James Humberstone: Recent Episodes
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I co-authored the following article with the brilliant Dr Jennifer Carter, the leading expert on music syllabus development in NSW, Australia. It will be very difficult to get the government to reverse these draconian changes – so please share publicly, write to your MP, and so on.
Our nationally-leading music courses are now under threatBy James Humberstone and Jennifer CarterThe NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) curriculum review puts music courses at risk, not just in NSW, but across Australia. NSW has twice the number of students taking music than any other state. That makes it a leader.
The proposed changes fall short of research, best practice, and teacher expectations. This is despite NESA’s claims of strengthening post-school pathways and fostering lifelong learning, .
Worst of all, the “revamped” Music 1 course—the country’s most popular Year 12 offering — severs meaningful ties to further study or the music industry.
The back storyNSW has historically enjoyed the leading music curriculum in the country, when measured by innovations and research internationally.NSW modernised its senior music syllabuses in the 1980s and embraced integrated learning: students performed, composed improvised alongside traditional literacy and aural skills. This inclusive approach reflects real-world diversity and career pathways. It was strengthened in the 90s and in 2000 by a focus on multiculturalism, contemporary Australian music, and student specialisation.
“Music 1” is by far the most popular course. It’s a music-for-everyone course. You don’t need to have studied an instrument privately for years to take Music 1. You can be a Chopin-loving pianist, a shredding guitar soloist, or an Electronic Dance Music producer. You can study any music of the last 1,000 years. You can elect to specialise in performing, composing, or musicology. Or you can balance each of those learning experiences.
Envy of the nationThis broad choice has made us the envy of the nation. Dr Emily Wilson, senior lecturer in Music Education at the University of Melbourne, usually speaks jealously when she talks about our courses, because she says that at around 7% of the total HSC candidature, it’s twice the rate of student engagement compared to Victoria and Queensland.
“Music 2”, in its own words, “focuses on the study of Western art music”. Even this more traditional course was really cutting-edge for its time. It insisted all students learn to compose, even if their specialisation was in performance. And in the HSC year , it focuses on contemporary Australian Music rather than classical or romantic repertoire. Music Extension can only be taken by Music 2 students, with a Western art music focus. It has allowed these students to do a further specialisation in one area of their choice.
These courses were far from perfect. They feature outdated elements like requiring song submissions via written scores. Also, the obsolete “Concepts of Music” highlighted the need for more authentic approaches to music theory and literacy. Pedagogical breakthroughs in other countries would benefit NSW. These include the extensive research and practice in informal learning, and culturally responsive pedagogy.
The problem at NESAConcerns about NESA’s reform began early. Educators experienced disappointment with the new K-6 and 7-10 syllabuses. They regressed from evidence-based integrated approaches and added rigid content. The opaque process was marked by non-disclosure agreements and vague public feedback summaries. By NESA’s own admission, it left educators guessing how their input shaped the final drafts.
The NSW syllabuses since the 1990s had been based on Swanwick and Tillman’s 1986 Curriculum Spiral model . NSW used to pride itself on a continuum from year 7 to year 12, with skills built on at each stage of learning. The proposed changes erase the continuity in the senior curriculum, performing, listening, and composing in years 7-10.
NESA relies on a workforce with varied professional backgrounds – rather than subject experts with deep teaching experience. That leads to poor decisions and leaves specialists grappling with flawed syllabuses. Meaningful consultation—such as face-to-face sessions across the state, not just online updates—would boost teacher morale. That’s particularly true in rural areas, where the process currently feels like a steamroller, pushing ahead despite clear deficiencies.
NESA’s shortcomings in understanding music education have been replicated in the recent release of an equally poorly researched and written drama course. All of the evidence (in the syllabuses themselves) suggests this is because of NESA’s intransigent position toward making the Arts subjects fit into the same template and nomenclature as the more “important” subjects such as maths, English, and science.
