Certificate in College Teaching Portfolio

The teaching portfolio that is required of all students enrolled in MUS 964 will demonstrate and document the participant’s accomplishments and growth during the CCT. The CCT program coordinator will review and evaluate the portfolio, initiating discussions of the contents with the program participant where appropriate. The completed portfolio should be a high quality, professional document that may be used by the participant as evidence of teaching experience during future interviews for academic positions.
Each student will prepare and submit the following items, which will be included in the Teaching Portfolio (click here to link to the CCT Requirements webpage where you can download the portfolio checklist):

• A complete curriculum vitae and a cover letter; the cover letter should be designed with the type of job or position you hope to secure in mind.
• Mentored Teaching Experience: see above.
• College Degree Program Status Study Project: Choose a college/university music education program that you either know well or would like to know more about, and, through web search, email queries, phone conversations and other forms of “snooping,” gather information on either bachelors or masters level degree programs. Possible lines of inquiry include:
  • Type(s) of degrees offered (BA, BM, BS, BFA, BMEd; MA, MM, MFA, MMEd, etc.), and how are the same/different
  • Accreditation held, from what body (national ass.--NASM, NCATE (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education), Teacher Education Accreditation Council, Accreditation Committee; state boards—Professional Standards Commission of the State of Georgia (PSC), etc.
  • Barriers/standards for getting in (entrance requirements), moving up (admittance to music ed/college of ed, etc) and getting out (graduation requirements)
  • Whether the degree(s) is/are tracked (vocal, instrumental, etc.) or untracked
  • Nature of student teaching experience (semester or full-year, single or multiple placements)
  • 4 year vs. 5 year, results in B or M?
  • Is certification offered at graduate level?
  • # of credits required
     
• Course Design Project:  Drawing on the assigned readings and class activities, you will design an undergraduate, semester-long course in your field and write much of the supporting material.
  
  You should choose a course that you realistically expect to teach in your first year as a faculty member, such as the introductory course to your discipline, a near-universal general-education/service course, or an upper-division core course for the major.  Your course design will help you shine in job interviews some day. You should choose your course as soon as possible in the semester so that you can start making basic “design” decisions, beginning with your textbook/book selections.   Since you won’t have time to build relationships with publishing houses, ask faculty in your department to let you browse through their textbook/course-book collections.  They usually receive more complimentary copies “for course consideration” than they know what to do with.  Your department may also have its own library of course-relevant books. Your project should include the following components:
  • A complete course syllabus, following the guidelines and models discussed in class.  Decide on a specific year and semester (current or future), and insert all the expected holidays in the schedule.  Assume the following: a three-credit-hour undergraduate course that meets MWF for 50 minutes OR TuTh for 75 minutes; a  reasonable class size of 25-150, depending on the course; no TA, but 25 hours of  grader time for a course over 100.  Make up your office location, office hours (at least three per week), and everything else you need to bring realism to your syllabus and course design.  Do not, however, make up books and articles that do not exist.
  • A one-page graphic syllabus of the course visually representing its organization.
  • A class-by-class listing of your classroom activities in which at least half the classes are primarily “student-active.”  This means that most or all of a class period revolves around a modified lecture, directed discussion on a specific topic, one or more small-group activities, one or more writing exercises, web research,  solving a case or other kind of problem, a problem-based learning exercise, a role  play, a simulation or game, a service learning or field work assignment, student  peer feedback, etc.  Be sure to describe each student-active element in sufficient detail – for example: Monday, October 1:  Modified lecture on sight-reading approaches.   Midway I will pose the question, “What methods would be appropriate in regard to developmentally appropriate practice guidelines and what we know from research about how children learn music?”  Student groups of 3-4 will have three minutes to develop an answer, and I will call randomly on 5 groups.  Disagreements should spur class discussion for another 10 minutes.
  • An original supporting class handout that presents a lesson/knowledge graphically, in addition to the graphics syllabus.  This item could be in the form of a poster, a PowerPoint presentation, or another graphic representation. It should serve to visually depict, clarify, elucidate, explain, complement, analyze, synthesize, simplify, or summarize materials presented in an assigned reading, your lectures, or your student-active classroom activities.
  • At least two different assessment techniques.  Be sure that these measures constitute an “authentic” approach to assessment, and derive data that are useful in understanding the nature and extent of student learning.  They are for your informational benefit as an instructor and are not graded.
  • The final exam (two hours or take-home) or capstone assignment (if a final exam is inappropriate for your student-learning objectives), plus a grading key or rubric.  The exam or assignment should be cumulative and comprehensive, and most importantly, it should reflect your ultimate student-learning objectives for  your course.  Your final exam (if you choose this option) should include a variety of assessment items: some multiple-choice, some true-false, some matching or fill-in-the blanks, some short-answer or identifications items, and a short essay.