Accountability Concerns

With the advent of technology-based music instruction, we are at an important juncture in terms of standards and accountability. To date, there are no sets of standards that directly address the ways in which TBMI teachers and students work, and therefore there is a lack of clarity as to how we are accountable to the larger educational culture. Several sets of standards exist that come close; they address either the musical or the technological portions of TBMI, but not both. Others address teachers’ roles or students’ roles, but not both. In this chapter, we will examine relevant sets of standards and explore how they imply accountability for TBMI teachers and students. In 1994, the Music Educators National Conference (now the National Association for Music Education) released a document outlining the National Standards for Music Education, in coordination with similar standards in theater, art, and dance. The nine music standards from 1994 were the following: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines. Reading and notating music. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. Evaluating music and music performances. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts. Understanding music in relation to history and culture. The NAfME standards suggest curricula that are distributed among performance, musical creativity, and connections between music and context. These are noble goals for which teachers should strive. The NAfME standards are widely accepted, and many teachers refer to them as benchmarks to assess the completeness of curriculum. In no way do the NAfME standards suggest that musical learning should be achieved through technology, nor do they contain suggestions about how students should meet any of them. In this way, the shapers of the NAfME standards are to be commended because the standards are flexible enough that they can be addressed in ways teachers see fit. Therefore, the standards passively suggest that technology-based music instruction is as valid a means of music learning as are other forms.

Philosophical and Theoretical Foundations

Many authors have explored the ideas of philosophy and educational theory and how those ideas can serve as a foundation for teaching practices. Philosophy is a broad subject, and it is not the purpose of this book to create a new philosophy of music teaching and learning; however, we can beneficially draw on philosophical and theoretical works of others to form some foundations. By necessity, a theory of technology-based music instruction begins with a theory of music education. To deviate from this would be to neglect the important theoretical work that forms the guiding foundation of teaching in our chosen art form. The critical role of theory in this new method of teaching is to help technology-based music instructors develop dispositions that make this type of teaching less forced, more natural than it might otherwise be. The most successful technology-based music teachers are those who recognize the capacities of their students to engage with technology, to be creative, and who are willing to modify some beliefs—possibly long-held ones—to allow their students the freedom to explore and construct their musical skills and knowledge. These are difficult dispositions to develop. Understanding some important theoretical and philosophical work can help in treading that path by helping teachers acknowledge findings that have come before, and by letting us make critical decisions about the ways we teach and our students learn. The teacher in the following Profile of Practice has developed trust in his students and himself, assurance that he can promote students’ creativity, and confidence in his TBMI abilities. He knows that students come to his classes with unique worldviews, and with experiences, both musical and otherwise, accumulated over each of their lifetimes. While he does not place great emphasis on theoretical models of creativity or on articulating his own music teaching philosophy, his teaching reflects some of the most important philosophical dispositions found in effective TBMI teachers. Mr. E teaches middle school music in a relatively affluent suburb. He is fortunate to have experiences teaching music at many levels and has a wealth of formal training in music technology from both his undergraduate and graduate degree work.

Teacher Preparation Considerations

In order to accommodate the growth of technology-based music classes in schools, institutions that educate music teachers—both prior to their service and during—must begin to implement structures for inclusion of TBMI in their curricula. In this chapter, I will examine some of the models of inclusion of TBMI in teacher education. I will do so with the understanding that teacher education in music is a constant work in progress, and that adding TBMI in already crowded curricula is a very difficult task. Students working toward music teacher certification typically take a course focused on the uses of technology. Music teacher education faculty members generally agree that it is necessary for the skills embedded in these classes to be developed. In addition, the accrediting bodies that enable teacher preparation programs to grant licensure credentials suggest inclusion of such a course. Courses in teacher preparation programs frequently address many of the standards delineated in the previous chapter, specifically the types of skills suggested by the TI:ME standards. An emphasis of some of these courses lies in the area of information management and communication. Students are often engaged—though sometimes unnecessarily so—in activities such as database creation and management, email communication, simple website development, and the uses of general education software. This is often the case when pre-service teachers are required to take courses in information technology or education departments of the university other than the music department in which the focus of the courses is general educational technology, devoid of a content area emphasis. Requiring these types of classes denies the existence of the critical intersections built into the TPACK model, which suggests that content, technology, and pedagogy influence each other. Music teacher educators should carefully consider whether such non-specific courses are advantageous for their students; perhaps there are better ways for future music teachers to gain proficiency with technologies that will be more meaningful for them in their careers.