Attacks on Music 1 – Time Travelling, backwardsMusic 1 has been the leading music course in the country because of its breadth of choice and inclusion. The draft syllabus destroys the diversity and inclusivity of the existing course, while at the same time making it weaker against its own evidence base.
Gone are the wide range of topics that can be studied, and in their place a restrictive list of mandatory “Focus Areas”. While many have incorrectly thought of Music 1 as “the pop course”, it actually served as a conduit for many classically-trained musicians in public schools that could not afford to run both courses. Sadly, that is most of them. Under the new mandatory list, this is impossible. Now songwriters, DJs, producers, and other contemporary musicians will be forced to study topics of little interest to them or relevance to their future careers. It is an aggressive narrowing of the curriculum which experts believe will lead to widespread disengagement from the course. Prescribed topics were part of the early music syllabuses for the 1950s Leaving Certificate, carried over to the first HSC music syllabuses, then relinquished in the 1980s in line with leading research and practice.
The proposed examination includes the introduction of a two-hour aural exam with increased weighting. The composition and musicology electives are being binned, reminiscent of the 1970s.
Attacks on Music 2 and ExtensionThe proposed Music 2 examination allocates 40 marks each to written and performance exams, with restrictive performance options and limited topic choices. That curbs students’ ability to pursue their interests. The composition component, worth 20 marks, mandates a duet, trio, or accompanied solo within a narrow focus on recent Australian art music. While these changes may aim for equity, they undermine the syllabus’s flexibility and breadth. Similarly, the Extension examination now limits specialisations, requiring either two performance pieces (including an ensemble) or two compositions, alongside another 50-mark written aural exam focused on unspecified ‘prescribed’ repertoire—an approach reminiscent of rigid external testing. NESA’s pushing of written exams is a return to post-Sputnik debates about legitimising music in the curriculum in the 1950s.
We assume – we hope – NESA does not realise that it is repeating the mistakes of 70 years ago.
What does the research base really tell us?The current curriculum reform, meant to be based on the Geoff Masters review Nurturing Wonder and Igniting Passion, diverges significantly from its recommendations. The report called for simplifying an overcrowded curriculum but the new music syllabuses introduce more content points and prescriptive structures. It advocated integrating knowledge and skills, yet the new syllabuses prioritise what Elliott & Silverman term “verbal knowledge”—written knowledge about music—over musical knowledge, assessed through music-making.
Instead of flexibility, the new syllabuses impose mandated content, reducing teachers’ ability to adapt to their students. As Fuller notes, what works best may not work best for music education. Carter critiques NESA’s focus on the HSC, which pressures teachers to prioritize exam preparation over broader learning. Hughes highlights NSW’s fixation on maintaining standards and traditional benchmarks, with assessment driving curriculum changes. Teachers, however, recognise the importance of holistic approaches, and research confirms that successful teaching builds on students’ understanding of the subject.
A restrictive, exam-focused syllabus will inevitably result in restrictive, exam-focused teaching.
We need transparent curriculum reform led by expertsNSW is the biggest education system nationally and has led the way with senior secondary music enrolments for many years. This is due to its focus on active music making and promoting choice for students. That in turn places value on the musical interests of students, their autonomy, agency and inclusion.
We asked our Melbourne colleague Emily Wilson what she made of the new draft syllabuses and she said “Following a recent major review of the Victorian Certification of Education Music Study Design, we now have ‘Music Inquiry’, a project-based music subject explicitly positioned as music-for-everyone, moving Victoria closer to the existing NSW HSC Music 1 course.
Every student a stakeholder“We have been looking to NSW for almost 35 years to lead the way with a progressive curricula. It’s important that this continues so that senior secondary music curricula keeps pace with the ever increasing rate of change in the music industry and broader society. Every Australian student and music teacher is a stakeholder in the NSW HSC Music Syllabus.”
James Humberstone is a senior lecturer in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. He specialises in teaching music pedagogies, technology in music education, and musical creativities. James publishes traditional research focusing on music teacher worldview, technology and media in music education, and artistic practice as research. He is also a composer and producer whose music is performed in major venues around the world.
