A Reflective Lens: Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice | Page 33

A Reflective Lens:
Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice

Since only ten students were studied in-depth, it is not
viable to generalise the findings across the Primary 4 cohort
in Singapore. My recommendation is to replicate the study
with another group of Primary 5 or 6 students who are
better able to verbalise their thoughts and perform higherorder reasoning and thinking skills.
This study can also be extended to analyse the depth of
students’ thinking by using some visible thinking tools as they
work co-operatively and solve complex problems in groups.

Implications and Conclusion

This study has many implications concerning students
gaining from co-operative learning, and music teachers
can be greatly encouraged to give students opportunities
to create in groups as the learning acquired is priceless. It
is also advisable that given tasks be spread across a few
lessons so that students have opportunities to work with
one another over a longer period of time. This will allow
them to solve more complex problems. To set the stage
for success, teachers can present the tasks in bite-sizes
and give proper scaffolding during the process. This will
create a conducive environment to learn where students
are assured that the tasks are doable and they are given
support to succeed. When students are more ready to solve
a more complex problem on their own, teachers can then
empower the students to make more decisions in solving
the problem. This approach will encourage students to
take ownership of their own learning.
As reflective practitioners, educators should exercise our
professional judgement whether we can stretch our students
further by challenging them with more complex problems.
With a student-centric approach in music learning, our
role as teachers shifts from simply imparting knowledge to
that of helping our students discover knowledge. As such,
there is a need for mindset changes and for us to develop
facilitation skills or questioning techniques to provoke
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