Assessment and Technology-Based Music Instruction

Assessment is such an important cornerstone of the current educational landscape that it must be a part of discussion about any educational topic, including TBMI. To paraphrase Duke (2005), rather than thinking about assessment as the culmination of an educational cycle, teachers should embed assessment into every lesson, every activity, and our plans for everything that comes next. Duke stated, “The distinction between the assessments and the substance of instruction day to day should be diminished to the point that the day-to-day activities of instruction closely resemble the assessments themselves” (2005, p. 71). In a TBMI class, this is the scenario for which teachers should strive. Still, assessment remains a thorny issue for TBMI teachers because they are often unaccustomed to assessing the types of work that students do in TBMI classes, examples of which were seen in the sample lessons in chapter 6. Assessing what students do informs us about the extent to which they retain information and achieve learning objectives, the quality of that learning, and students’ abilities to apply conceptual understanding to both familiar and novel situations. If we do it for no other reason, assessing students tells us when they are ready to go on to the next bit of information, the next activity, or the next level of complexity of work. I observed Mr. U during a day trip to his school in a suburb in the northeast United States. Mr. U has been teaching music technology classes at the high school level for about 15 years—perhaps the longest of any teacher profiled in this book—and has been nationally recognized for his excellence in doing so. Over that time, he has gone through many changes of equipment, software, and course designs. He has developed a vast and sophisticated set of projects for his students, who can take level 1 and 2 music technology classes. Most of the assignments and requirements are housed on a website that Mr. U developed as part of a professional development project. His students clearly enjoy the music technology classes he teaches.

Models of Music Pedagogy and Their Influences on Technology-Based Music Instruction

Pedagogical approaches to teaching music have developed into mature curricular structures. The most prominent music pedagogies have features in common that can inform the new pedagogy of TBMI, and we should learn from the success of these approaches as we develop technology-based methods that will lead students to musical ends. In the section that follows, I will briefly summarize some of the major pedagogical approaches that are in use in today’s music classrooms. Then, I will offer lessons that we can learn from examining traditional music teaching that apply to the development of the TBMI approach. Saliba (1991) described the Orff-Schulwerk approach to music education as “pedagogy to organize elements of music for children through speaking, singing, playing, and dancing” (p. vii). This approach, which dates to early 19th-century Germany, combines basic musical elements into small forms such as songs and patterns in order to make musical material manageable for young children (Saliba, 1991). Carl Orff ’s approach to music education was based on his personal experiences and his belief that integrating music and movement was fundamental to music learning processes (Frazee & Kreuter, 1987; Frazee, 2006). Performing, listening, improvising, and analyzing music are all characteristic activities of Orff -Schulwerk music lessons. An important trait of this approach is its emphasis on children feeling musical elements (through active experience) prior to conceptualizing their understanding of the elements. Other distinguishing characteristics of the Orff pedagogy include the use of ostinati as accompaniment for singing and movement at varying levels of complexity and the use of simple instruments as a means for children’s immediate expression (Wheeler & Raebeck, 1977). Creativity is central to the original Orff-Schulwerk model of music pedagogy, as is the teacher’s role in facilitating that creativity. “[Orff ’s] instructional plan includes provisions for several kinds of original work. . . . The teacher should be prepared to help children notate their musical ideas, evaluate the music they produce, and relate their creative eff orts to the study of musical form and style” (Landis & Carder, 1990, p. 110).

