Today we learned an engaging approach to teaching the concepts of music. The idea is to find different versions of a particular song, play an excerpt from each, ask specific questions on particular concepts and then compare and contrast the excerpts.
Too many concepts?
Following on from this James, talked about the music syllabus requirements in NSW. The basic idea is that students learn the six concepts of music, through three learning experiences: listening; performing; and composition. He put forward that some prominent Australian commentators on music education i.e. the conductor Richard Gill OAM, suggest it would be more effective to teach less concepts well... We await the national curriculum.
Teaching a unit of work.
We then learned an approach to teaching a unit of work: One topic, a few concepts, through the learning experiences listening, performing and composing in that order. Composition tasks can be used to assess students understanding. James mentioned that obviously a teacher shouldn't spend too much time on one learning experience. A week of listening (or even one whole lesson on listening) would likely be frustrating for students.
"Death by powerpoint"
James mentioned research indicating that combining word for word audio and visual text is less effective than having one or the other. He quoted research by Professor John Sweller from the UNSW.
I am glad he brought that up. Many people find Powerpoint presentations that are read from the slide, hard to listen to or read. This one is entitled "Pentagons craziest powerpoint slide revealed.'
image from blog by Noah Shachtman on wired.com
The Lecture concluded with:
The Progression of technology in music teaching:
James' suggested progression is:
1. Looping, through GarageBand (Mac) or Acid (Windows)
2. Step sequencing for example the O-Generator or Anvil
3. Sequencing using Logic, Cubase, Sonar or Live
4. Notation: Sibelius or FOSS MuseScore
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