Casey Collins2024-02-29T16:44:39-05:00

Casey Collins

Casey Collins is a clinical assistant professor of music education at Purdue University Fort Wayne. She teaches undergraduate courses in elementary and secondary general music methods, introduction to music education, freshman success seminar in music education, elementary music for the elementary educator, and is the student teaching coordinator for the School of Music. Prior to PFW, Dr. Collins taught PK-5 elementary general music in North Carolina where she was awarded Teacher of the Year and honored as an Excellence in Education district finalist. In 2018, Collins was awarded the Global Teacher of the Year from Participate Learning. Though elementary general music is her main passion, Dr. Collins has a love for playing the flute and can often be found jumping in on university flute ensemble rehearsals when she can, and spends her summers working with high school marching bands as a woodwind tech.

Dr. Collins holds a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from Elon University, a Master of Music in Music Education from East Carolina University, and a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Michigan. Her research interests are on topics such as teaching general music in high-poverty schools, trauma-informed pedagogy practices for the music educator, vocal health and hygiene for music teachers, positive psychology applications for music education spaces, and improvisation in the general music classroom. Her dissertation research was centered on elementary music teachers in high-poverty schools, aiming to shift the deficit paradigm surrounding these spaces. She has presented on these topics internationally, nationally, and regionally at various research and practitioner conferences. When she is not teaching, Dr. Collins can be found reading, cooking, or snuggling up with her two cats, Opa and Anabelle.

eBooks by Casey Collins

Posts by Casey Collins

Musicast Episode 6: A Nod to Marching Bands, Part 2 with Aaron Dugger- Balancing Process and Product

High school band director Aaron Dugger returns to the podcast to discuss process and product in secondary marching bands. in the Texas UIL system, it can feel like your teaching to a test but Aaron offers productive insight as to how to take the system and make it work for students and programs of all kinds. [...]

Musicast Episode 5: Young Band Directors Panel- Finding and Remembering Your “Why”

\A panel of high school band directors who have been teaching for 6 years or less come together to discuss the good, the bad, and the inspirational parts of being a band director. The discussion includes topics about leadership, COVID era teaching, and finding and remembering why they became music teachers. This episode will feed your soul! [...]

Musicast Episode 4: Kirsten C. Kunkle – Passionate Pioneering

Soprano Kirsten C. Kunkle has been hailed as an outstanding singing actress with a voice that has been described as beautiful, ethereal, powerful, fiery, and bewitching. he attended Bowling Green State University and the University of Salzburg for her undergraduate studies, majoring in voice performance with minors in Italian and German. Her graduate degrees are in voice performance from the University of Michigan. A voting member of the Muscogee Nation, Dr. Kunkle commissioned and premiered sixteen original compositions, including one of her own, based upon the poetry of her ancestor and highly-acclaimed poet of the Native American Muscogee Nation, Alex Posey. [...]

Research to Practice: Using Data for More than Just Grades

I used to think that research was complicated and couldn’t help me in my classroom. I used to see the Music Educators Journal arrive in my mailbox, flip through, sigh, think to myself – “If I only had time….,” and then add the issue to a growing pile on my dining room table. [...]

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