scholarly journals “It Depends:” From Narration Sickness to Wide Awake Action in Music Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-83
Author(s):  
Cara Faith Bernard ◽  
Matthew Rotjan
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
Maxine Greene ◽  
Wide Awake

In this article, we query how action is contextualized and used in music education, centering the discussion around problems of calling for change without taking action, what Paulo Freire terms “narration sickness.” Narration sickness manifests in social media, conferences, and professional development sessions—where words convey ideas as grand narratives, devoid of context, causing a division between those who present ideas from those who enact them in practice. We describe how music educators may become unintentional slacktivists, “woke” to the need for action, attempting to improve the field with limited (if any) action at all. We invite music educators to counter “wokeness” with what Maxine Greene calls being “wide awake,” offering examples of educators who demonstrate change. We seek to expand the definition of action, drawing upon what Freire and Marx term as praxis, seeking actionable approaches in teaching, researching, and learning across age levels, settings, and contexts.

scholarly journals What if Freire Had Facebook? A Critical Interrogation of Social Media Woke Culture Among Privileged Voices in Music Education Discourse

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-52
Author(s):  
William J. Coppola
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Education Professionals ◽  
Alive Today ◽  
Shared Humanity ◽  
Education Discourse

In this paper, I critique the ways in which music education professionals—especially the privileged voices within our field—engage in dialogue through social media outlets such as Facebook. While social media has become a valuable and ubiquitous discursive tool within our field, especially in that it theoretically removes the “ivory tower” of dialogue in academia, here I critique its darker side. Were he alive today, I question how philosopher Paulo Freire would respond to the dialogical opportunities afforded by social media and the emergence of “woke culture.” Particularly when engaging in the work of antiracism, I highlight how privileged music educators can silence any dialogue through their hostility or fragility alike through various forms of call-out culture, cancel culture, virtue signaling, and tone policing. I draw upon the full corpus of Freire’s works to examine the overall veracity of these approaches to antiracist efforts and offer that Freire’s pedagogy was interminably rooted in humility, love, and the pursuit of shared humanity.

Professional Development for the Experienced Music Educator: A Review of Recent Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 12-19
Author(s):  
Karen Koner ◽  
John Eros
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Teachers ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Initial Examination ◽  
Professional Development Needs ◽  
Emerging Themes ◽  
Teachers Professional Development ◽  
K 12

There is a rich body of literature on professional development in music education, including research that has examined the professional development needs of experienced music teachers specifically. In fact, music teachers’ professional development needs may be affected by their degree of experience in the profession. The purpose of this literature review is to examine scholarship during the period 2007 to 2017 about the professional development needs of experienced K–12 music educators. Initial examination of literature in this area shows two emerging themes, including changing needs throughout the career and informal interactions among music educators, being highly effective.

scholarly journals Mapping visions of improvisation pedagogy in music education research

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-139
Author(s):  
Eeva Siljamäki ◽  
Panagiotis A. Kanellopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Education Research ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Learning Tool ◽  
Musical Improvisation ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Improvisation Pedagogy

This systematic literature review aims to identify and critically examine the prevailing general trends of music education research that addresses issues of improvisation from 1985 to 2015. The study examined the main features of studies with impact that focus on musical improvisation and have been published in peer-reviewed music education journals. Data were organised on the basis of the following: 1) General publication features; 2) Topic; 3) Methodological approach; 4) Participant features; 5) Type of improvisation; 6) Definition of improvisation; 7) Findings; 8) Suggestions for practice. The study also takes a close look at the construction of the discourses through which improvisation has been framed in the field of music education, providing insights on how such discourses create particular pedagogical visions of improvisation. To this end, we have created a map of the different visions of improvisation pedagogy that the studied works point towards. These visions have been clustered in the following five categories: (i) from rupture of certainties to creative problematisation; (ii) return to the “natural” beginning—in search of humanness; (iii) improvisation as a learning tool; (iv) conserving and enlivening traditions; (v) improvisation as an impetus for creativity. The map proposed in this study is meant as a possible representation of the general trends that underpin music education research focusing on improvisation. This map can also be seen as a “tool” through which music educators can situate their practice and reflect on their particular ways of working with improvisation, possibly envisioning alternative ways forward.

scholarly journals Critically Assessing Forms of Resistance in Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Brent C. Talbot ◽  
Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Consciousness Raising ◽  
The World ◽  
Music Classrooms

In their classrooms, music educators draw upon critical pedagogy (as described by Freire, Giroux, and hooks) for the express purpose of cultivating a climate for conscientização. Conscientização, according to Paulo Freire (2006), “refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (p. 35). This consciousness raising is a journey teachers pursue with students, together interrogating injustices in communities and the world in order to transform the conditions that inform them. Learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions often leads to multiple forms of resistance in and out of music classrooms. This chapter explores the following question: What do critical forms of assessment look like in music classrooms that use critical pedagogy and embrace resistance to foster conscientization?

The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Network Connectivity ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Rapid Pace ◽  
Media Communications ◽  
Networked Society

The rapid pace of technological change over the last decade, particularly in relation to social media and network connectivity, has deeply affected the ways in which individuals, groups, and institutions interact socially: This includes how music is made, learned, and taught globally in all manner of diverse contexts. The multiple ways in which social media and social networking intersect with the everyday life of the musical learner are at the heart of this book. The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning opens up an international discussion of what it means to be a music learner, teacher, producer, consumer, individual, and community member in an age of technologically-mediated relationships that continue to break down the limits of geographical, cultural, political, and economic place. This book is aimed at those who teach and train music educators as well as current and future music educators. Its primary goal is to draw attention to the ways in which social media, musical participation, and musical learning are increasingly entwined by examining questions, issues, concerns, and potentials this raises for formal, informal, and non-formal musical learning and engagement in a networked society. It provides an international perspective on a variety of related issues from scholars who are leaders in the field of music education, new media, communications, and sociology in the emerging field of social media.

