“His project was thoughtful and musically relevant, so I kept him in mind when seeking a community partner for our elementary music field experience in fall 2022.”
Students in Edmund’s course, MU 3608: Teaching Elementary Music, observed Garland ten times during the semester as part of their requirement to spend 20 hours observing in a classroom. They were also able to practice planning a music lesson before delivering it to Garland’s students.
UMD students made the most of the opportunity; they were well-prepared when delivering their lessons and many “incorporated aspects of Garland’s curriculum (for example, they taught instrumental improvisation, which is something that Todd is dedicated to) and did a fantastic job teaching,” said Edmund. Later they met with Garland at UMD to share their notes and ask additional questions about how and why he teaches things in certain ways.
“Todd was welcoming and giving of his teaching space and that enabled us to take in the experience together as a group,” Edmund stressed. “Field experiences are vital in the ways they influence the dispositions of pre-service teachers….I’m confident that this cohort of students will take the knowledge and experience gained here and translate it into successful educational experiences for their future students.”
Networking with current professionals is also a leg up for students. Edmund hypothesized, “Some of our students will perform gigs with area teachers and some will earn employment opportunities that result from those relationships.”
There was a great deal of planning and preparation involved with the facilitation of the quality clinical experience (for example, undergoing background checks and obtaining liability insurance), but “overall, this was the most seamless field experience our students have enjoyed during my eleven years at UMD,” reflected Edmund. “My wish has always been that UMD could have a laboratory school for pre-service teacher field experiences. Our partnership with Todd was the closest we could get to that model, where students and faculty visit the school together.”
Given the success of the experience, Edmund intends to maintain the partnership in hopes of repeating it in the future: “At UMD we continue to forge strong relationships with members in the music education community. Our students deserve opportunities to engage with the community’s best teachers” and “to connect with an artist-educator inclusively as a cohort. That provision can be great for the teacher practitioners and P-12 students, too.”