Rubrics

Educational Autobiography

1. What was your career path prior to entering the MAT program?

Prior to entering the Master of Arts in Teaching or MAT program, I chose homemaking and motherhood as my primary career path. I love music and taught my four children piano skills in addition to directing my private children's piano and voice studio throughout the past 25 years. I have actively sought out and created opportunities for academic growth as I built my Suzuki music business utilizing my skills of organization, patience, and prioritizing people. While teaching ages three to adult, I listen and help each student expand their musical potential by synthesizing their personal choice with progressive repertoire and effort. Collaborating with a variety of lively, young children has prepared me to work successfully with many types of personalities –including those of colleagues, parents, and guardians.

2. What led you to pursue teaching as a profession?

I want to pursue teaching as a profession to ignite and support even more musical talents in children. I can use my skills in music and education to inspire positive, sustainable changes now, as well as to continue my own growth through leading and working with peers and students. I enjoy connecting to individual students and learning about their unique potential. I can encourage development and progression in students by focusing on their strengths. I believe in community and safety and have volunteered in three local schools and with my local Boy Scouts of America Troop for the past six years. As a teacher, I hope to create social awareness and artistic presentations to promote inclusion and a musical place for all students. I have also volunteered in my Christian church community to teach choir, piano, and organ to children on several occasions and enjoyed the opportunity to share my musical abilities with others while continuing to learn.

3. What is your academic background?

I have an academic background in music. I achieved my Bachelor of Arts in music at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and have continued to pursue on-going education. I earned teaching certificates from the Suzuki Association of the Americas in piano pedagogy levels one to three; I recently completed a two-year continuing education teacher-training course at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington prior to being admitted to the MAT program. I have focused on sharpening my technical piano performance skills as well as observing both elementary and middle school music students from master-teachers in the field.

4. What professional training have you participated in to support your development as an educator?

Beyond the Suzuki and teacher-training courses I mentioned above, I have also completed a professional eight-hour training in mental health first aid for educators offered by Thurston County in Washington state. I learned important first responses to student suicide thoughts and other mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression by using the ALGEE acronym. Learning how to support diverse students in a variety of ways-- including socially and emotionally, only deepens my comprehension and strengthens my abilities as an educator. I will continue to create student-lead musical opportunities for students of all ability levels. Recently, I completed the Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) training to learn effective communication strategies for teaching ELL students as they acquire a second language. GLAD training also taught me specific skills for chunking content information including gestures, word boxes, color coding, graphic organizers and how to facilitate student group “experts” to support emerging and struggling readers. I attended the Music EdTech Conference Workshop in July of 2020 where many of the speakers shared insight into detailed online learning platforms such as essentialmusicclass.com and musicplayonline.com for student synchronous and asynchronous instruction. As part of my internship, I attended five days of training at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year in social justice including Native American curriculum, Since Time Immemorial, to ready teachers for engaging all students in an online environment in response to the global coronavirus pandemic. I appreciate these professional opportunities to develop skills in educational technology and culturally responsive practices to welcome all students in the classroom.

Philosophy of Education

I support student-lead instruction for diverse and all students. Offering student choice, curiosity, challenge, and incorporating student interests to foster motivation are critical components of a music classroom. Because these constructivist and progressive strategies reduce confrontation, minimizes stress, and help preserve student dignity, according to educational theorist Marvin Marshall, I value them in the classroom. In addition, by combining student motivation with meaningful relationships, I can foster a trusting environment in music education. I utilize my specific skills in connection, community place-based education, and time for listening to build rapport with students and encourage responsibility and internal self-discipline. Students may not care about learning until they know that I care about them. I strive to get to know students, welcome all diverse populations, relate to their situations and ideas, and bridge knowledge between what they know and what they need to know. I can offer individualized support and scaffolding based on the educational research of Jerome Bruner who advocated for personal and discovery-based learning. I understand that students have significant physiological, emotional, social, and cognitive needs from Abraham Maslow and I am committed to creating an environment to meet those needs that is engaging and stretching.  

I empathetically and proactively uphold clear classroom expectations and consequences for behavior as outlined by William Glasser. Students may learn best by having an honest and assertive teacher who can encourage and reinforce boundaries calmly, firmly and kindly.   

Tying scenarios that are external from the classroom together with hands-on activities, I appeal to many different learning domains and productively engage students. Working to support students, I can further prevent undesirable behavior during class by having a reliable structure, timely activities, and by critically asking students to choose and create expectations that are valuable to them. Discussing reasons why we are studying concepts may also help students choose acceptable behaviors. In the music room, I maintain a routine throughout lessons to support students' confidence as they both lead out and choose to follow directions. I enjoy designing lessons that utilize the different levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy including his higher level thinking processes and four domains for learning to support a variety of learners.  

I approach discipline in the same way I approach classroom instruction –as an opportunity for student growth. I use a system of positive redirection, reflective I-statements, and reteaching for students who are off-task, reminiscent of Fred Jones and Barbara Coloroso. Using transparency and collaboration, students will know positive and negative consequences for behavior as they will choose them; I post expectations in the classroom visually to encourage and remind students of their worth. Throughout the year I integrate the school PBIS system of reward combined with small token systems to aid developing autonomy in students. Music examples of reward may include colorful instrument "karate" ribbons combined with student self-assessment and tracking to develop deeper intrinsic motivation for desired behavior. I am human and work toward balancing: 

• fun with productivity   

• student needs with curriculum content

• the present with future goals

I enjoy learning and growing personally by collaborating with student families, colleagues, and the community. I welcome using anonymous student surveys, video recordings, and mentors to continually measure success and improve my teaching. 

I appreciate the journey of learning. I believe that complex logic tasks, executive functioning tasks, and memory recall and linking, are all skills that music develops based on science from Dr. Anita Collins, 2017. These skills can be applied to any field of study that students pursue. Music is fun. It is a creative outlet that I believe each student is entitled to as they seek out safe and inventive spaces. We have enough stress in the world today; in addition to physically strong students, we need mentally and emotionally strong leaders. I foster that type of strength in music class. I am enthusiastic and dedicated to supporting music education for each individual student.

Thank you,

Jackie Healey

Resume

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