Author: Webster, Peter R.

Publication Year:

Media Type: Periodical (article)

Summary:

Abstract:

As I read research and visit schools that try to implement research on constructionism in informed practice, I am struck by three trends, which underscore my optimistic view:

(a) the use of a more constructionistic philosophy, which leads to a blend of
     process and product;
(b) intelligent use of music technology to teach music more effectively to a wider
     audience; and
(c) a more considered approach to assessment that includes both traditional
     and less-traditional ways for students to demonstrate understanding.

The basic goal of constructionism is to place emphasis on creative thinking and to motivate learning through activity. Learning is seen as more effective when approached as situated in activity rather than received passively. Interestingly, many music educators have believed that since the beginnings of pedagogical discussion in our field, although the creative activity has been largely centered in music performance settings and has been very teacher-centered in its design, I summarize some of the shifts in educational thinking that can be traced, at least in part, to a more constructionistic view.

At the heart of these ideas is the shift away from thinking about education as centered solely in the mind of the teacher and toward a partnership between teacher and student, with the teacher as the major architect of learning. Proponents celebrate project-centered learning, with students working to solve problems. It is argued that in this model children learn in a situated context that helps to make clear why the facts are important in the first place. Each of the newer views holds enormous consequences for how learning is structured in music education.

Combined with the nine content standards in music that make up the National Standards for Arts Education (1994) they challenge music teachers to think in a completely different way about education. For example, a K-6 general music specialist who has taught music reading, listening, and movement in a teacher-centered approach in which the curriculum content is fact-and-skill oriented might find the idea of improvisation and composition in small, inter-active groups with self-assessment to be quite different.

Technology-based collaboration over the Internet with experts from outside the school might be even more foreign, perhaps even threatening. High school band, chorus, and orchestra directors who follow continual cycles of rehearsals and performance with no consideration for the teaching of music context, interrelationships with other arts, and critical analysis of the music will likely find sharing the podium with student conductors, extensive discussions of music content, and asking students to write reports about the music is quite unusual.

Constructionism encourages process in balance with product. Music teachers that structure learning in this way naturally encourage a comprehensive approach to their subject area. The days are indeed numbered for the ego-centered performance director or classroom teacher who believes that most musical knowledge of real worth resides in the teacher and that students are the vessels of the teacher's music making. The new music educator structures an environment for interactive learning, experimentation, questioning, researching, and discovering. (p. 2, 3)

CONTENTS
A new spirit.
Constructionism and its encouragement of process.
Technological support and the power of the Internet.
Expanding approaches to assessment.
Summary.
Notes.
References.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education