barely remember what just happened because you were nervous. And so that, that time to reflect is important. But I think you can, as a student, you can ask for those things and advocate. You know, this is what I need to. Can you help me?
Yeah, I love that. I want to shift just a little bit. What advice do you have for student teachers that are navigating either diverse school settings or working with students from varying musical backgrounds?
Sure. So I'm going to separate those two. Actually. Let's talk about diverse school settings 1st. And I'm going to kind of interpret diverse school settings as settings unfamiliar to the student teacher. So, you know, they went to high school where they went to high school. And now, either by choice or by happenstance, are finding themselves in environment where families and students and communities are different from where they grew up. And I think that's very common. And a lot of student teachers these days go out of their way to say, you know what, I want to prepare to be the broadest I can be in my thinking. And so I'm gonna go seek this out. And I think the main thing is just to acknowledge, okay, I'm walking into a setting where I actually don't know anything. So not only do I have challenges in terms of music and music making and understanding how to communicate those things, but there may be language barriers, there may be culture barriers in a lot of ways. And in terms of how people interact with one another and the things that are important to them and what they want out of this particular music program and why we have it. And so going back to can I get a roster with a list of kids names on it? Maybe you start with a conversation saying, help me understand if I'm a white guy walking into this community, what questions do I ask? How do I make sure that I don't come off as insensitive in, you know, in any way? So I think that's that's a really huge piece of it, making sure that we're not making assumptions that because of the community, you know, you don't say stupid things like, well, I guess we're probably only playing grade one, right? Like not might not be the case. We might be playing grade 5 and grade 6. So not making assumptions about the communities I think are really important. The second part of your question about, you know, finding yourself in a place where you have broad levels of music making in my mind is like, huh, welcome to teaching. So I think you're going to find that I don't care where you go, even if you think you've chosen the best 6A plus place out there in any, even that top ensemble where everybody's studying privately, guess what? The bottom and the top have a really big line, you know, between them. And so I feel like that is a challenge for all teachers. I mean, teachers come back after years and years of teaching saying, wow, how do I pull up the bottom and keep the top, you know, engaged in that kind of thing. And so I think you have to acknowledge it going in, in my mind, everything you do from the podium or from the front of the room, you have to kind of think about like the three levels of what you're about to do. So I'm going to respond this way, but for my kids that are not able to do what I've just said, I've got to have and you should play the downbeat of every measure. Let's just hear this. I almost said an instrument, but knowing what John's primary instrument is, I won't say the instrument that I almost said that was going to need to play the downbeat. But let's just say let's for now, you guys just play the downbeat, right? And then everyone else is here. And then, you know, there's a couple of you over there. Can you add on, you know, play a third above or whatever it is, right? Like you have to figure out a way to be thinking how you are going to differentiate, differentiate these things really at all levels. And I, I think that happens really in any setting. So many teachers come to me. Oh, you don't understand my, my town. I mean, my kid at the bottom is so low and my kid at the top is so high. And it's like, yes, welcome to an ensemble like that. It really is what it looks like wherever you end up.
You know, I remember going through it right? And I was so ready. Oh man, I gave glorious down beats, right? I can pick Polly at 22, let me tell. You my word, I was genius, right? And then I get on the podium and the sound comes at me and I'm like, do it again or talk about volume. I mean, trying to hang pictures in the house before it burns down kind of things, right? It just, it just doesn't make any sense. You know, it's it's so much harder than it seems, right. So for any pre service teachers listening, it's complicated, but it's worth it. You know, like all of this to say, I think all three of us agree and, and our students here, I mean, we all talk to them all the time about it's worth it. It's worth it, It's worth it, right? It's the best profession in the world.
