Music Education, Curriculum Design, and Assessment: Imagining a More Equitable Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 106 (4) ◽  
pp. 57-65
Author(s):  
Jennifer Mellizo
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Education Curriculum ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Planning Strategy ◽  
School Music ◽  
Music Classrooms ◽  
Content Pedagogy

Although it is not their intent, conventional curricula may place some students at a disadvantage in school music classrooms. This article offers a practical planning strategy that music educators can use to confront and resist some of these curricular tendencies in subtle yet important ways. By reimagining long-standing norms related to content, pedagogy, and assessment, we can build a system that provides more students with access to a high-quality, equitable, and personally meaningful music education.

scholarly journals Variations in Music Education Curriculum and the Organization of Listening

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Klett
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Performance ◽  
Education Curriculum ◽  
Musical Sound ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
School Music ◽  
Music Classrooms ◽  
Elementary School Music

Sociologists argue that we learn evaluative skills, such as those to distinguish qualities of music, through practical knowledge. Yet sociologists have not asked how we understand those sonic events as musical in the first place. Through nine months of semi-structured observations in six elementary school music classrooms, I examine how music education draws symbolic boundaries around musical sound. I find that variations in curriculum produce different organizational practices in the classroom. These practices develop what is a basic sensory skill – listening – in very different ways. I identify four dimensions of teacher performance that support these differences: authorized sound-makers, constrained movement, enforced perspectives, and selected attention. These variations in music education produce contrasting performances for recognizing musical sound.

Trans Voices Speak: Suggestions from Trans Educators about Working with Trans Students

2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-56
Author(s):  
Christopher Cayari ◽  
Felix A. Graham ◽  
Emma Joy Jampole ◽  
Jared O’Leary
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Gender Nonconforming ◽  
The Past ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Trans People ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Music Classrooms

The social climate in the past decade has seen a rise in visibility of trans students in music classrooms and ensembles, leading to a need for scholarship on how to serve this growing population. Literature is being published to address this topic; however, the lack of scholarship by trans educators might lead many music educators to conclusions and practices that can be, at the very least, discouraging to some trans students and may disrupt their learning experiences. This article was written by four educators who identify as part of the trans community (a genderfluid and gender-nonconforming individual, a trans man, a trans woman, and a gender-nonbinary person) to fill this gap in the literature by illuminating some of the pitfalls inherent in the lack of discussion on (and by) trans people in music education. In addition, this article provides five actionable suggestions for working with trans students: (1) Learn about the trans community, (2) inspect your language and biases, (3) represent the diversity of trans people in your teaching, (4) promote healthy music-making and identity development, and (5) model allyship.

Inspiring the Next Generation of Music Educators: A Multiple Case Study of High School Music Experiences and Career Choice

2020 ◽  
pp. 002242942097578
Author(s):  
Tiger Robison ◽  
Scott N. Edgar ◽  
John Eros ◽  
Kimberly H. Councill ◽  
William E. Fredrickson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Future Research ◽  
School Music ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
High School Music

The purpose of this instrumental multiple case study was to explore the roles that high school music educators and the experiences they provide play in influencing high school students’ decisions to pursue a career in music education. Four bounded systems, consisting of programs led by ensemble directors with documented records and reputations for helping matriculate music education students into undergraduate music education programs, were studied. Findings were organized into the following themes: (a) formative attraction to the profession, (b) differing approaches to encouragement, (c) forms of encouragement, and (d) life as a music teacher. Specific implications for practice for multiple stakeholders and implications for future research are provided based on these findings.

Music Education Assessment and Social Justice

2015 ◽  
pp. 512-524
Author(s):  
Martin Fautley
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
World Music ◽  
Western World ◽  
Music Curriculum ◽  
Education Assessment ◽  
Music Making ◽  
School Music ◽  
Music Classrooms

This chapter considers the role that assessment, particularly formative assessment, has to play with regard to social justice purposes in education. It disentangles the notion of assessment from that of testing. Valorization of music is highly significant, as what is valued tends to be what is assessed. This can result in the disenfranchising of world music, pop, rock, and jazz on a daily basis in music classrooms all over the Western world; so this chapter problematizes the content of the music curriculum, too, asking whether that which can be labeled “school music” has any relevance beyond itself. To counter these problems, this chapter suggests the use of feed forward, which takes place during music making, privileging process over product. It suggests that the principal purpose of assessment should be to improve learning in music, not to simply provide data for systemic purposes.