After a career as a music teacher and head teacher in NSW schools, and Chief Examiner of HSC Music in NSW, Jennifer Carter worked as a Senior Registration Officer at the NSW Education Standards Authority. She was a sessional lecturer for primary music and secondary music preservice teachers and has presented at music conferences both nationally and internationally. Her PhD thesis researched secondary classroom music teachers and the development of music syllabus documents.
This article was originally published on EduResearch Matters. Read the original article.
I think that might be the first made-up click-baity title I’ve written since I called my 2016 TEDxOxford talk “The Science of Dubstep”. The latter was actually an advocacy piece for progressive music education, and I like to think quite a good one, but of course it got hated on by the Dubstep crowd, and fair enough.
This title is equally spurious because, as ever, the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) who write the syllabi do so in a cloak-and-dagger manner, with a secret writing team, a secret advisory team, with the public left to guess at how they arrive at the final documents (i.e. what discussions are had and what decisions are made) by comparing them.
Both groups have to sign non-disclosure agreements, though the latter group are named after the final syllabus is published. I spoke to some of those people after the 7-10 Syllabus, and they were all somewhere between disgusted and very disappointed about how it turned out. Way to go, NESA.
So, we know that the new syllabi are coming because the Standards Authority have told us that, but I don’t know what is in those documents, because they’d protected by draconian legal agreements. So how am I claiming they’re not great?
They’re not greatIt’s easy to know that the new documents will not be great, because of the poor direction that the Standards Authority took the 7-10 Syllabus, released earlier this year, and to be taught from 2026. The new syllabus wasn’t terrible, it was just a long way off being world-leading, which is the ambition I personally have for NSW (and more broadly, Australian) curriculum. In other words, not-great; not-as-great-as-it-could-be. So, if your set-up is still essentially a syllabus written in the 1980s and tinkered with since (Carter, 2023), you can’t really write a world-leading follow-up course for your school-leaving cohort.
NESA and NESA’s leadership don’t understand music education at allAt the moment, there’s a state government Inquiry into Music and Arts Education and Training. I was privileged enough to give evidence at the last hearing, and was blown away by the level of understanding of the issues, and deep knowledge with which the Joint Select Committee asked questions.
I levelled some of the above accusations about poor curriculum development in my evidence, and it was interesting when the committee asked Dr Paul Cahill, the Standards Authority’s Executive Director, Curriculum Reform, to respond to them. Here’s the offending sentence, and you can watch it in his own words in video from Parliament House, if you like:
“The syllabus is not a pedagogical document.”
While the idea that the Standards Authority don’t tell teachers how to teach the syllabus content is a noble one (especially considering the deprofessionalisation of teachers over the last 20 years in NSW (Buchanan, 2020)), it’s simply not true that the new Syllabus isn’t a pedagogical document. I’m working on a research paper to show this in some detail, but here are the key facts:
- The strongest pedagogcial influence on the NSW syllabi is the Comprehensive Musicianship movement of the 1960s and 1970s (MENC, 1965; Jeaneret et al., 2003), which established
- Approaches for students to integrate learning about music (history, theory, aural skills, etc.) with traditional perfoming skills, as well as improvisation and composition
- “Elements” or “Concepts” of music as a written framework of categories for thinking about music.
- The influence of this pedagogy is first seen in NSW syllabi in the 1980s, and hasn’t changed much since (including in the new syllabus)
- While the new syllabus is supposedly the first rewrite since 2003, it retains the same pedagogical approach to thinking about music, with some minor changes to the nomenclature
- In the new syllabus, the explicit integration of learning experiences (Performing, Composing and Listening) of comprehensive musicianship is also retained, but the nomenclature is also adjusted, describing these experiences instead as “Focus Areas” and changing “integration” to “interrelated”.
