The social climate in the past decade has seen a rise in visibility of trans students in music classrooms and ensembles, leading to a need for scholarship on how to serve this growing population. Literature is being published to address this topic; however, the lack of scholarship by trans educators might lead many music educators to conclusions and practices that can be, at the very least, discouraging to some trans students and may disrupt their learning experiences. This article was written by four educators who identify as part of the trans community (a genderfluid and gender-nonconforming individual, a trans man, a trans woman, and a gender-nonbinary person) to fill this gap in the literature by illuminating some of the pitfalls inherent in the lack of discussion on (and by) trans people in music education. In addition, this article provides five actionable suggestions for working with trans students: (1) Learn about the trans community, (2) inspect your language and biases, (3) represent the diversity of trans people in your teaching, (4) promote healthy music-making and identity development, and (5) model allyship.
Read MoreInterest in coding education has exploded in the past five years, especially in elementary and early secondary education. Teachers who are largely new to coding are expected to guide entire student bodies through the fundamentals of coding and computational thinking. But little is known about which coding and computational thinking (CT) concepts teachers feel most comfortable with and which concepts they struggle with. This study describes 127 elementary coding teachers’ changes in their beliefs about teaching coding and CT as they participated in year-long continuous professional development. Novice elementary coding teachers demonstrated most growth in their self-efficacy for teaching sequences, algorithms and loops. They were less secure in their knowledge of conditionals, variables, and functions. For computational thinking, teachers were most confident in their ability to identify patterns, think algorithmically, understand logic, and evaluate outcomes, showing less growth with decomposition and abstraction.
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