Can I follow up on what you just said about what I'd call priorities from the front of the room? Because there's actually quite a bit of research on this area where they like, compare what, what an experienced director would say, hearing the same thing to a new teacher and, and what you know, what do new teachers respond to? And again and again and again, the studies show that new teachers respond to things they can fix quickly. So that has to do with dynamics, phrasing. How does the music make you feel, right. But to go after those things when we have all the wrong notes and all the wrong rhythms in a terrible tone is not going to get us anywhere, right. But all the literature says that new teachers, partly because they what they don't know what to do if the quality of sound is not what they want. I don't really know how to tune the ensemble if things are really out of tune. And so I think for listeners out there remembering that you have to plan, you have to look at your score, knowing that the sound that's about to come back at you is not the sound you want. And then how do you prepare a lesson that works on the quality of sound and intonation and rhythm and articulation, the things that are a lot harder to teach than just louder, faster. Look at me, please.
And are you happy with how that was? And then as a follow up to that, you were just talking about lesson plans and is there research out there or some resource out there to help the students? And it's OK to plug your own about, about how to create an impactful and effective lesson plan because I, I do think that's a really complicated part.
Yeah. All right. Well, if I can say about my own work, then I'm going to advertise a new book that's actually coming out this fall. It's called elementary and middle school band with a focus on musicianship. And one of the chapters in the book, actually one of our current PhD students at Michigan writes a chapter. There's a chapter on choosing literature, but then there's a chapter on score study in relation to the musicianship focused at the beginning of the book is about so the book is about movement, accounting systems and singing and to intonation and activities we do maybe we even without our instrument, right. How do we get like everything in our ear? And I think a lot of beginning band directors do that work really well. Then the minute they put notation in front of kids, they're like, OK, well, we're, we're musical now, let's just read right. And so the chapter in this new book is going to be about like once I've chosen literature, which I'm going to read about in one chapter, this next chapter is like, OK, so I've got a.5 piece A1A1 point 5A2 and 2.5 A3. How do I score study with the idea that I want to be able to move and make sure that kids are moving to the, to the subdivision and I want to make sure they can count things and I want to make sure they can hear them. And how do I score study in that particular way? So I'm very excited. It's from Conway publication. So that's really a plug in my own stuff, but easy to get. And I think it's going to be a helpful resource because it's a great question, John. I, I feel like that's what's often missing. We study the score for what we're going to do and where we're going to breathe and what the gesture is going to look like. And we do musical activities in the warm up. We come in and we do these things. We're focusing on all this tone, la, la, la, la. Then we get into the score itself and we start rehearsing and it for kids, it feels like these are separate activities. They don't always bring that musicianship to what they're pulling off the page.
Yeah. So then yes, thank you. By the way, so just to change topics or a direction slightly, are there any specific music teaching moments or scenarios like the first rehearsal or during concert week that you think are particularly formative to student teachers?
Yeah, I yes, but I would say it's probably different for every context to go back to the relationship space, because I think it always has to do with relationships. So it's formative because at the end of the day, you had that we, you know, we caught talk about an aha moment for kids, like, oh, I finally learned how to count that for me. Aha moment for student teachers are Oh my gosh, I just did something that kids like kids came back and told me that they enjoyed that or I really got to know kids and I realized I'm helping develop the next generation of citizens, right. Like I feel like the personal piece is in my mind the most formative moment. And sometimes that does happen on the first day. I remember having a student teacher whose Co-op said, you know, play whatever you want. He was a saxophone player. So we got up and he ran around the room playing the flight of the bumblebee while he was introducing himself, you know, in the room and you know, kids were coming up afterwards like that was awesome. That was great. You know, for that student teacher, that probably was the most formative moment of the entire experience because he was so entertaining and kids liked it and it felt good to him, right. Certainly during at those concert moments, we have those opportunities for kids to come off stage going. I never thought I was going to be able to do that, you