scholarly journals Critically Assessing Forms of Resistance in Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Brent C. Talbot ◽  
Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Consciousness Raising ◽  
The World ◽  
Music Classrooms

In their classrooms, music educators draw upon critical pedagogy (as described by Freire, Giroux, and hooks) for the express purpose of cultivating a climate for conscientização. Conscientização, according to Paulo Freire (2006), “refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (p. 35). This consciousness raising is a journey teachers pursue with students, together interrogating injustices in communities and the world in order to transform the conditions that inform them. Learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions often leads to multiple forms of resistance in and out of music classrooms. This chapter explores the following question: What do critical forms of assessment look like in music classrooms that use critical pedagogy and embrace resistance to foster conscientization?

The effect of participation in a popular band program on students’ musical and extra-musical outcomes in Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-382
Author(s):  
Joo Yeon Jung ◽  
Jihae Shin ◽  
Soojin Lee
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Integrated Curriculum ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Music Curriculum ◽  
Bob Dylan ◽  
School Music ◽  
Mainstream School ◽  
Younger Generation

The increased attention to the use of popular music within the classroom is not new. In fact, music educators in many countries have discussed the incorporation of popular music into mainstream music education for decades. South Korea is no exception, and the younger generation has a genuine interest in and sensitivity toward popular music. Yet, South Korea has been slow to incorporate popular music into its mainstream school music curriculum. Recently, the popular band has been gaining its popularity as a new kind of ensemble program inside and outside the school in South Korea. Thus, the purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of a popular band program, the “Little Bob Dylan Band,” on students’ musical and extra-musical outcomes. Thirty-five students participated in the program, and, in this study, both students and their parents completed a survey and were individually interviewed. Results indicated that the program enabled students to have new and deepened musical experiences in their lives. In addition, students were able to develop artistic originality through an integrated curriculum that involved cooperation with peers while creating and playing music together.

Optimizing Optimal Experiences: Practical Strategies to Facilitate Flow for 21st-Century Music Educators

2020 ◽  
Vol 107 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-41
Author(s):  
Leonard Tan ◽  
Hui Xing Sin
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Flow Theory ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Flow Experience ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Theory Research ◽  
Flow Experiences ◽  
Music Classrooms ◽  
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In 1990, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi warned against an excessive emphasis on how well music learners perform rather than on the experiential aspect of music in and of itself. Whereas the former approach is, in his words, “a source of psychic disorder,” the latter approach offers access to “flow”: the optimal, enjoyable, meaningful, and happy state. What might an approach to music education that aims to optimize optimal experiences (i.e., flow) look like? This article presents concrete strategies to facilitate flow experiences in music classrooms and rehearsal halls by drawing on flow theory, research findings, and the authors’ own professional and applied experiences. The authors clarify the nature of the flow experience, sketch the benefits of flow, and propose ten strategies to facilitate flow for music educators.

scholarly journals Reasons to teach music: establishing a place in the contemporary curriculum

2000 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Pitts
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Music Teaching ◽  
Musical Identity ◽  
British Music ◽  
School Music ◽  
History Of

Studies in the history of music education reveal much about the place and purpose of music in the changing curriculum. In this article, the ideas of some significant British music educators of the twentieth century are considered, in an evaluation of the apparent goals of music teaching that have been articulated over the decades. The connections between rationale and practice are discussed, with published ideas placed alongside the views of contemporary teachers in a small-scale questionnaire survey. The conclusion is proposed that school music, as a small part of the child's musical identity, must be modest in its intentions but ambitious in its provision.

The rights and wrongs of school music: a brief comment on Malcolm Ross's paper

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Plummeridge
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
The Arts ◽  
School Music ◽  
The Many

In this article consideration is given to some of the issues raised in Malcolm Ross's provocative critique of music education and music educators (TJJME, 1995, 12, 185–201). Ross's claim that there is empirical evidence to support a view of school music as a failing arts subject requires closer examination and critical evaluation. Whilst his contention that the arts subjects cannot really be taught in schools is both interesting and challenging, teachers will question some of Ross's underlying pedagogical and aesthetic arguments. They are also likely to conclude that he pays insufficient attention to the many developments that have taken place in the theory and practice of music education.

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