Future Considerations

The dominant issues that the TBMI community will face for the next 30 years and beyond are just starting to appear through the fog. In this final chapter, I will introduce some of the trends that have recently emerged that may impact the development of TBMI pedagogy, and speculate on directions they might take. These trends include, but are certainly not limited to, (1) the emergence of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones and their potential for music making; (2) the growing popularity of alternative and electronic ensembles; (3) concerns about connections between traditional forms of music making—specifically, the critical role that singing plays in learning to be musical—and music technology; (4) the possibilities of technology-enhanced distance learning in music; and (5) the critical examination we must do regarding social and inclusion issues, and their relationships to music technology. There is little doubt that mobile devices, and particularly the iPad, will revolutionize our work in TBMI. Interestingly, as I scoured the landscape for teachers in the K–12 environment who are using iPads in their classrooms as replacements for notebook or desktop computers, few examples emerged. This provides evidence that we are at a point in technological development where we are still very much a computer lab-based culture, but we see the promise of mobile devices. Mrs. J teaches at a small independent school. Although not an official designation, the school’s teachers consider it to be project-based, and much of what Mrs. J does in her music classes is designed around projects. Her fourth grade students were composing short melodies using their recorders and then using GarageBand on iPads to create accompaniments to their melodies. My questions for Mrs. J focused on the pedagogical aspects of using iPads in her classes. First we talked about her general experiences using iPads, especially given that her students share the devices in groups of three or four. The sharing aspect seemed like it might be problematic because the iPad is designed as a personal device, usually viewed and used by one person.

Lesson Design in Technology-Based Music Instruction

The content of individual lessons and units in TBMI classrooms falls somewhere on a spectrum of content, as seen in Figure 6.1. At the left end of the spectrum fall activities that are purely musical. Even in TBMI classes, we can occasionally design activities that we believe address long-term goals and short-term objectives that are purely musical. For example, when we ask our students to rehearse or perform a piece of music (although it may eventually be recorded, edited, mixed, etc.), we are addressing musical goals through musical activities without integrating technology. At the right end of this spectrum fall activities that are purely technological. These activities may include procedures for digital file management, techniques within software, or hardware connectivity and maintenance. Even though the broader content of TBMI classes should be musical, the focus on technology in lessons that fall to the right side of the spectrum is one of the ideas that separate TBMI classes from traditional music classes. We include lessons that focus on technology because those are the tools in use to make music. It is important that students learn how to use them properly, and teachers should consider it their responsibility to include lessons that meet this description. Purity of content is rare. In truth, longer-term sequences of TBMI might be categorized in one of two ways: Lessons fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. This indicates that the lesson has some content that is musical and some that is technological. The teacher artfully blends them together so that students recognize the application of technology to music, and of music to technology. Lessons shift from one end of the spectrum to the other, perhaps exhibiting more than one shift within a class period. Sometimes it is necessary to explore a musical concept in non-technological ways, then shift to a technological technique that will further address that concept. So, when the activities associated with the two phases of the lesson are combined, we achieve “neutrality” along the spectrum. Also, it should be acknowledged that this spectrum of lesson content depicts lessons under ideal circumstances.