- Since there is no music education research that suggests these nomenclature changes have any benefit, it is assumed that these changes are merely enforced to ensure alignment with the most “important” academic subjects, such as Maths and English.
- The NSW syllabus, as well as the Australian Curriculum, also show influence of pedagogies developed in the 1960s and 1970s in the “Creative Music Movement” (e.g. Painter & Aston, 1970; Schafer, 1967; Southcott & Burke, 2006) in the centring of Australian contemporary repertoire and students taking an active hand in composing and improvising – these influences remain in the new syllabus
- The 1990s pedagogical approaches to current thinking about multiculturalism in Australia, and how it ought to affect music education, which inflenced Cultural Diversity pedagogies that developed into the new millennium (Campbell et al., 2000)
As you can see, the new syllabus is packed-full of pedagogies that influence everything that happens. Sadly, on top of that, the new syllabus packed 113 content points to-be-taught, many of which are what Elliott and Silverman (2015) call “verbal knowledge”, that is written or spoken knowledge about music rather than musical knowledge (knowledge and musical skills such as playing an instrument, singing, improvising, composing).
If anything, I would suggest that layering on more pedagogical approaches (for instance, we have nearly two decades of research on informal learning that could really transform our syllabi to something world-leading), and critically appraising those from over 50 years ago that still dominate so much of what is in there, would be better than this pretence (or ignorance) that the syllabus isn’t a pedagogical document.
Mind you, I do think the idea of a pedagogy-free music syllabus is an interesting one. I’ll get to that in the academic paper – stay tuned.
We’ll probably see more of this kind of “content” rubbish in the new music syllabi for the HSC: I think it’s because the current crop of ideologues at the Standards Authority, and probably in the Department of Education at CESE, think that music education is all about delivering content to students. In fact, in the same hearings, they make an excellent defense of it as a claim for equity – every child whether in Bourke St (the centre of Sydney) or Bourke (outback Australia) has the right to the same “content”. Again, noble idea, but delivered in such a problematic, simplistic, and diochotmisitic way that won’t serve our children, especially in music education where kids need time to learn and practice music in a practical manner.
Even if the new syllabi don’t end up full of content-points-to-be-taught, we can’t escape the 1960s thinking on the Concepts/Elements of music that is truly out of date now (Rose & Countryman, 2013), because it is baked into the K-6 and 7-10 Syllabus. Given a generation passed since the last crop of syllabi, it’s absolutely extraordinary that this kind of old-fashioned thinking wasn’t questioned in the development of the new syllabi: and now our school-leaving students will waste another two years learning to think about music in ways that are totally inauthentic. Neither the music professions/industry nor tertiary music institutions have ever used this school-aged approach – it’s literally just busy-work that we added to music education to lend it more legitimacy in schools, with absolutely no Evidence-Base. Yet our Standards Authority think it’s a good idea.
So, I don’t know what’s coming the new syllabi, but I do know that it won’t be great. And I still think that children and young people in Australia, and specifically in NSW, deserve a world-leading music curriculum.
References that couldn’t be hyperlinkedJeanneret, N., McPherson, J., Dunbar-Hall, P., & Forrest, D. (2003). Beyond Manhattanville, Paynter and cultural identity: The evolution of the NSW music curriculum. In Curriculum innovations in music–Asia Pacific symposium of music education research (APSMER) (pp. 137-141).
There was a piece called “Teacher burnout fuelling national shortages” on the ABC’s Radio National this morning. The federal government reports that there will be a shortage of 4,000 teachers by the end of next year (honestly, I thought it was already higher than that), and that the main contributing factor is high workload resulting in burnout.
In the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Arts and Music Education and Training in New South Wales hearing on 23rd August, the Executive Director, Curriculum, NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), Dr Paul Cahill, claimed (consistent with recommendations in the NSW Government Masters report in 2020 that the curriculum was too cluttered) “I would say that the current syllabuses, not the new syllabuses, are very crowded and they’re very busy”.
