The following is an adaptation from the Randy Wong’s article “Portfolio Documentation in Context,” to be published in the upcoming issue of The Journal for Music-in-Education. Reprinted by permission.

Through the creation of a specialized MIE Guided Internship, students with research interests in assessment methods can undertake positions in the MIE Research Center as MIE Portfolio Archivist-Analysts. Guided interns who choose this persona undertake the responsibility of acquainting themselves with our MIE Portfolio Library (which includes individual student, class, and cumulative Concentration portfolios from the inception of the MIE program in the late 1990s) and the portfolio process.

Portfolio Archivist-Analysts are also familiarized with similar portfolio work done in other Research Center and National Consortium projects; for example, that of the LLSN School Portfolio System. Portfolio Archivist-Analysts work hand-in-hand with Documentation Specialists to ensure that the appropriate types of documentation are being collected, and both roles help to inform their class peers, guided internship mentors, and teaching faculty of particular issues, concerns, or successes that the portfolio program may need to address.

At the end of the semester, MIE Documentation Specialists and Portfolio Archivist-Analysts meet to assemble class portfolios that will serve as an additional record of a particular course. Portfolio Archivist-Analysts collect incoming student class and internship portfolios and digitize them in accordance with the MIE Digital Portfolio System. Once students’ portfolios are digitized, MIE faculty members electronically annotate them with reflections, questions, feedback, and scores. And when students receive their hard-copy portfolios back, they also receive a copy of the digital, annotated version. At the same time, students can opt-in to our MIE Portfolio Showcase Program, which serves as the repository for student work that we can use for publication on our website or in this Journal. Likewise, those portfolios are made available for other Conservatory students who are interested in learning from their peers’ work. Thus, all students who participate in the MIE Concentration program (and by default, the MIE portfolio process) become active members of the “wider gamut of individuals” that educational philosopher Howard Gardner suggests is necessary for a system like this to function. Additionally, Gardner’s own views on the regularity of reflection can help us to better understand how and why the MIE portfolio process is important to those that are active in it:

By asking students to keep and review process-folios regularly, we hope to involve them in constant reflection on their activities and to allow them the opportunity to monitor and to learn from their own growth and even their own setbacks. Ultimately, we hope that these process-folios can become rewards in themselves as well as a tangible record of an artistic apprenticeship.

With the creation of an ecosystem (affectionately referred to as the “M-i-Ecosystem”) the centerpiece of which is the student/guided intern and his/her portfolio, we are hoping that students may start to recognize that the partnership of teaching and learning is a lifelong endeavor, and that the skills that they hone while creating their portfolios are applicable whether or not they eventually choose to become teaching artists, researchers, or professional musicians.

Please note: We respect our students’ privacy and will not publish links to their portfolios on our website unless the student has chosen to opt-in to our MIE Portfolio Showcase program.

The MIE Portfolio Showcase program posts excerpts of your portfolio (chosen at our discretion) on the MIE@NEC Website, and helps to make visible the terrific work that our students do. Participants in the MIE Portfolio Showcase receive no compensation for their participation, and we will conceal the identity of all portfolio authors before publishing portfolio excerpts. Participants may also opt-out of the MIE Portfolio Showcase at any future time. To opt-in to the Portfolio Showcase, please contact MIE Program Coordinator Randy Wong (617-585-1299) or email randy@mieatnec.org.

–Randy Wong

Randy Wong is Program Coordinator for the Center for Music-in-Education and Information Architect for the Music-in-Education National Consortium

As MIE Program Coordinator, I am often asked what advantages the MIE Concentration Program sees with using portfolios to help students keep track of their learning. While the answer to this is long, and varied, I thought I’d take the time in this post to list some very specific applications for portfolio use as career-building tools.

For starters, sometimes it helps people to think of their portfolio in the same way that they would think of a press kit. More than a business card, and often more ‘official’ than a website, artists use press kits all the time to show off their accomplishments, repertoire, references, media reviews, and etc. An MIE Portfolio can be used the same way - it’s like a press kit for teaching artists. A well-organized portfolio is like currency, when it comes to applying for teaching jobs or artist residencies! Prospective employers, whether they are at music schools, youth symphonies, or even parents looking for a private teacher for their child, can look at your MIE portfolio and get a very good glimpse at who you are as a teacher. Most likely, your MIE portfolio will include at least a learning narrative, rationale towards teaching, or a statement of self-assessment; and many peoples’ portfolios also have sample lesson plans, article responses, and pictures or video of past teaching experiences. This collection of documents says far more about who you are, and your experience as a teaching artist, than just a resume could.

While the sharing of some types of artifacts may be more relevant to some jobs than others, it’s important not to overlook the potential that ALL artifacts can have, if they are presented in an appropriate fashion. For example, just because you may be being considered as a private instructor for a young instrumentalist (as opposed to an assistant at a research center), I would encourage you to include some reading responses in your portfolio. If you chose articles (i.e. from the Journal for Learning Through Music) that are relevant to your teaching approach with young students, and included thoughtful reading responses, then prospective parents would see that you are not only familiar with current research in music-in-education, but that you strive to let that research inform who you are, in your own practice, as a teaching artist.

Another example of this deals with MIE alums who apply for jobs in arts administration. On occasion, one might find a community organization who wants to start a music program at their site, but isn’t sure what would be an appropriate approach. In an interview for such a job, the organization might ask its applicants what approaches similar organizations have taken. Or what trends are current in the field. Or if there might be an already-established program somewhere that could be replicated at their site. For the uninformed applicant, this could be a daunting question. However, for the MIE alum, who has done readings in national music-in-education journals where the journals report on similar programs across the country, the question becomes very easy. In fact, some of our Guided Interns at the Research Center have decided to focus their internships on gleaming that kind of information from sites across the MIE National Consortium, and their portfolios will reflect these trends.

Finally, I wanted to address some concerns that making an MIE Portfolio is a “daunting task,” especially for non-native English speakers. Portfolio work, like most types of homework or class assignments, is meant to be done in stages. This means that, along the way, students have the time to edit, proofread, and adjust their writing so that they can get it to the most professional standards. Working with an experienced English coach or writing instructor can have profound, and long-lasting, positive effects. Luckily, students of any degree program at New England Conservatory have the services of Patrick Keppel and the Writing Center at their disposal. (Patrick Keppel is the Editor of the Journal for Learning Through Music and the soon-to-be-published Journal for Music-in-Education, and is very familiar with the portfolio strategy used by the MIE Concentration Program).

Anyways, those are some specific ways that MIE portfolios can be applied to career-building situations. If you can think of any others, or have some questions, please post comments below!

-Randy,

P.S.: I cannot stress enough how effective a well-written and organized portfolio can be.

Randy Wong is Program Coordinator for the Center for Music-in-Education and Information Architect for the Music-in-Education National Consortium

We’d like to draw some attention to the links listed in the side panel on the right of this page. We have listed links to other Internet resources for those interested in the emergent field of music-in-education; in particular, portfolios and teaching blogs that our MIE alums started while they were students and have continued in their professional careers. We regularly hear from our alums that reflective writing, collecting documentation, and keeping portfolios of their work is extremely helpful as they apply for jobs in education. Many alums, in fact, bring their portfolios to job interviews to help showcase their work and rationale towards music-in-education. We will be sharing links to the work of our alumni, and also are more than willing to help current students publish their work on our website.

Links to MIE Alumni Teaching Blogs:

Links to MIE Alumni Sample Portfolios:

–Randy Wong,
MIE Program Coordinator