Universal Design in Music Classrooms

2020 ◽  
pp. 197-218
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Universal Design ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Music Classrooms

This chapter focuses on universal design (UD) in the field of music education. First, the study introduces the original principles of UD and application to music education in P-12 schools. Second, the study explores the concept of musicking and draws the connection with the direction of UD. Instead of lowering the musical challenges and standard of performance, the chapter produces the idea of providing a musical platform for everyone to actively participate and interact with music. The chapter provides a total of six cases of UD in music education practice. This chapter provides a succinct explanation and examples of UD application in music education. Some of the examples include the usage of technology.

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.

Learning Music Composers’ Styles: To Block or to Interleave?

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Shi Hui Wong ◽  
Amanda Chern Min Low ◽  
Sean H. K. Kang ◽  
Stephen Wee Hun Lim
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Aural Skills ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Teaching Music ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Musical Styles

The ability to recognize and distinguish among varying musical styles is essential to developing aural skills and musicianship. Yet, this task can be difficult for music learners, particularly nonexperts. To address this challenge and guide music education practice, this study drew on cognitive psychological principles to investigate the effect of interleaved presentation of music pieces by various classical music composers on learning to identify these composers’ styles. Participants with 4 or fewer years of musical experience were presented with music pieces from six composers in an interleaved manner (alternating between listening to different composers’ works) and music pieces from another six composers in a blocked fashion (listening to works by one composer at a time before moving on to the next). A later test in which participants had to classify novel pieces by the same 12 composers revealed the superiority of interleaved over blocked presentation, although most participants misjudged blocking to be more effective than interleaving. This finding provides evidence for the utility of interleaving in teaching music composers’ styles and extends the literature on the interleaving effect in category induction to the auditory domain. Practical implications and future directions for the use of interleaving in music education are discussed.

Part 1: Community Music Therapy and El Sistema: Addressing the Empowerment Needs of Individuals and Communities Facing Socioeconomic Marginalization

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Virginia Eulacio Cierniak
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Therapy ◽  
Community Music ◽  
Program Structure ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Music Program ◽  
El Sistema

Music is an accessible tool for positive change within people and societies, even in places facing socioeconomic marginalization due to poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to resources. Social capital has to do with the resources and networks available within society, which may help confront issues faced by individuals and communities. Community Music Therapy (CoMT) and the music education movement known as El Sistema both utilize music—understood as social capital—to address social justice. The purpose of this study was to comparatively examine the ways in which CoMT and El Sistema programs may address the empowerment needs of individuals and communities facing socioeconomic marginalization and suggest how these two approaches may be able to work synergistically to achieve their shared goals. Its findings reveal many parallels and divergence between El Sistema and CoMT in terms of the role of the music, program structure, social justice goals, outcomes, music education practice, areas of intersection, existing scholarly research, and criticisms each has received.

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?

Policy, Standards, and Assessment in Technology-Based Music Instruction

2019 ◽  
pp. 828-854
Author(s):  
Jay Dorfman
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Music Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Instruction ◽  
Technology In Education ◽  
Education Standards ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Based Instruction ◽  
Music Classrooms ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

This chapter examines the intersections of technology-based music instruction, education policy, and education standards. Theoretical foundations of music teaching and technology-based instruction have influenced the ways in which technology has been integrated into music classrooms. This chapter provides an analysis of the treatment of technology in education policy documents in the United States, and ways in which standards and policies have both shaped and been shaped by theoretical perspectives on technology-based education in music classrooms. Finally, It discusses the outcomes of technology-based music education that should be considered assessable, and suggests ways that preservice and in-service teachers might approach assessment of students’ learning.

Hidden in Plain Sight

2015 ◽  
pp. 189-203
Author(s):  
Deborah Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
World Music ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Shed Light

This chapter seeks to tease out some of the challenges related to issues of race and racism as they play out within music education. These challenges include the slippery nature of the concept of race, the complex nature of racism, and the ideology of Whiteness that informs much current music education practice, including those practices considered to be “multicultural.” The chapter proposes that racism remains hidden under such common-sense narratives as “music is a universal language,” which operates in tandem with color-blind racism, and within the myth of “authenticity” in world music education that often prevents the inclusion of musics other than Western art musics in the curriculum. By interrogating some of the ways in which cultural Whiteness operates as racism within music education, the chapter seeks to shed light on ways of thinking that keep racism hidden in plain sight.

Technology and Invisibility in Music Teacher Education

2017 ◽  
pp. 538-554
Author(s):  
Gena Greher
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
First Century ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Education Curriculum ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Teacher Education Curriculum ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Certification Requirements

The purpose of technology in the music teacher education curriculum is examined in this chapter. While it is easy to view technology as an efficient content delivery system, that perspective does little to support pedagogical transformation or twenty-first-century skill acquisition. State teacher certification requirements mired in twentieth-century practices have done little to encourage a rethinking of the music teacher education curriculum to include a more expansive and constructionist view of the role technology can play in music education. Those creating the curricular guidelines for higher education in music are perhaps conflating the pervasive existence of the technological tools available to our students with the existence of a sound pedagogy for working with these tools. By providing a pedagogical approach based on creating with technology, we can begin to bridge the disconnect between music education practice and the multiple ways that our students understand music on their own outside school.

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.

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