Michelle Mercier-DeShon

Michelle Mercier-De Shon is currently a full-time instructor in music education at Georgia State University.  Her school public school teaching experience is in Elementary General/Choral music, with certification in the Orff approach.  She has taught a variety of undergraduate, masters, and Ph.D.-level courses in music teacher education, including K-12 general music methods, introduction to music education, music curriculum and assessment, foundations of music education, and philosophy of music education. She has extensive experience with coordinating school-university-community music partnerships, including the design, implementation and evaluation of programs, as well as developing and leading teacher professional development for the partnerships and educators.  Since 2001, she has been involved with Sound Learning, a collaborative-community music and arts program in Atlanta-area public schools, both as a music specialist, a coordinator, and a supervisor.  As grant supervisor, she continues to work toward improving and expanding our multifaceted community-music partnership with Drew Charter School and the East Lake Foundation.  She has given research and pedagogy presentations at state, national, and international conferences.  Her research interests focus on music teaching and learning, with emphasis on children’s development of musical identity, informal music learning in the elementary and middle school classrooms, and community-based arts partnerships.  In addition to studying classical piano, she also enjoys playing drums and keyboards in rock bands and participating collaborative community music and arts events.  Her other interests include organic gardening, cooking, traveling, and restoring a 100-year old farmhouse with her husband Freddy De Shon.