Teachers' use of digital technology in secondary music education: illustrations of changing classrooms

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Wise ◽  
Janinka Greenwood ◽  
Niki Davis

The music industry in the 21st century uses digital technology in a wide range of applications including performance, composition and in recording and publishing. Much of this digital technology is freely available via downloads from the internet, as part of software included with computers when they are purchased and via applications that are available for some mobile phones. Such technology is transforming music and the way people approach many traditional music activities. This paper is about transformative practices that are underway in some secondary school music classrooms. Practices are being shaped by the culture of the schools and the students that they recruit. We describe the perceptions and practices of nine music teachers in four New Zealand secondary schools with regard to digital technology and how they are changing their work in their classroom. Data collection techniques include interviews, observation and a questionnaire. The data were subjected to two stages of thematic analysis. Grounded analysis was used to allow the teachers' voices emerge. This was then followed by the application of five themes identified in the literature on pedagogic change prompted by teachers' adoption of digital technologies.

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-90
Author(s):  
Wayne D. Bowman

This essay questions the efficacy of conventional disciplinary boundaries in post-secondary music studies, boundaries that reductively define music education as a training ground for public school music teachers. Our expectations of music education and its sphere of influence have been far too modest. To the extent we segregate music education from the goals and objectives of music studies more broadly, we neglect our collective responsibility for the musical life of our country. We have focused inwardly, engrossed in our specialties, leaving the design of school music curricula and the fragile environments in which they must compete for survival to the whims of non-musician bureaucrats and politicians. We have been less than successful in our collective obligation to enhance the musical well-being of the country. Changing these circumstances is among our greatest challenges in the decades ahead.


Author(s):  
Matthew L. Garrett ◽  
Joshua Palkki

Trans and gender-expansive (TGE) youth deserve safe and empowering spaces to engage in high-quality school music experiences. Supportive music teachers ensure that all students have access to ethically and pedagogically sound music education. In this practical resource, authors Matthew Garrett and Joshua Palkki encourage music educators to honor gender diversity through ethically and pedagogically sound practices. Honoring Trans and Gender-Expansive Students in Music Education is intended for music teachers and music teacher educators across choral, instrumental, and general music classroom environments. Grounded in theory and nascent research, the authors provide historical and social context, and practical direction for working with students who inhabit a variety of spaces among a gender-identity and expression continuum. Trans and gender-expansive students often place their trust in music teachers, with whom they have developed a deep bond over time. It is essential, then, for music teachers to understand how issues of gender play out in formal and informal school music environments. Stories of TGE youth and their music teachers anchor practical suggestions for honoring students in school music classrooms and in more general school contexts. Part I of the book establishes the context needed to understand and work with TGE persons in school music settings by presenting essential vocabulary and foundational concepts related to trans and gender identity and expression. Part II focuses on praxis by connecting research and teaching pedagogy to practical applications of inclusive teaching practices to honor TGE students in school music classrooms.


1998 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betty Hanley

This study is a replication of Dr Lucy Green's (1993) research using responses to an open-ended questionnaire to interpret music teachers' perceptions about boys' and girls' achievements in music classes compared to their results on the General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations (GCSE) in music. Using a revised questionnaire, the British Columbia study examined secondary music teachers' perceptions of gender issues and compared them with Grade 12 Examination results. The impact of gender beliefs was most evident in composition, where the provincial grades contradict teachers' perceptions of success and where the possible impact of technology on girls has not yet been acknowledged.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Wise

The music industry in the 21st century uses digital technology in a wide range of applications including in performance, in composition and in recording and publishing. In this article, I consider how the impact of digital technologies may be affecting pedagogical processes adopted by secondary music teachers, particularly in the area of composition. This paper examines qualitative data gathered from teachers in four schools participating in a larger research project. Data collected in this paper came from a number of semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that although the majority of teachers involved in this research remain fundamentally conservative in their approaches to teaching composition, focusing on more procedural rather than creative activities, some music teachers do make radical changes to their pedagogy in contexts where this is important to their students’ engagement and supported by their school.


2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wai-Chung Ho ◽  
Wing-Wah Law

In the past, the music curricula of Hong Kong (HK), Mainland China and Taiwan have focused on Western music, but with the advent of music technology and the new tripartite paradigm of globalisation, localisation and Sinophilia this has begun to change. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei share a common historical culture and their populations are mainly Chinese, but their recent socio-political experiences have been diverse. This paper aims to explore the secondary school cultures of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei by examining the similarities and differences between their musical practices and the ways in which they have delineated this tripartite paradigm. Data are drawn from questionnaires completed by 5,133 students (1,750 from HK, 1,741 from Shanghai, and 1,642 from Taipei) attending grades 7 to 9 and interviews with their 46 music teachers between March and August 2004. The survey data show that students from the three communities much prefer Western classical and popular music to their respective forms of local traditional music and to traditional Chinese styles. Though most music teachers recognise the importance of teaching traditional Chinese music, local traditional music, and other world music in schools, they believe that it is difficult to teach different types of music in the classroom. This article argues that globalisation is leading to a common cosmopolitan culture of Western musical learning in school; the emergence of traditional Chinese music, local music, and socio-political movements challenge globalisation in school music education.


Author(s):  
Hui Hong ◽  
Weisheng Luo

Wang Guowei, a famous scholar and thinker in our country, thinks that “aesthetic education harmonizes people's feelings in the process of emotional music education, so as to achieve the perfect domain”, “aesthetic education is also emotional education”. Therefore, in the process of music education, emotional education plays an important role in middle school music teaching, and it is also the highest and most beautiful realm in the process of music education in music teaching. Music teachers should be good at using appropriate teaching methods and means. In the process of music education, they should lead students into the emotional world, knock on their hearts with the beauty of music, and touch their heartstrings. Only when students' hearts are close to music in the process of music education, can they truly experience the charm of music and realize the true meaning of music in the process of music education. Only in this way can music classes be effectively implemented The purpose of classroom emotion teaching.


Author(s):  
Marina Gall

In this chapter, adopting an autobiographical perspective, I reflect upon the use of music technology within English school classrooms during the last 50 years. The chapter illustrates that this has become so important—particularly for creative work—that formal music technology examination syllabi for older students now exist alongside courses that focus on “traditional” music skills. The chapter also discusses the less positive position of information communications technology within the music curricula for primary school children and secondary students aged 11–14, and offers thoughts on the future of music technology within the English education system. As a backdrop to the discussion the chapter presents a short reflection on music technological developments in society during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The chapter also includes the perspectives of music educators from a wide range of European countries, during the period 2008–2011, on the position of music technology within their own educational contexts.


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