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The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to examine how music teachers at Jewish day schools integrate both general music skills and repertoire with Jewish repertoire and themes in their curriculum. Research questions included: (1) How do music teachers at Jewish day schools integrate general music skills and repertoire with Jewish repertoire and themes? (2) What challenges do teachers face when implementing their curriculum in the Jewish day school environment? (3) How do teachers describe their decisions to integrate? (4) How do their beliefs and values impact integration? And (5) How do teachers understand their role as music educators in a Jewish day school? Research on music education in Jewish day schools is a rarity, and as of the completion of this study, no apparent research yet examined the integration of general and Jewish music. For this study, I selected three general music teachers at the lower school or elementary level from two Jewish day schools in the Northeastern United States that represented different Jewish communities. Data collection consisted of three semi-structured interviews, three-four observations of general music classes for kindergarten through fifth grade, and artifacts.Data analysis revealed the following findings, organized by the five research questions. Participants integrated general and Jewish music through music basics and deliberate curricular decisions. They faced the challenges of time, tensions between values and practical considerations, and on some occasions, support. Participants made decisions about integration by taking the repertoire-first or concept-first approach, and then checked to make sure that their lessons were multicentric. Participants’ beliefs and values fit the overarching theme of “feet in two different worlds.” Two participants, Shira and Tamar, derived their beliefs and values from the general music world, the Jewish music world, and from a combination of the two. One teacher, Kate, who is not Jewish, derived her beliefs and values from the general music world and showed a belief in being open to Jewish music. Shira saw her role as “The Connector,” Tamar viewed her role as “The Advocate/Connector,” and Kate viewed her role as “The Facilitator.” This research strives to shed light on the practicalities and thought processes involved in integrating Jewish and general music that will transfer to other Jewish day schools, other Jewish educational institutions, and other faith-based schools. / Music Education

Instructional processes comprise three basic components: planning, delivery of instruction, and assessment. Educators frequently reflect on the relationships among those components to choose the most effective approaches to increase student learning. Teachers’ continual assessment of student knowledge and understanding through reliable, valid measures critically propels teachers’ effective instruction forward. Constraints on funding for public education have resulted in larger class sizes and smaller budgets for the arts, as well as a heightened focus on standardized testing, less instructional time, and fewer resources (Slaton, 2012). How, then, are music teachers effectively assessing student achievement while grappling with those challenges? To fill a gap in the research literature, the purpose of this research was to explore singing voice development assessment practices that public-school elementary-general-music teachers use with their students. The following overall question guided this research: What can we learn from three kindergarten through fifth grade general music teachers about their approaches to singing with their students? I sought to document three teachers’ singing voice development processes and assessment techniques. Recognizing that this study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, I also sought to document participants’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of the techniques they shared, especially as they grappled with teaching singing in new learning models that were emerging; and adaptations they were using to safely and effectively guide students’ singing voice development—whether they were teaching their students virtually and/or in person. For this study, I chose symbolic interactionism as a theoretical lens and an interview-only design. Upon approval from Temple University Institutional Review Board, I invited the three participants who consented to engage in three semi-structured individual interview conversations to explore singing voice development assessment techniques, and benefits, challenges, and adaptations of those techniques, especially as they grappled with teaching singing in new instructional models that emerged as a result of COVID-19. After participants completed member checking of each of their transcripts, I used a content analysis approach to the data to identify emerging codes. Four themes summarized participants’ approaches to singing voice development assessment: teachers rely on their (a) personal philosophy formed from influences and values, (b) planning processes and objectives, (c) interactions with their students through selected techniques and tools, and (d) having time to make necessary adaptations in their singing voice development assessments. The key idea emerging from the study: the three teachers prioritized providing worthwhile musical experiences for their students. They situated singing voice development and assessment as one piece of their broader general music curriculum. A symbolic interactionist lens informed my themes and key idea by placing the context of teachers’ interactions in the forefront, and my understanding of how their experiences have shaped their views. While findings from this study are not generalizable, readers may find them transferable. Potential applications for other music teachers’ assessment practices include the following six examples: using a variety of tools to model appropriate use of singing voice, implementing pattern instruction to develop and assess singing voice, incorporating opportunities for individual singing, providing students with performance experiences, maintaining consistency in changing instructional models, and focusing on informal assessment through observation and questioning techniques. Future researchers can continue to shed light on how teachers approach singing with their elementary general music students by learning about factors outside of teachers’ instructional processes that impact singing voice development assessment, and how music teachers adapt their processes for singing voice development assessment in emerging instructional models. / Music Education