Teaching Methods and Teacher Behaviors

TBMI differs from simple integration in that this type of teaching emphasizes direct student engagement with technology for introducing, reinforcing, and assessing learning experiences. While teachers’ uses of technology are encouraged, the main idea associated with TBMI is that teachers design experiences during which student engagement with music technologies is essential ; students are learning music by experiencing it from within. This encourages construction of new knowledge through creativity and builds on previous experiences. In this chapter and the next, we will address several questions: 1. Why are new teaching methods associated with TBMI? 2. What are the dispositions of teachers as they develop teaching methods for TBMI? 3 .How are these methods designed? 4.How do teachers function physically in the TBMI classroom? 5.How do teachers connect theory and practice in the act of teaching TBMI lessons? Answering these questions will help you to understand exactly how TBMI lessons look and how to carry out lessons in a space designed for them. It makes sense that traditional music teaching uses traditional methods. When choir teachers, for example, direct an ensemble, they typically make use of techniques they saw their own teachers use or that they were taught to employ during their own teacher education programs. While they may be using new music, and the students are new from year to year, the techniques teachers use go essentially unchanged. Teachers determine learning objectives for their students through a process of diagnosis, adherence to curriculum guidelines, and sometimes through input from the students themselves. But once those learning objectives are determined, in reality, the teaching methods that teachers employ are dictated by the demands of the material the students are to learn. When choir teachers encounter a passage in a piece of music that requires soft singing, they will employ the techniques they know to encourage their students to sing softly while maintaining proper breath support and diction. And so it is in other types of music instruction—the technique matches the content. TBMI presents us with different content and therefore with a new set of techniques to convey material.

Introducing Technology-Based Music Instruction

Mrs. Jones has 14 years of teaching under her belt. She received her music education degree from an excellent state university program and completed a master’s in music education early in her career during the summers. After teaching at several levels, she has settled in a good junior high school position in an upper middle-class neighborhood. The music department—she and two other teachers—is a collaborative group that consistently turns out strong performances for the school and community. About five years ago, Mrs. Jones noticed that technology was becoming an increasingly important part of many of the school music programs she considered to be on par with her own. She had introduced some technology in her orchestra class—she used notation software to create warm-up exercises and often played listening examples for the students that she stored on her iPod. So, with the same enthusiasm that she approaches most of the parts of her job, she approached her principal about funding a computer lab for the music department. Her request was met with excitement. The principal agreed to set up a lab dedicated to the music department and to schedule a class for Mrs. Jones to teach called Music Technology for the following fall. There was no established curriculum for the class, but Mrs. Jones would have the summer to assemble the curriculum and lesson plans, in consultation with the principal and the other music teachers. They all recognized that starting this class would bring new students to their excellent music department and could only draw more public attention to their good work. The lab would have 15 student stations and an additional station for the teacher. None of the music teachers or the school’s administrators had any expertise in designing computer labs, so they left that task up to the district’s architects. The information technology (IT) department was enlisted to set up all of the hardware and software and to make appropriate network and server connections, with enough time for Mrs. Jones to get used to the lab before the school year would begin.

Materials for Technology-Based Music Instruction

Nearly all forms of education make use of materials to support student learning. In the case of traditional music education, the type of material that comes to mind most readily is composed music. Since the dominant form of music education in the United States is the traditional ensemble, composed music is a justifiable representation of what most teachers think of as musical material. In this chapter, we will look at a couple of examples of established criteria for selecting musical materials for various types of teaching scenarios. Then, we will imagine how those criteria might be applied to TBMI and address the crossover between the music we use in traditional music teaching and the music that might be used in technology-based music instruction. We will then examine the types of materials that are specifically related to technology (software and hardware) and sort through some processes for evaluating and selecting those materials. Though most teachers do not articulate any kind of formula for music selection, there are certainly criteria by which music can be chosen for the classroom. A well-known treatise on criteria for wind band music selection is a dissertation by Ostling (1978) in which the author spelled out several guidelines for selecting music with “serious artistic merit.” Among Ostling’s suggestions were the following: The composition has form—not “a form” but form—and reflects a proper balance between repetition and contrast. The composition reflects craftsmanship in orchestration, demonstrating a proper balance between transparent and tutti scoring, and also between solo and group colors. The composition is sufficiently unpredictable to preclude an immediate grasp of its musical meaning. The route through which the composition travels in initiating its musical tendencies and probable musical goals is not completely direct and obvious. The composition is consistent in quality throughout its length and in its various sections.