I believe that we learn Music by making Music (hands on approach). Music is something people do and it is determined by the Culture of the ”doers” so I am against classroom music (music that only exists inside classrooms) and I only use real world music (from a simple song to a super symphony). By “making music” I mean Appraising, Performing, and Composing. Sometimes students have to make music alone, sometimes they have to make it in groups, specially when Composing (collaboration). I use many “Musics”, different styles, genres, eras, nationalities, so students have to have some social and cross-cultural skills. In order to better understand the music they are listening and will perform, and compose, they use the web and a wiki (ICT literacy) to find, collect and organise other musical work that have something in common: the same idiom, the same composer, style, genre and so on. This will give the students some sort of cultural immersion. Finally they all have to perform in front of an audience (one cannot say that the audience is an expert, but parents, teachers and school staff are adults outside of the classroom and when performing students are communicating). Because students learn to work independently and take responsibility, engagement increases and by composing they get a sense of ownership. All this helps to fight the myth that there are unmusical human beings which is a common misbelief among students entering Primary School ITT (students’ needs).

Because my approach share so many characteristics with PBL, I think it could be easily complemented with PBL. From all the different courses that I teach (mentioned above), the one that I can use to experiment with PBL is Didactics of Music in Primary Teachers ITT and the topic would be choosing and justifying the musical work that will be at the core of their unit of work.

Please feel free to contact me at mariorelvas@gmail.com 

I would like to thank in advance booth reviewers,

All the best

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What elements of music theory and what cultural features can be taught to Primary pupils using as a resource a chosen interpretation of a musical work.

21 and up - enrolled in the 3rd year out of 5 from Initial Teacher Training in Primary School Teacher

Didactics of Music in Primary School

Creating a product.

A plan of a Unit about Music to Primary School that abide to the learning goals.

Hello, my name is Mário and I teach in a higher education institution, the Lisbon School of Education, that offers graduate and undergraduate programme of study in Initial Teacher Training (ITT). I teach courses on Music, and Didactics of Music in Primary Teachers ITT. I also Coordinate the Master of Arts in Music Teaching in Basic Education (music specialist) where I  teach several courses: Music and Technologies, Supervising Teaching Practice, Music Education Methodologies, and Philosophy of Music Education.

 

I believe that we learn Music by making Music (hands on approach). Music is something people do and it is determined by the Culture of the ”doers” so I am against classroom music (music that only exists inside classrooms) and I only use real world music (from a simple song to a super symphony). By “making music” I mean Appraising, Performing, and Composing. Sometimes students have to make music alone, sometimes they have to make it in groups, specially when Composing (collaboration). I use many “Musics”, different styles, genres, eras, nationalities, so students have to have some social and cross-cultural skills. In order to better understand the music they are listening and will perform, and compose, they use the web and a wiki (ICT literacy) to find, collect and organise other musical work that have something in common: the same idiom, the same composer, style, genre and so on. This will give the students some sort of cultural immersion. Finally they all have to perform in front of an audience (one cannot say that the audience is an expert, but parents, teachers and school staff are adults outside of the classroom and when performing students are communicating). Because students learn to work independently and take responsibility, engagement increases and by composing they get a sense of ownership. All this helps to fight the myth that there are unmusical human beings which is a common misbelief among students entering Primary School ITT (students’ needs).

 

Because my approach share so many characteristics with PBL, I think it could be easily complemented with PBL. From all the different courses that I teach (mentioned above), the one that I can use to experiment with PBL is Didactics of Music in Primary Teachers ITT and the topic would be choosing and justifying the musical work that will be at the core of their unit of work.

As a cello player I've participated in different musical groups. Usually I  cooperate with the conductor (symphonic orchestra), the lead singer (pop music) or the actors (music for theatre). But when I do chamber music, string quartets, for example, only then I COLLABORATE. (picture from a Portuguese chamber music group, the Opus Ensemble from http://www.meloteca.com/ )

I did answered YES to all. I hope I am right :)

I teach Didactics of Music, a 9-hours module part of Primary School Initial Teacher Training, usually attended by 25-30 students. The learning goals are:

Students work in groups most lessons and each group will have to come up with a scheme of work of a Unit of 6 lessons that abide to the learning goals. The process involves several steps:

The most difficult part for me when teaching this course is to guarantee that students are in fact collaborating, and not cooperate or dividing the work among the elements of the group.

With so many students and so few hours I have not came up with instruments and strategies that overcome this problem, other than observing the students while they work in groups. But because most of the work is done outside classroom this is not a reliable source, even if I use the rubrics from the ITL 21st Century Learning Design Learning Activities Rubrics.

I am really looking forward to get some guidance from this PBL course.

This task caught me completely by surprise, I confess. I am a little ashamed but in 36 years of teaching I never thought in team building activities I always cut to the chase and went straight forward to the learning activities (so I thought).

The learning goals of the module include (1) master the principles guiding teaching music in Primary School; (2) conceive and assess lesson plans for Music; (3) understand the musical development of pupils; and (4) integrate Music with other subjects from Primary School curriculum. Students work in groups most lessons and each group will have to come up with a scheme of work of a Unit of 6 lessons that abide to the learning goals.

This assignment has been reviewed and graded according to the learning goals and the theoretical framework with no application outside the classroom. So, the obvious link to the real-world would be to involve practitioners, that is, primary school teachers. In fact the ITT programme of study includes school experience (Supervised Teaching Practice) during ⅓ of the semester. So the contacts have already been established and protocols have been signed between my School of Education and many Primary Schools. From my own experience as a teaching practice supervisor I know many primary school teachers are eager to get some help to write a scheme of work for Music. I would say that will be really easy to engage some primary school teachers in the PBL project, so they become clients: “Recruit community members as project clients. Build relationships with who can benefit from your students’ 21st century expertise.” (Boss, 2013).

I approached this task with high confidence because I know a set of really good collaboration tools. Then I used some caution and follow the advice to check if the tool wasn’t already suggested. And one by one they were. Nevertheless I still have my “aces”:

Hope they will be useful.

Best regards,

Because in the course I choose to implement PBL, Didactics of Music, will be the third year students have been together in the same class, groups are already very well defined and most students are happy with them. So, my first TLAs are not strictly collaboration ones, despite they can be seen as icebreackers.

Hope you enjoy the music appreciation activities at https://v.gd/6I0FMu

Best regards,

Mário

2)   Until 1995, to be admitted in a Master Degree one had to have a licence degree, so it was impossible for me to progress in Portugal.

3)   Therefore, I went looking abroad. I apply and was accepted in a Master Degree in Sciences of Education at the University of Caen, France. My French was good, but the courses were very demanding and I was still working in Portugal. I tried for three years, paid the fees, but I failed.

4)   Because I really wanted to progress professionally, I tried another Master, this time about Music Education, in London. My English was better than my French was, and the courses were about Music. In addition, I was granted a scholarship for 2 years so I had all the time to study. This time I succeeded: in 2001, 6 years after my first attempt, I was awarded Master of Arts in Music Education by the University of Surrey Roehampton.

I teach Music. When we talk about learning Music, our western society is all about reverse brainstorm: “I’m not gifted”, “I’m completely deaf”, “I can’t read a note”, and so on. Unfortunately many specialists music teachers support/promote these prejudices. Yes, these are all myth, as research evidence clearly have demonstrated that there are not unmusical or “amusical” human beings. If we start a class by selecting the best, separating the good from the bad, making pupils sing or play alone in front their peers, these is the best we can do to weaken our student's confidence and independence.