Because no government body has mandated a national or state curriculum for music education in the United States, elementary general music teachers can vary widely in their curricular choices about whether and how to include movement. To contribute to an understanding of children’s experiences engaging in movement during their elementary music education, the purpose of this research was to examine influencers on pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade general music teachers’ choices to use movement in elementary general music classes. With a pragmatic worldview, I approached the study through a lens of embodied teaching and learning, acknowledging a person’s bodily movements as connected ways of musical knowing. I used a mixed methods, explanatory sequential design in two phases of the research. In Phase I, I posed four research questions. Research questions one through three: For two types of movement (i.e., non-locomotor, locomotor), to what extent does variance in (a) school socioeconomic status (i.e., Title I, Non-Title I), (b) physical classroom space, and (c) class size significantly relate to the use of movement by type in elementary general music classes? Research question four: (d) To what extent do school socioeconomic status, physical classroom space, and class size in combination explain the variance in the use of movement in elementary general music classes? In Phase II, I posed four additional research questions to explain the results of Phase I. Research questions five through seven: How do music teachers describe the (e) purpose, (f) benefits, and (g) challenges in their use of different movement types in elementary general music classes? Research question eight: (h) What results emerge from comparing the quantitative data on influencers to the use of movement by type with the qualitative data that describes teachers’ choices in movement instruction? For that question, I examined the results from Phase I and Phase II to complete the mixed methods design of this study. In Phase I, pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade general music teachers (N = 251) teaching in the United States voluntarily completed a researcher-designed web-based survey. For research questions one through three, I conducted independent t-tests on the survey data for each of the related variables. For research question one, participants in Title I schools (n = 163) used non-locomotor steady beat gestures (t = 1.99) and locomotor choreography (t = 2.37) statistically significantly more than participants in non-Title I schools (n = 88). For research question two, participants without a dedicated physical music classroom space (n = 30) used non-locomotor movement for showing pitch relations and melodic contour with hands (t = 2.21) statistically significantly more than participants with a dedicated music classroom (n = 221). Participants with a dedicated music classroom (n = 221) used locomotor choreography (t = 3.87) statistically significantly more than participants without dedicated music classroom (n = 30). For research question three, participants with large class sizes (n = 107) used non-locomotor dramatizing (p = -.132) and locomotor creative/exploratory movement (p = -.198) statistically significantly more than participants with medium (n = 108) or small (n = 36) class sizes. For research question four, I conducted a multiple regression on the survey data to examine the influence of school socioeconomic status, physical space, and class size on use of movement by type. Results indicated one statistically significant correlation for the variables in combination: participants in Title I schools with dedicated music rooms statistically significantly used non-locomotor moving with flow (t = 2.303). In Phase II, I purposefully sampled 17 of 106 interested Phase I survey participants based on their responses to demographic information in relation to five conditions established a priori: Self-Reported Frequency of Movement Use, School Socioeconomic Status, Class Size, Physical Classroom Space, and Professional Development Experience. To answer research questions five through seven, I conducted a thematic analysis of those 17 Phase II participants’ transcribed and member-checked individual, semi-structured interviews. From their interview data, I identified 31 representative meaning units, 10 lower order themes, and four higher order themes (i.e., Who I Am, Who My Students Are, Where We Are Together, and What We Do Together). For research question eight, I compared the quantitative data on influencers to the use of movement by type with qualitative data that describes participants’ choices in type of movement. Participants’ choices to use locomotor movement were constrained by their physical classroom space and large class sizes but not by school socioeconomic status. Teachers’ choices to use movement in general music settings are also influenced by teacher identity and body image. Since participants volunteered for this study, results need to be applied with caution. By examining the results of Phase I and Phase II, I concluded that teachers in this study connected their choices of whether and how to use movement in elementary general music to their own identity, understandings of students’ identities, school context, and students’ musical engagement. Teachers desire students’ engaging movement experiences that lead to students’ empowerment through embodied learning. Teachers’ choices to use movement potentially connect teachers’ and students’ embodied experiences with teachers’ personally formational instruction, regardless of their school socioeconomic status, physical classroom space, or class size. Implications for the field of music education include widening our understanding of the role of identity at various junctures of a music teacher’s career. Because administrators assign physical teaching spaces and determine maximum class sizes, they play an important role ensuring general music teachers can teach in a dedicated space that is physically and socioemotionally safe for students and their teacher. By contemplating ways to engage in personal movement experiences beyond their practice in their classrooms, teachers may boost their self-confidence, and expand possibilities for using movement instruction in less-than-ideal teaching spaces. Future researchers might investigate the (a) role music-teacher body image plays as it influences teachers’ choices to use movement, (b) ways teachers connect students’ dance cultures to music learning, (c) use of movement in remote, cyber, or virtual general music classes. Depending on the status of the COVID-19 pandemic, future researchers may explore general music teachers’ choices to use movement relative to social distancing practices. / Music Education

