Sounding the Teaching III: Facilitating Music Learning with Music Tec Sounding The Teaching III | Page 36

SOUNDING THE TEACHING III
EXPOSITION
c. Whether students intend to take up
‘O’ Level Music at Sec 3
• L hopes to take ‘O’ Level Music at
Sec 3 and indicated a rating of “7/10” for
the likelihood of taking up the subject.
• T strongly wishes to take ‘O’ Level Music
at Sec 3, however, it clashes with T’s
similar wish to take Pure Science. T had
shared that, “My two dream jobs involve
Science or Music.”
• S shared concerns about the difficulties
in taking music and does not intend to
take ‘O’ Level Music at Sec 3.
• R would prefer to take Pure Science and
would not be taking ‘O’ Level Music at
Sec 3.
DISCUSSION
The shortfalls of the blended learning are
as follows:
• Coursera is known to be “pitched to
everyone” but my students found that it
too dry and too “adulty”.
• E-learning readiness was an issue. For
example, there were log-in and password
problems. Some participants used their
school e-mail accounts to sign in to
BandLab and Hookpad, and had forgotten
their passwords to their school e-mail
accounts. They subsequently could not
access BandLab and Hookpad when they
requested to retrieve the passwords as
these were sent to their school e-mail
accounts.
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• The plenary sessions were held
outside the students’ curriculum time,
often between other activities and
commitments. There were absences
during plenary sessions due to personal
or last-minute CCA commitments.
• I was unable to determine if the
musicality displayed in students’
creative tasks stemmed from what they
had learnt from the blended-learning
sessions. They could have also picked up
musicianship skills outside of class.
The benefits of the blended learning I saw
from my students were:
• The creative tasks and online platform
allowed students to learn at their own
pace, and there were several instances of
them exploring related topics and coming
up with their own activities that extended
their independent learning.
• The community-based learning (plenary
sessions, WhatsApp) was helpful for
students to pose questions and offer
suggestions in an environment of
like-minded learners as it encouraged
experimentation and exchanges. In
particular, the WhatsApp chat group
was utilised greatly for clarification and
feedback.
• Easy access/transferral between
personal/school devices made it possible
for students to learn at home or on the
go (highlighted by students L and T).
REFLECTIONS
• Participation in blended learning
BandLab Education,
which was not available
during the study, would
be more suitable for
classroom purpose.
3
• There were difficulties making copies of
the teacher’s project/template of the task
as everyone would view the changes they
made on the master copy via BandLab 3 .
BandLab was not designed to duplicate
copies of project/template.
The discontinuation of participation in
Coursera raises the question of how
participation could be encouraged from
students. In this study, I have used other
approaches to engage students in the
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FACILITATING MUSIC LEARNING WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
blended-learning process. However, it
was still unclear how students could
continue to be engaged in such modes
of learning as Coursera.
The lack of online participation also
raises further questions about motivation
in online learning. For example, how
student ownership of their work could
be raised through online sharing and
reviews, whether automated notifications
and reminders would impact completion
rate, how routines and habits could be
developed to enable e-learning readiness.
Students’ attendance at the plenary
sessions was affected by other school
commitments as the sessions were
conducted outside of timetabled
classes. There would be a higher success
rate if the face-to-face sessions were
conducted during timetabled classes.
• Solo versus group learning
I observed that individual tasks
might offer more freedom to learn in
meaningful and substantial ways for
motivated students. For those lacking
in motivation, there might have been
some inertia to get started, but when the
learning gets going, there was evidence of
learning (e.g. Student T) beyond what was
expected or instructed to do.
• Quantity of resources does not equate
to quality
Although the Coursera course provided
many resources, it does not necessarily
lead to more engagement and better
learning. Information overload could
also demotivate students.
• Consider allocating creative tasks first
before introducing theoretical knowledge
Starting with creative tasks before
introducing content could help students
understand where their theoretical gaps are
and learn them better when they
are introduced.
CONCLUSION
I have explored three approaches in the
blended-learning course and found more
success in designing creative tasks as more
students were engaged compared to
content-based online courses. The creative
tasks also provided me with feedback on the
students’ musical understandings in note
literacy, harmony and music writing. I have also
found that although students are digital natives,
they are not always ready for such structured
e-learning. There is still a need for the teacher
to consider how tasks could be designed such
that students are motivated online and to guide
students to work independently online.
The study of my blended-learning approach
has reminded me of 間 (Ma) philosophy
which appreciates the negative spaces – gaps
between two purposeful structural parts.
Lesson activity after activity without the time
and space to dwell deeper into a concept or an
idea being discussed needs to be addressed
by introducing think time and questions to
examine alternative approaches, perspectives
and application. This is perhaps akin to eating
without thorough chewing, which leads to
indigestion. It makes it harder for one to
internalise and achieve clarity. Hence, I am
reminded of a need to leave space for students
to explore and to build in “creative playgrounds”
for deeper learning. I think of the creative tasks,
particularly the third approach as the most
enjoyable/memorable/meaningful part of the
course, which occurred because students had
the time and space to explore without me
limiting their approach/perspective (i.e. my
takeaway was a shift from “do this, this, this”
towards “here’s something, what do you make
of it and where would you go from here?”
EXPOSITION