know, but sometimes the moment happens, you know, for something completely unrelated, you know, kid had a bad day and you walk out of the classroom with them and say, are you OK? And the kid breaks down and starts crying. And, you know, you walk into the next class and at the end of the day you're like, wow, I actually really made a difference for that difference for that kid. So for me, it always comes back to the relationships in my mind, the music making is, you know, facilitating those relationships and the relationships facilitate the music making. You, you can't separate those two things. And so I think it can happen. Hopefully for a student teacher, it happens a lot so that they decide they want to go get a teaching job. You know, I will say, when we're talking about student teaching, I think it's important to acknowledge that I, I must have said this hundreds of times in my life. I've known so many people to have great student teaching experiences and walk out so ready, then get into a first year teaching setting where because of the context or the principal or the community or personal life of the student teacher have a horrible first year teaching experience. And so it's terrible to say like, just because you like student teaching doesn't mean you're going to like your first year. But then I think you have to recognize that. Well, Ari, I liked my student teaching. So something about teaching, I like, I didn't like teaching here now at this community, but maybe if I were to take a job somewhere else, like I feel like I've coached so many new teachers into saying, it's not that you don't like teaching, it's that you didn't like teaching there in that particular community with a jerk as a colleague or what, you know, whatever it might be. And also the flip side is true. I've had so many students who come out of student teaching and they're like, maybe not, I don't know, I, I think I like kids. But it was okay. I'm not really sure I want to teach. Take a teaching job. Then the conversation usually leads to, well, were you hoping to eat in the fall? Oh, you were OK. So maybe you should probably take a teaching job since that's what you prepared yourself for. And then they go out, They had a horrible student teaching experience and they have the best first year teaching that I've ever seen. And so I think it's really important. These things feel so final. I'm trying it out. Let's see if I like it. I don't, I don't think you can make a decision at the end of student teaching about whether or not you like it because you may or may not like the IT that you get in your first year teaching and really and beyond. So that to me is a really important component of what we're talking about today. It's sometimes feels like I've been preparing this for my whole life and now it's here. And if you take it that seriously, you'll probably be disappointed. I'm still trying to figure out if I like it.
Right. Same. Yeah. That's so funny.
John and I also wrote a book with a colleague, Christophe Brightock and entitled The Directed Listening Model. And it is the subtitle is a rehearsal guide for ensemble musicianship. And I don't, I mean, we, it's used in different places around the country, around the world actually, but in, in terms of student teaching, and John touched on this a second ago, we do get on the podium sometimes and there's, there's a lot of stuff coming out. How do we organize those sounds? How do we provide feedback? This book is, it's distributed by Chosen Music. If you're interested in it, go take a look. Talk to one of us, reach out to us, We will. I met with a person this week, actually. They just had some questions about the directed listening model and how he can integrate it into his program. It's just a resource to help you do what's really challenging at the very beginning and I would say to some degree maybe the entire entirety of our careers. So I'm going to throw that out there before we.
No, I'm glad you didn't actually went when John said, you know, talk about any resources, I almost said, well, you guys could probably talk about that because I think we are talking about very much the same things, right? We don't we don't want these musicianship focused activities to be somehow perceived by kids as separate from the music making and you know, kids, kids don't transfer. There's a lot of literature on transfer, and that's really depressing stuff like they really do not transfer from what the middle school teacher did for the high school teacher, unless the high school teacher says, remember back when you were in middle school and your teacher did this? Well, we're doing that now, but we're doing this in this grade five piece instead, right? But it, it's not natural really to transfer. And so, yeah, anything that helps us pull back into our ears is really what? Which, by the way, that also continues to college too.
Sorry, David, there's not a good thing out there that really does. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead.
Absolutely. Now looking ahead, this is my next question. How can music teacher education evolve to better prepare student teachers for the current challenges? What's happening today? And it's different than when I did it. So I'm curious of your thoughts.