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Symbolic interactionism has scarcely been used as a framework in the field of music education. The purpose of this case study was to understand the verbal and nonverbal interactions of four fifth-grade general music students while they collaborated with peers to compose original songs. Through the lens of symbolic interactionism, data from video and audio recordings, student artifacts, and researcher memos were examined to answer the following research questions: 1) How do fifth-grade general music students interact with their peers during composition activities in a constructivist learning environment? 2) How do fifth-grade general music students self-indicate and create shared meanings through verbal and nonverbal symbolic interactions? A within and cross-case analysis revealed that students interacted with their peers through communicative acts, forming friendships, nonverbal gestures, and forming social roles. The participants self-indicated and created shared meanings as a result of shared responsibilities, musical dialogue, improvisation, and symbolic exclusion. Findings suggested that fifth-grade students develop social roles and engage in follower and leader behaviors in situations where teacher scaffolding is purposefully suspended. The results of the research contribute to an existing body of literature regarding fifth-grade general music students’ abilities to self-direct their own learning during collaborative activities.

High school general music classes often primarily consist of lectures about the Western art canon, despite repeated calls for a popular music focus (Deal, 1984; Miceli, 1998; Snell, 2007; Thompson, 1979; Woody, 2007). It is argued that the latter approach can alleviate student apathy toward class content and boredom, provide more meaningful learning experiences for the students, and create a more positive experience for the teacher. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of students and teachers in both a traditional general music class and a popular music-focused general music class. In this qualitative comparative study, I studied two high school general music classes in Tennessee and investigated the experiences of the students and teachers with respect to subject matter, teaching techniques, and meaningful learning. My data sources were interviews with teachers and students, classroom observations, and classroom archival documents. I analyzed the data using interpretive coding guided by a constant comparative approach. Cross-case emergent themes involving meaningful learning included students' preference for music studied at the end of the semester and a high level of student-teacher interaction and engagement when studying popular styles of music. Regarding curricula and teaching methods, cross-case themes showed similar attitudes and frustrations for teachers and students in both classes. Within-case themes in the Music for Listeners class included an expressed student desire to learn popular music, student lack of understanding of the Western art canon, and student ability to connect class topics to outside of school activities. Within-case themes in the Development of Rock 'n' Roll class illustrated the importance of delivery style and technology in the general music classroom. I concluded that a combination of curriculum and teaching style produced differing experiences for the students and teachers. Based on the results of this study, suggestions for education profession include employing a genre of music that is meaningful to the students in their daily lives; engaging students in conversations about the music they enjoy; avoiding "busy work" and ensuring that assignments are relevant; and providing ample music listening opportunities.

The purpose of the study was to examine general music teachers’ practices of cooperative learning in two elementary music classrooms. Using the intrinsic case study method, I examined elementary general music teachers’ perspectives on cooperative learning, the utilization of cooperative learning in their general music classrooms, and the challenges the music educators faced in creating and implementing cooperative learning. I selected one general music classroom in two elementary schools in Boston, Massachusetts—totaling two general music teachers from different schools. I conducted eight class observations and three interviews for each participant during the fall 2016 semester. From separate and cross-case analyses, I found the following: (1) the two teachers’ instructions were linked to the characteristics of cooperative learning, (2) they believed that cooperative learning provided opportunities to improve students’ academic development in music and promote positive interpersonal relationships, and (3) both teachers used their own strategies for cooperative learning in order to maximize students’ learning. These findings provided evidence that cooperative learning engaged students in the process of learning music and, in addition, fostered positive interpersonal relationships. Moreover, this study suggested that music educators might undertake an effort to thoroughly understand students’ cognitive development when they wish utilize cooperative learning. Although this study was subject to a number of limitations due to its scope, the findings may contribute to the body of research on cooperative learning in elementary music education.

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