My 2019-2020 Professional Goals

Goal #1: Chorus

In my new position (Pre-K through 4th grade general music and 5/6 chorus in the four Valley Elementary Schools) an increased emphasis has been placed on my role as the chorus teacher. Teaching chorus is something I've done to varying degrees over the years as the schedule and student participation has allowed, but it has never been a primary focus for me. I've always put more of my efforts toward band/instrumental and general music instruction and schedules have not always prioritized chorus as being of great importance. For example, in Moretown during the four previous years we've never had chorus formally scheduled into the day but, rather, a small group of interested students would come during their recess time and I'd help them to sing, learn, and prepare for the district festival and spring concert. This year, all four of the valley elementary schools have chorus scheduled into the week, and it is my job to teach it. With this new, increased emphasis on chorus within my position, I have prioritized this in my planning. I am digging into my resources and addressing fundamental choral techniques that include breathing, projection, articulation, dynamics, solfege, singing in unison, 2-part, and three-part harmony, as well as relevant vocabulary, music theory, and literacy skills. We are taking on a wide variety of material that includes rounds, canonic singing, art songs, songs from the Gospel tradition, and popular ("pop") material. Students are given a degree of authority to choose some of the material for our Spring concert and I'm working to create and sustain a positive choral culture within the schools I teach. The only limitation in what we'll be able to address is the time that is scheduled for it. One rehearsal per week is, in my opinion, not nearly enough but a start. My goal is to thoroughly and consistently address all of the aforementioned elements, to take advantage of professional development opportunities like the VMEA clinics I attended this year, membership with the ACDA, and effective collaboration with our other district choral teachers, and to work to create and sustain a choral culture in our schools. I'm not sure how it relates to a "Framework for Teaching" because I don't have the framework to reference, nor how I will "measure the attainment" of my goal beyond looking back at the year's accomplishments and seeing if I did all of the aforementioned things with fidelity to the best of my ability. 


Goal #2: HUUSD Curriculum initiative

I plan to help create the HUUSD music curriculum by participating in the district effort that is currently underway as follows: Using the HUUSD Elementary Level Performance Indicators as well as the Music Standards approved by the VT State Board of Education, I will, collaboratively with Lizzy Carlson and Carolyn Adams, to the best outcome that the time allotted to us during shared staff meetings allows, complete the work started in June of 2019 on the Kindergarten Music at a Glance, 1st/2nd Music at a Glance, 3rd/4th Music at a Glance, and the 5/6 Music at a Glance documents. When this work is completed, I will then populate the Kindergarten Curriculum Framework, 1st/2nd Curriculum Framework, 3rd/4th Curriculum Framework, and the 5/6 Curriculum Framework (as it applies to my role of chorus teacher) with the activities I have done with students. I will then compare my use of the Performance Indicators and the VT State Board Standards and observe what PIs and Standards I have not addressed in order to try and bring these into my teaching so that my practice might become more aligned with the aforementioned performance indicators and standards. I'm not sure how it relates to a "Framework for Teaching" because I don't have the framework to reference, nor how I will "measure the attainment" of my goal beyond looking back at the year's accomplishments and seeing if I did all of the aforementioned things with fidelity to the best of my ability.

2019 Goals reflection

We met as a music group in November with the intention of populating the provided Curriculum document only to come to confusion about what we were expected to do. It appeared that the curriculum work at the high school level was considerably different, and at a different point in it's development than that at the elementary level. This was frustrating for the group because it felt like another month of time was spent trying to simply figure out what was being asked of us, rather than on the tasks that affect us directly like our unified festivals, our common assessments, and further developing our band curriculum. With some clarification in the weeks that followed, we learned that populating the curriculum document was not the hard directive we thought it was, and we were asked to choose an activity to compare to the HUUSD Learning Expectations. 

So, I gave it a solid try with three of the activities I did this year. The first was a comparison of the LE's with a composition unit the 3rd through 6th grade started this year, the second with the common skills based assessments we do at the 2nd and 4th grade level, and the third was with the student-driven process of selecting music for this year's concert.  

See a detailed application of the PS.02.02 Creative Expression rubric to the composition assignment. Scroll down to the second rubric to see my write up. A further extension of this assignment would include demonstrating the use of some basic rules for writing harmony as it applies to adding a second instrument. With this next assignment, or with a deeper revision process of the original assignment, I could apply PS.02.03.

I looked through these performance indicators to find a skills based one that could apply to the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade common assessments for singing and instrumental, but couldn't find anything that is a direct hit. The skills based one (PS.02.02) is all about creating art, which is great, but the wording is certainly taken from a visual arts perspective. (Maybe PS.02.03 with some tweaking of this language to make it more relevant to skills based instruction in music?) PS.02.07 could work for students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their own performance according to our existing singing rubric. 

See my attempt to apply PS.02.06 to the process 3rd through 6th grade students engaged with in order to select the pieces for our Spring concert. Scroll down to the 6th rubric. This rubric is much more applicable to visual arts but could work for music.

It is my feeling that these rubrics need some tweaking if they are to effectively guide music instruction. These ones are leaving out the specificity that music assessment requires. I understand that they are intended to apply to all subjects and, in my opinion, they are written for and by visual arts teachers.