Yeah, I really like this question, especially as the editor of the Journal of Music Teacher Education, because I think what I've spent most of my career trying to get us to understand is that we have pre service music teacher education that happens at the undergrad level, and then we have in service music teacher education, which happens literally for the rest of our lives, right? And I think one of the problems that we've had is that we tend to focus a lot on the pre service piece. How can we prepare student teachers better? And I think we have to back up a little bit and say, well, let's just look at those four years and let's look at what percentage of time in that four year is, is actually in service of getting ready to student teach. Depending on where you go, you've got all these general studies classes. You've got this, Oh, by the way, you have to become a musician. So you have to take theory and musicology and you have to take lessons and you play in ensembles and you do these things. And by the way, you're growing up, right? So I, I feel like in a lot of ways, not that I wouldn't change teacher education. I have 100 ways that I would change pre service teacher education, but I think we have to stop pretending like pre service teacher education can prepare anybody for the contextual challenge that they're going to face when they get out to the school. So there's just no way, no matter where you are in the country, no matter how many videos you use of communities different from your own, in the time that we've got in teacher education and we have to remember development. What are they ready for at any given time, right? It's like I have summer masters students right now who've been teaching for two years. They are ready for everything because they've had two years and they're like, Oh my gosh, I didn't know this, this, this, this, this and this, right? But you could say we need a whole class on class on English language learners. We need a whole class for special education. We need a whole class for these other things. And even if we could figure out a way to do it, the 19 year olds, like what do you mean? I'm going to be a band director? I'm going to go be my band director. I never saw them doing any of these things, right? So like the developmental piece of it is huge. So long answer to pre service. There's some things to change, but what we need to evolve into is doing in service teacher education better. And that we is hard because we and the universities or we and our state music organizations don't always get to control that, right? So teachers spend an awful lot of their time, music teachers in what's called professional development that really turns out to not be professionally developed, developing them in a way that's going to be useful for their ensemble based teaching. But I, I feel like if we could, if I could shake the trees, it would be like, let's shake the trees and make sure that the teachers that have a couple years experience and know just enough to know how hard it is, can now have more opportunities to really learn to listen and really learn to be musical. And I, I, I, that's hard. I mean, it's it's easier for us to say we're going to fix what we think we control. But there's a lot of work to be done in that new teacher era, in the continued teacher learning. The community research community is starting to move away from the word professional development. And it's partly because the word PD has a bad connotation to most teachers like PD Day. Here we go. And so, you know, we're starting to say we're studying teacher learning, We're studying teacher learning throughout their career. And what the new student teachers need, what a new teachers need, what a veteran teachers need to keep them in the field so they don't leave after 15 years, right? So I love, I, I'm so glad I got to answer that question because I think really yelling loudly that all of us, no matter where we are, like whether we're teaching K12 or we're in higher Ed or we're working in community music, like whatever it is, I think everyone needs to acknowledge that context matters. And where you end up teaching might be so different from anywhere that anybody at your university even knew about that. We can't pretend that the university can prepare you for that.
That's the one of the reasons we have this podcast is for allowing us to provide value to music educators by bringing on people like you and people in the field that can help continued growth. And we don't call it professional development necessarily. But I mean, one of our hopes was like, can we give back in such a way through this platform, which people are doing now, they're listening to podcasts when they drive between campuses and that kind of that's right. It's a resource for teacher learning. That's how I see it.
Well, don't call it PD. It's a research resource for teacher learning, and in my mind, anything that gets us to think about what we're doing as teachers and how could we do it better is valuable.
Yeah. Indeed. Well, John's, John's next question might be this. We may have just answered it, but we, we ask now we, we, we come to the time in the episode where we ask all of our guests the a couple standing questions. So I'm going to go first, one of which is, do you have a soapbox topic that you feel passionately about that want to talk to us about it might it might have been the prefer that the idea that there's an awful lot of learning that needs to happen after us.
So that would definitely be a soapbox of mine. But I can always come up with different soapboxes. So, you know, I think especially if we're going to talk about ensemble based teaching, you know, another soapbox that I know you both get is this relational capabilities piece. Because sometimes it is hard when you're managing 80 people or 100 people or 400 people in John's case, to not be that stage on the stage that says, do what I say. Like there are times when someone has to be in charge, right? And so I think the soapbox would be, how do we know how to use that sparingly when needed to get the job done, but in such a way that the people in front of us still feel seen and understood and heard and in what they're doing. And I think in a way, ensemble based teachers have been the last teachers to kind of come around to figuring out how to do that. Well, I mean, elementary general music teachers took that on a long before I would feel like we did in the ensemble world. And it's it's partly because of the performance expectations and the community expectations and frankly, because of the way that pedagogy was taught back in the day. You know, we won't criticize any of previous directors at the University of Michigan, but you know, they go down the line rebellionisms of like and I because I said so is alive and well. And so I think that's a soapbox as well. Like we can't keep kids in our groups anymore with the kind of interactions that are yelling at people. That's just not how that's just not how it works.
