Saturday, March 30, 2013

On music & teaching redux...

Music is a multidimensional discipline, and has many layers that are conceptually similar to teaching and learning.  First, music is, at its root, sound, which is physical, and can be understood as acoustics. Learning, too, is a physical thing in the social constructivist paradigm of creating knowledge through doing.

Next, music is mathematical. Sounds can be interpreted as frequencies to be calculated and manipulated by synthesizers or computers. Music composition is often spoken of in terms of intervals, or the relative distance between notes or chords like the universal blues progression I-IV-V, or the standard jazz progression I-V-IV-I. Beyond mathematics being a core subject area, we must conceptually think of the intervals and progression of teaching: scaffolding, chunking, and sequencing information for students.

Finally, music is a creative pursuit–through composition and performance, a musician demonstrates their work. This is also true of a student, who creates artifacts along the way in the process of learning: projects, written papers, tests, and other more creative representations. Often through performance of a task, or synthesis of information, they demonstrate their understanding of concepts.

Through this multidimensional and layered approach, we can understand some of the delicate work at play in both art forms.

No comments: