What separates a great music ensemble from a good one is the commitment levels of the members. A significant learning environment is one in which members are constantly measuring and evaluating their own performances. They have the passion to harness their individual development and equivalently understand how their skill level adds value to the team. When an instructor succeeds in creating a significant learning environment (CSLE), participants will go beyond the call of duty even if that requires them to build new tools to do it, such as hiring a private music instructor.
In the subject of music, we must be careful not to mimic the traditional transfer model by incorporating standardized evaluations. Music instructors should take advantage of our opportunity to model a learning-based education and move beyond a mechanistic approach. One challenge to CSLE is resistance from the learners themselves. Teachers know that when students feel passion for a topic they will work harder and have fun doing it. However, if a student feels that they are only practicing to help the ensemble instead of to be a better musician then they won’t take advantage of a musical galaxy of information. It is important to constantly remind students that everything we do is to help them realize their musical potential, and to equip them to pursue music at the next level if they choose.
As I mentioned before, music has the advantage to model a learning-based education because a lot of the learning is tacit knowledge. Tacit Knowledge is information that cannot be particularly transferred by a teacher student model, but learned through experience. When you are teaching a beginning saxophone player to tongue, the most you can do is explain to them what to do, and model what it should sound like. However, you have no other control over that student’s tongue. Instances like this are teaching moments. Teach the student to spend some practice time developing the technique, and eventually they will understand how to maneuver their individual tongue. In order to get my students comfortable with acquiring tacit knowledge, I will consider inquiry learning (using questions to spark motivation and curiosity), indwelling (familiarity of practices that become second nature), and student disposition (how students will make connections).
The problem with the traditional model of teaching is that music students are most often told what to practice instead of how to practice. My goal is to help young musicians explore the world of music beyond classroom requirements, and creating a significant learning environment will assist me in doing so. My innovation plan is to incorporate electronic portfolios in my choir program. A healthy culture of learning will motivate students to monitor progress of individual developments and upload it to their e-portfolio. It also will allow student to be more open with personal goals and ensemble goals. Young musicians will have the opportunity to use their e-portfolio to manage personal goals outside of their academics. An assignment that I would create in an open significant learning environment would be for students to pick a favorite song and track weekly progress of them learning and perfecting it. This is effective for three reasons. The first reason is because this is fun for them because of choice, and students are more willing to solve problems when having fun. Second, it allows the student to spend time self-learning, which is important for a student to get familiar with their musical self. Lastly but most important, students will begin applying knowledge from school music to their own learning and vice versa.
References
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2012). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change[Audible audiobook].
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