So yeah, that's that's one of my I. Should probably change how they do it then. John, you got to start over. I went through the system like that, like when I my programs when I was younger going growing up as a trumpet player was very regimented, very militaristic and at the approach. And I started my career that way because that's what I saw. And I've it's, it took a while to come around. Like, look, this has to be much more relationship based and trust base and creating spaces where I can be vulnerable. They can be vulnerable. And it does take some time and some, I guess risk taking in a way like to let go and be like, I don't have to control.
Yeah, like this isn't that. This isn't controlling. Well, and to get back to the, you know, why would you want to be a music teacher anyway? I think if you can get those relationships and then still pull off the fabulous performances, that's the crown jewel, right? Like the fabulous performances without the relationships isn't actually really very fun, right? And so I think I feel like getting to do both. If you're going to, you know, stay in the field, it needs to be enjoyable and enjoyable for everybody.
Fantastic. All right. So my next question then is, and we've talked about books, but I'm curious if there's a particular book or books that have inspired you in your journey, not necessarily, you know, like a education thing, which it could be anything that is moved you forward.
I'll have to pronounce it three times to make sure I say it right, but the not is it Nakamotovich or Nakamotovich free play? Do we know this book? I don't know if I'm if I'm saying it right.
I think it's I went, you'll have to look it up and then put my name in differently, but I think it's called, it's called free play by I think it's Nachmanovic is the way it's pronounced. And I was assigned it in Graduate School. And it's just a book about thinking and it's about the notion of improvisation is life, right? And so we always have to be ready to quote improvise in what we do. And so I think when you put that into the ensemble setting, it is what you're doing as a teacher, right? You're improvising all day long. You've got your chord changes in your, which is your Lesson plan, but then you're vamping over the changes, right, because you don't know what's going to come at you. And so sorry that I'm probably not pronouncing the name right, but it, that was a book for me that really changed my thinking. And that was after all of my public school teaching. It was like, Oh yeah, that notion that you have to be so well prepared musically like a jazz musician does, right? You have to have all the riffs and all the things and all the fingers underneath you so that you can walk up there and they give you no warning and they say, do a solo and you can do it right. Teaching's the same way. Like, you have to be able to pretty much improvise all day long, which means the fundamental things of how do I fix articulation and how do I fix this? And what if they're hitting it on the wrong end of the stick? Has to just be there.
Yeah, Free Play I, one of our producers, Jessica John's wife, just said I, I think one of our prior guests had mentioned it. Larry Livingston was on — oh, you're kidding — talked about it.
Oh, if I'm in a category with Larry Livingston, I make sure we say that book. Then they're right there. But yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah.
So Colleen, our final question and arguably the most important so far today is what is your favorite time signature?
What is my favorite time signature? Well, I think I'm kind of square. So it would just be like duple meter 4/4 because I like I like the way things just go that way. And maybe that means I'm not as good a musician. Like I should have said 5878 you love it, but.
Common time is a good one for us. We happen to—
I think so, you know, I teach group fitness in my in my outside of music life. And if you don't have common time, it's very hard. If you have triple meter in some sort and you're trying to go left, right, left right doesn't really work.
Doesn't work. Yeah, doesn't work. Fantastic. Colleen, it's been wonderful to talk to you.
Yes. Thank you so much for being on today. We really appreciate your time and expertise. This has been incredible for us.
Awesome. Well, it's really great to be here. I'm honored to have been asked, so thanks so much.
Awesome. Thank you. That's it for today's episode of the Common Time Podcast. And thank you for spending time with us. We hope that today's conversation will give you something useful to take back to your students and your program. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you subscribed so you don't miss what's coming up. And if you know another director who might benefit from this, please share it with them. Also, don't forget you're able to nominate a music educator for our Standing Ovation program. The link to submit is in the show notes below. Thanks again for joining us on the Common Time podcast. As always, keep making music and keep making a difference.