Keeping Up With Students: An Approach to Music Education

KEEPING UP WITH STUDENTS: An Approach to Music Education

Introduction

They speak faster, type faster, move from topic to topic—particularly on smart phones—they learn from each other and in different ways, and yet we are still teaching as we were taught. It worked for us. Does it work for our students? In a rapidly changing environment, we need to keep up with them, or soon they will be out of sight.

In view of the above, the aim of this presentation is to show how a number of "new pedagogies" that focus on esthetic, cognitive and emotional needs, can make school music relevant and meaningful for today’s students. New pedagogies include three elements:

1. Communication - an endangered skill in cultures where people make more contact with their telephones than with each other, and an essential part of the relationship between students, and between students and teachers. A model, developed in an experimental setting, will describe an effective framework for improving interpersonal communication.
2. Creativity and imagination - in a safe environment that provides constructive feedback from peers and teachers, and affords students the opportunity to express and develop their musical ideas.
3. Control of technological media, enabling children to choose their music. Research found that a Music Listening Library was an effective facility through which children broadened the repertoire of music to which they listened, and which they came to like. Today, technology provides easy access to music of different cultures and styles, as well as interesting musical games, and challenging rhythmic and melodic exercises. Weaving this into music education will be demonstrated through a current website.

Implications for music education

New pedagogic beliefs and insights can lead to renewed behavioral practices, that:

1. satisfy needs by changing the nature of the music class to create an appealing framework, using a variety of teaching and learning strategies.
2. develop children`s innate curiosity, imagination and creative potential by introducing appropriate materials, activities and assignments.
3. focus the one-hour weekly music class on dialogue, interpersonal communication, musical problem-solving, and sharing of ideas in small groups, to enhance the impact of music making.
4. harness the vast potential of the internet through music websites and new technologies, to create continuity between music experienced in the classroom and beyond it, and to extend enjoyment of music to different musical styles and great works.

These suggestions will be backed by appropriate examples.