Problemsolving in Music Education

1
Problem-solving inMusic Education

• Sarah Elliott

2
Research Question

• How do senior primary students describe their
  experience of a problem-solving task in music
  education?

3
Enjoyment

• Melanies final journal entry The task to use
  instruments to make sounds to go in the poem was
  a bit tricky but it was also a lot of fun. I
  dont really know what made it fun maybe it was
  the composing that made it fun or maybe the
  instruments, I dont really know. I really liked
  performing it even though I was nervous.

4
Enjoyment

• I have had a different experience from this
  because I dont usually do stuff like this but
  making different sounds and experimenting with
  instruments to make sounds come to life is a
  great learning experience for me and I think for
  everyone else it is too. Another thing I have
  really enjoyed in this is working with someone I
  dont usually work with and that was a great
  experience too. Todays task was really fun and
  I wish this was on all the time.

5
Musical Learning

• Laurathe task was really fun and we learnt a
  lot out of it, and yeah.. it was a really good
  thing to do. Well like, I learnt more about
  sound scapes and yeah music and, more about
  understanding music. Like if its sad or happy or
  exciting or scary, and yeah, like in the movies,
  like youve got, yeah the music makes it scary
  but, you kind of understand it more if youre
  writing it yourself.

6
Problem-solving

• Michael Well, problems can come in all shapes
  and forms, not just like your teacher says oh
  ok, heres a maths sheet, do this problem, this
  problem. Theyre all different types of forms,
  like theyre everyday life as I said before
  youre teacher gives you a maths sheet, she says
  do this problem, but, you could have a problem
  out in the playground with little kids or
  something, or you could trip over a stick, thats
  a problem.

7
Problem-solving

• Oh, well, with the music one it was a bit
  different because we were told what to do, but we
  werent told how to do it. And so we were able
  to work out our own way of how to do it, but we
  had to go along a certain line, like a certain
  form of doing it, so yeah.

8
Working In A Group

• Jeremy I just preferred to work by myself and
  stuff but it was really fun working with other
  people yeah you got to hear their ideas and yeah.
  I dont know why I preferred working on my own
  just cause like I got to make my own decisions
  like if like the other like the other people in
  the team wanted to do one thing and I wanted to
  do another then like if I was by myself Id be
  able to do that but I wouldnt and yeah

9
Working In A Group

• Well when youre working by yourself it would
  like be like good for like just what like before
  when you have to do an answer and stuff, but when
  its open-ended you need like lots of ideas and
  suggestions and stuff and with the more people
  then the more ideas and suggestions youve got so
  I found that a bit yeah better, easier to do and
  yeah.

10
Open Task

• Laura Well, its good not having heaps of rules
  that you have to stick bycause we did a thing a
  bit like this with the music teacher the other
  day, and we had to have a metal thing, a skin
  thing and a wooden thing and ...it wasnt as
  good, having all those in it. Not having the
  rules was good Because you use whatever
  instrument you thought suited it without having
  to have that one instrument.

11
Open Task

• Cause then if we had to have like a metal one and
  a skin one and that and if we didnt have like a
  metal one for instance wed have to use one of
  them instead of another one, and it might not
  have been as good, like it wouldnt have suited
  the words maybe for the song.

12
Experimenting

• Laura It was challenging to find a bit of music
  I liked the sound of to fit in with the words but
  just like after a bit of experimenting youve
  kind of worked it out and you like in the end you
  have which instruments and maybe low notes and
  high notes andwell we had to experiment and then
  find, like if we had like three instruments for
  instance that we really liked we would like try
  them out and see which ones suited best. Well,
  we were like talking about it and yeah just
  experimenting and then talking about it and then
  putting it in with the piece.

13
Creation

• Laura I think I kind of learned what it felt
  like to make, create music and stuff like that
  cause in band we just learn other peoples music
  but it was good to actually create my own.

14
Research process in classrooms

• What do you feel you have learnt today so far?
• What do you think you will take back to your
  classrooms and students?
• What do you want to learn more about or
  investigate further?

ASME XVII 2009 National Conference Launceston
Musical Understanding