Sounding the Teaching III: Facilitating Music Learning with Music Tec Sounding The Teaching III

SOUNDING THE TEACHING III EXPOSITION / 30 Facilitating Musical Theoretical Understandings through Blended Learning Lim Xian Quan, Ronald Music Teacher Pasir Ris Crest Secondary School INTRODUCTION The inquiry is on a programme which was targeted at students in music-related CCAs who do not take private music lessons in a formal setting. The programme aims to develop in students greater aural awareness and musicality, including harmony, music writing and arranging, while promoting e-learning readiness for future courses that they embark on. During the process, I hoped to gain insight on how best to facilitate learning among students through online platforms. 3. There are four Sec 2 participants who opted for the course which is conducted outside of curriculum time. 2. The secondary objective is to explore how students without the additional music lessons outside of school could be helped to achieve the requisite knowledge and skills so that they could be eligible to offer ‘O’ Level Music at Sec 3. / FACILITATING MUSIC LEARNING WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY EXPOSITION Schedule PHASE SCHEDULE TOPIC(S) REMARKS 1 Week 1 Pitches, Major Scales, Chords 2 Week 2 Clefs, Keys, Minor Scales, Intervals 3 Week 3-4 Rhythm, Form 4 Week 5 Harmony (Functional) 5 Week 6-7 Harmony (Inversions, Cadences, Sequences) 6 Week 8-9 Assessment and Music-writing Assignment 7 Week 10 Consolidation and Review Plenary Session 1 on Week 4 Plenary Session 2 on Week 7 Plenary Session 3 PARTICIPANTS The participants and their brief music background are as follows: L CONTEXT 1. The objective of the project is to bridge the gap between students’ music theory knowledge and students’ musical experiences. 31 Sec 1, Theory Grade 2 (2017), taking music lessons privately (since 2015), Chinese Instrumental Orchestra T Sec 1, Theory Grade 4 (2016), stopped music lessons at 2017, Concert Band S Sec 2, no private music lessons, Concert Band R APPROACHES AND OBSERVATIONS The three main approaches used in this blended learning project and their respective observations are: a. Leveraging Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) • Students signed up for a course in Coursera – Fundamentals of Music Theory run by the University of Edinburgh. There are five topics (refer to the first five phases in the Schedule above). For each topic, students can refer to supplementary material (referred to as elective components), which can be found here • All students met at the first plenary session to consolidate their learning, review and provide feedback on their experience. This plenary session would be conducted before the students attempt the structured creative task (second approach). Each student’s progress in Coursera is shown below (see Fig 1). Most students stopped at the third topic which coincides with the first plenary session. They showed greater engagement in the new task introduced at the first plenary session which might have led to them discontinuing with Coursera. Student R did not even complete the first topic. Fig 1: Completion of topics covered in course Sec 2, no private music lessons, Concert Band TOPICS ATTEMPTED TOPICS COMPLETED Course • A WhatsApp group was created to provide a platform for discussions related to content. ~ ~ I will offer suggestions if students come across a query they cannot answer among themselves. L T S R 0 1 3 4 5

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