Music Education Faculty Participate in Music Teacher Education Symposium

September 21, 2007

Members of the Penn State music education faculty participated in the second national Symposium on Music Teacher Education at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, September 15-17, 2007. Joanne Rutkowski, professor of music education, participated in a panel discussion regarding best practices in preparing future music teacher educators. Linda Thornton, assistant professor of music education, and Norene Ferris, coordinator of the Partnership for Music Teacher Excellence, gave a presentation about the use of electronic portfolios in the Penn State music education program. In addition, the music education faculty, including Ann Clements and Robert Gardner, both assistant professors of music education, presented a poster at the best practices session, Musicians, Scholars, and Educators: Intersections in a New Curriculum for Undergraduate Music Education. The symposium, sponsored by the Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE), a subsidiary of The National Association for Music Education (MENC), whose members are interested in research and practice in music teacher education, included faculty and graduate students from all over the country, and provided a forum for participating in future research and other projects through special interest groups for strategic planning and action. Doctoral students R. Kenneth Docker and Beth Gibbs also attended the symposium.

Contact: Flora Marynak, fwm1@psu.edu