As applied in my Internship:

INTASC standard #4 refers to the content knowledge that I needed to possess in order to understand how to teach the students during my internship. This covers information that I have learned from my four years at the University of Arkansas from music knowledge to educational philosophy knowledge. Of course, it is obvious that a teacher must understand their career field deeply. Unfortunately, some teachers have a hard time applying all aspects of their knowledge. Conducting, aural perceptions, piano skills, choral methods, and other musical aspects are used daily in the classroom and are important to weave together together to create a smooth learning experience for students. During preparation considering aspects learned from educational philosophy to incorporate in lessons to accommodate for all students is necessary as well. Understanding when to use Vygotsky theories versus Piaget can  make or break a students understanding of content. Score analysis is also important to teaching any music ensemble; music theory and music history, and knowledge of literature is vital to understanding the deeper details of any work. During my internship I liked to challenge my students to think on an elevated level, I often used constructivistism teaching tactics to guide students on how to break down a piece through music theory, music history, or other variables. Teaching like this allows for the student to not only grow as a musician, but to think through their work on a critical level. The same goes for the text of the piece, I usually asked students to read through the poem and work together to figure out the intent of the poem, and the text stress. This allows students to express creativity in what they believed the most important words are, or what the poet was trying to convey to the reader. Poem analysis also affects the music; often if students struggled or debated to figure out what the most important parts of a phrase were in a poem I would have them discuss it through the music. Most likely, the composer adapted the music to fit the phrase of the poem. This added an extra layer of depth to the students thinking process that they never thought about before. It is imperative that a teacher deeply understands their discipline as it affects the students learning heavily.

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