20 Years of the MENC Biennial Conference

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-28
Author(s):  
Joshua Palkki ◽  
Daniel J. Albert ◽  
Stuart Chapman Hill ◽  
Ryan D. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
National Standards ◽  
Coding Scheme ◽  
Biennial Conference ◽  
Large Ensembles ◽  
National Music ◽  
Choral Teachers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the content and intended audiences for educational sessions offered at MENC biennial conferences in order to illuminate trends and topics in professional development. The researchers performed a content analysis of each session ( N = 2,593) using program booklets from conferences between 1988 and 2008, creating a coding scheme with separate codes for audience focus and session content. After establishing sufficient interjudge agreement, the researchers coded all educational sessions offered at the conferences from 1988 to 2008. Results indicated that the number of sessions targeted at specific audiences (e.g., choral teachers only) remained small relative to those targeting broader audiences. Content coding revealed large increases in the number of sessions focused on technology and a slight decrease in the number of sessions focused on traditional large ensembles. Session content sometimes followed professional trends (e.g., the inception of the National Standards in 1994) but did not reflect increased attention in the profession to topics such as creativity and students with exceptionalities. These findings have important implications for those planning state and national music education conferences and for music educators who attend these professional development events.

Urban Music Educators’ Perceived Professional Growth in a Context-Specific Professional Development Program

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia T. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Nonlinear Process ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Professional Development Program ◽  
Urban Music ◽  
Context Specific

This collective case study examined the perceived impact of a context-specific professional development program, the Urban Music Education Institute, on urban music educators’ professional growth. The year-long program, which focused on culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), featured workshops presented by nationally recognized clinicians complemented by a collaborative teacher study group (CTSG). Portraits of individual educators’ growth trajectories illuminate the multifaceted and idiosyncratic nature of teachers’ professional growth. Teacher profiles further illustrate complexities inherent in the nonlinear process of learning to practice CRP. Cross-case themes included teachers’ desire for “permission” to teach in contextually specific ways, sociopolitical dimensions of urban teaching as a focus for professional learning, and ways that cultural Whiteness influenced participants’ processes of learning to practice CRP. The CTSG emerged as a key element contributing toward the program’s context specificity. Participants used this group as a site for negotiating tensions associated with culturally responsive and socially just teaching in the company of colleagues with shared understanding of urban contexts. Implications for professional development aligned with urban music educators’ discipline- and context-specific learning needs are discussed based on the findings.

Personalizing Educational Development for Online Music Educators

2018 ◽  
pp. 306-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer V. Lock
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Educational Development ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Online Music ◽  
The Individual

With the growing trend of online music education, how can educational development be more personalized to meet the individual instructor's pedagogical and technological needs? Coaching provides a means to empower online music education instructors to guide their own learning through purposeful and intentional conversations. From a review of the literature, the purpose of this chapter is to examine how and why coaching can be used in fostering robust educational and professional development practices for online music education. Forms of coaching along with elements of a successful coaching program are shared in support of online music education. The chapter concludes with four recommendations to guide coaching practice in support of personalizing learning for instructors and directions for future research.

Nurturing Vulnerability to Develop Pedagogical Change Through MOOC Participation and Public Blogging

2020 ◽  
pp. 589-617
Author(s):  
James Humberstone ◽  
Catherine Zhao ◽  
Danny Liu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Pedagogical Change ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Massive Open Online Course ◽  
Worldview Transformation ◽  
The University

Despite several decades of ground-breaking achievements in music education research and practice, the discipline’s status continues to stagnate, especially among our children and our governments. To address this stagnation, in 2016 the University of Sydney launched an internationally available Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled “The Place of Music in 21st-Century Education.” The intent of offering this course was to provoke critical thinking among music educators in order to break the cultural cycle that centers curricular music education around teachers’ (most likely Western art music) experience, and ask them to grapple with social and technological changes in education more broadly. To address concerns with authenticity in learning and the MOOC model, the MOOC integrated social media use into every main assessment. Participants—over 1,600 educators, students, artists, and the general public—were asked to publicly blog their responses to provocations on these topics and then to read each other’s posts and respond. In this study, we analyze funneled (Clow, 2013) data from the blogs and MOOC interactions. We find evidence for critical thinking and worldview transformation from a number of participants, and conclude that the experience of engaging publicly via social media engendered a vulnerability that may have made those new to the field and experienced professionals alike more open to change. The blogging-feedback loop prompted the formation of a social structure reminiscent of a community of practice or affinity space.

A music literacy-based rationale for popular music ensembles and experiences in music education

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 470-491
Author(s):  
Brittany Nixon May ◽  
Paul Broomhead ◽  
Samuel Tsugawa
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Literacy Development ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Music Literacy ◽  
Music Ensembles ◽  
Definition Of

The purpose of this article is to utilize new conceptions of music literacy to support and encourage popular music experiences in music education. A new definition of music literacy is presented and authentic popular music resources that function as (newly defined) texts to develop music literacy are identified and discussed. Finally, considerations will be given for music educators on how to select and utilize popular music texts to engage students in meaningful music interactions that promote music literacy development.

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