A Reflective Lens: Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice | Page 15

A Reflective Lens:
Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice

Group 1

Group 2

Student A (leader)

Student F (leader)

Student B (assistant leader)

Student G (assistant leader)

Student C (noise controller)

Student H (noise controller)

Student D (time keeper)

Student I (time keeper)

Student E (scribe)

Student J (scribe)

Table 1: Roles of Each Participant in the Research Study

Designing the Group Music Composition Activities
Before the study commenced, my Primary 4 students had
been given exposure to basic musical elements such as
beat, rhythm, melody, tempo, dynamics, structure, and form
(Wiggins, 1989). They revised these musical elements in the
first two weeks of the study. They were also introduced to the
concept of ‘melodic and rhythmic ostinato’ where they were
provided with opportunities for ra ndom exploration (Wiggins,
1994) and they were engaged in sufficient performing and
listening experiences prior to the composition (Wiggins,
2005). These elements were crucial in their ensuing group
composition. Due to this consideration, the study was
conducted in Term 3 instead of Term 2 as initially planned.
The study lasted for five weeks and consisted of onehour lessons with two major composition activities. The
first composition activity was to create a piece of work by
combining musical elements introduced in the first three
lessons of the study. It served as a scaffolding for students’
second composition, which would be a new composition
composed from scratch. I was particularly interested in the
second composition activity as its success depended on
each group being able to understand the first few lessons
and then transferring their learning into creating something
new. Furthermore, the second composition task had fewer
parameters set for them.

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