Sounding the Teaching III: Facilitating Music Learning with Music Tec Sounding The Teaching III | Page 10

SOUNDING THE TEACHING III /
PRELUDE
and how we can make sense of music to
express ourselves and participate fully in our
community and the wider society.
RE-EXAMINING MUSIC MAKING
Digital technology has expanded the
notions of composition and performance
to include processes such as recording,
sequencing, mixing, production, virtual
performances and beyond. At times, they
no longer belong to neat categories of
“composition” and “performance”. To add to
the complexity, contexts of music making
have also expanded. Tobias (2013) observed
that “the line between studio and stage will
continue to blur as technology and popular
music evolve and transform how we create,
perform, listen to and interact with music”
(p. 228). Technology has also enhanced
accessibility to collaboration and feedback,
supported multiple revisions of work and
broadened the scope of creative processes
and activities. The articles featuring
music arrangements on DAW (by Shaun),
songwriting on iPad (by Samuel Soong Rui),
listening and jam band (by Si Liang), and
the software and apps explored in blended
learning (by Lim Xian Quan, Ronald) are
all examples of the broader range of
music-making activities afforded by digital
technology.
RE-EXAMINING MUSIC LEARNING
If we re-examine music literacy and
music-making processes, then we should
also re-examine music learning. How
should students encounter music learning
experiences and would these be more
musical, more technological or somewhat
integrated? My observation of Shaun’s
approach in Scaffolding and Personalising
Learning with DAW found that such learning
experiences could be an integrated one.
Shaun’s own study in Investigating Students’
Decision-making Processes in Musical
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Arrangements on Digital Audio Workstations
reveals how music learning is personal
and complex.
While we can be excited about the vast
possibilities for music learning with new
technologies, it remains an assumption that
technology will naturally engage our students
who are known to be “digital natives”. Several
articles in this volume will reveal why this
may not be true.
RE-EXAMINING MUSIC TEACHING
Even as digital technology becomes
more visible in our lives, the use of
these technologies need not always be
conspicuous in our teaching. In the spectrum
of technological integration in our teaching
practices, Tan Li Jen, Adeline in her article
Re-examining Assumptions Involving the Use
of Technology in the Music Classroom found
that a simple substitution in technological
use can also be innovative and can have a
powerful effect on music learning. Indeed,
music teachers need not feel that they need
to be technologists to be effective with
technology.
Perhaps, for a start, there could be a
consideration to develop learning ecologies
(Yelland, 2018) so that technologies are
incorporated into learning scenarios, such as
in the use of apps and online social learning
spaces to support collaboration and learning.
Such learning ecologies can be powerful
in empowering students as musicians, as
alluded to in Samuel’s inquiry on Critically
Evaluating the Benefits of Deliberate Online
Social Spaces on Students’ Learning.
What then is the role of teachers in the
face of an influx of information which we
see may not always be a positive musical
diet for our young? How do we mediate
students’ encounter with influences from
digital technology-enabled mass media
culture? Instead of shunning to “protect”
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FACILITATING MUSIC LEARNING WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
students, there is perhaps a more activist role
the teacher can now play to help our young
become critical consumers, and to appreciate
their own potential as moral and civic agents.
We can start with our day-to-day interactions
with our students, the language we use, the
negotiation with students’ emotions and their
insecurities, such as in the teacher-student
dialogues I have documented of Samuel in
the chapter, Getting into a Flow : Supporting
Songwriting with Technology. Ronald’s
experience in Facilitating Musical Theoretical
Understandings through Blended Learning
also demonstrates a need to leave space for
students to explore and to build in “creative
playgrounds” for deeper learning.
We teachers can now let go of the notion
of ourselves being the know-all sage (if we
have not already done so) to embrace our
activist self to be open to and adapt to
changes, our musician self, our moral self,
and our identity as facilitators of learning and
ambassadors of music to engage and create
confident students and musicians of today
and tomorrow.
PRELUDE
interactions in such environments and
discusses the implications on pedagogy.
The Second Development takes an
aerial view of the pedagogical processes
to provide suggestions to give greater
attention to listening processes that
are fundamental to music learning,
especially with the affordances of digital
technological environments. Finally, it
re-examines assumptions about music
teaching in this digital technological age.
3. The Coda summarises key learning
points from the various articles about
music learning, pedagogy, learning
ecologies as well as the role of teachers
in enabling their students’ musical
engagement and development.
ORGANISATION OF PUBLICATION
This publication is organised into three
main parts:
1.
The Exposition begins with an inquiry into
the learning and teaching experiences of
four music teachers who have embarked
on their classroom inquiry projects being
part of a Critical Inquiry Networked
Learning Community. The Codetta
concludes this section with a reflection
from an observer, a research assistant in
these inquiry projects.
2. The First Development discusses close
observations of music learning and
teaching in the context of music lessons
in digital technological environments,
through an etic perspective. It also
illustrates the nuances of student-teacher
REFERENCES
Himonides, E. (2017). Narcissism, romanticism, and technology. In S.A. Ruthmann
& R. Mantie (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Technology and Music Education
(pp. 489-494). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tobias, E. S. (2013). Composing, songwriting, and producing: Informing popular
music pedagogy. Research Studies in Music Education, 35(2), 213-237.
UNESCO. (2005). Aspects of Literacy Assessment. Topics and issues from the
UNESCO Expert Meeting. June 10-12, 2003. Paris.
Yelland, N. J. (2018). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Young children and
multimodal learning with tablets. British Journal of Educational Technology,
49(5), 847-858. doi:10.1111/bjet.12635