Preservice music teachers: influences on lesson planning

This article explores the influences on preservice teachers' planning decisions in a study conducted during Semester I, 1994 at an Australian University. A group of second year Bachelor of Education (Music) students and Diploma in Education (Music) students were placed in a local school under the supervision of their university specialist methods lecturer and were required to teach a specified lesson to a junior secondary class on three occasions. Before teaching these lessons, every preservice teacher was interviewed and asked to justify each of their planning decisions. Responses for the planning decisions at each stage of the study were grouped into categories. The results show that some categories of responses remained the same, while others changed throughout the study. The study also revealed that the preservice teachers operated on two sets of lesson agendas: the written agenda which was influenced by the university pedagogical programme, and the unwritten agenda influenced by the preservice teachers' beliefs about teaching.