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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine familiarity with and usage of “Understanding by Design” (UbD) among music teacher educators. UbD (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) provides a curricular approach for the revised National Standards for Music Education as part of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. Accordingly, the co-authors collected quantitative and qualitative data to examine how music teacher educators conceptualized and implemented UbD. Initially, 300 members of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) served as participants and responded to an online survey. Responses indicated a low level of understanding UbD, some frustration with communication about the revised standards, and an interest in creating a UbD resource network for music educators. As a follow-up, 13 participants who had experience using aspects of UbD in their teaching volunteered for semi-structured interviews. From those data, four themes emerged: curricular modeling, awareness and advocacy, teacher mindset, and pedagogical disadvantages of UbD. Implications include responsive professional development to explain and promote UbD in terms of its role in the revised standards. Additionally, music teacher educators may find a repository of sample UbDformatted lesson plans useful in understanding and using the revised national standards.

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