This statement exemplifies Dr Cahill’s lack of understanding of his own music syllabi. As I explained in more detail in my article on the new syllabus for the Australian Association for Research in Education, and in my podcast on the subject, the new syllabus includes 56 content points to be taught in 100 hours in years 7 and 8, and another 57 content points in years 9 and 10. That’s 113 more than before. Many of these content points are not actually musical knowledge, but verbal knowledge about music – a move back toward the NSW syllabi of the 1960s and 1970s documented in Dr Jennifer Carter’s recent PhD on the subject.
[I don’t have a great image for incompetent music syllabus development, so I’m sharing a photo I took of sunrise over Narrabeen lagoon yesterday, instead.]
There is a tension in Dr Cahill’s claim that he doesn’t tell teachers how to tell their students, and his accusations that teachers are “cherry picking” music content in the current syllabus and need to be told exactly what to teach in the new one, rather than teaching to broad musical outcomes, which is much less busy-work. Cahill claimed that “the syllabus is not a pedagogical document”, a quite extraordinary statement that I will deal with in another article.
But whichever way you consider those tensions, Dr Cahill clearly doesn’t understand music pedagogy, the history of music education, what the leading research and practice is in our field, and has definitely led the development of a new music syllabus that will add significantly to the workload of music teachers and the resulting burnout that is today being reported as the leading reason teachers are leaving the profession.
I had a lovely visitor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music yesterday. Dr Emily Wilson, senior lecturer in music education at the University of Melbourne, was passing through. Emily is a curriculum expert and was talking about the way that, following leading research and practice of the last 30 years, they teach the that the Victorian curriculum should be taught with the music experiences of performing, composing, and listening integrated and centred over the verbal concepts of the “Elements of Music” (also syllabus content). This is a process that we’ve also been able to follow in NSW thanks to the fact that our 2003 syllabus was pretty cutting-edge. It even includes the statement
In designing teaching programs, teachers should provide a program that balances work in each of the learning experiences. Learning in music occurs best when these experiences are integrated with each other. (p.18)
In response to Emily’s thoughts, I showed her the unit of work planners that we use to teach preservice music teachers how to plan units of work at the Sydney Con – I shared them with you in an earlier blog post. Those planners do exactly the same thing – encourage teachers to think imaginatively about units with exciting and engaging music learning contexts, and make sure that they can engage in those contexts through integrated experiences in performing, listening, and composing. Only then do they flip over the planner and check off outcomes – which from 2026 will mean flipping over and checking off 56 or 57 content points.
Emily was horrified that NSW curriculum had taken such a step back, at the same time the Victorian curriculum had moved forward. I also pointed out that the integration language has been removed from the new syllabus, and the “learning experiences” term has been replaced with “focus areas”, which suggests quite the opposite (our suspicion is that this has happened because NESA decided to force all shaped pegs into a round hole called maths syllabus terminology: funnily enough, music learning is nothing like maths learning, and if you don’t believe me, I’ll send you a few hundred research papers and books to read). The integration language has just been added into the Victorian documentation.
The new syllabus should be withdrawn. A fresh syllabus should be written, with the NSW Government’s backing to make it world-leading. NESA need to end their secretive syllabus development practices, and become accountable to government, teachers, parents. Their work in music needs to become educative and evidence-based. Right now they are developing the new Stage 6 (year 11 and 12) syllabi. I have absolutely no faith they’ll do a good job.
In this, the final episode of the season, I reflect on some of the (eight!) resources that the amazing Jess Lee, Lillian Li, Vicky Zhang made (with me getting in the way here and there) for Genevieve Lacey’s wonderful Finding Our Voice project which commissioned 8 new works from Australian artists including William Barton, Linda May Han Oh, Lisa Illean, Madeleine Flynn, Jenny Hector, Tim Humphrey, Mark Atkins, Erkki Veltheim, Matthias Schack-Arnott, Lior, Nigel Westlake, Lou Bennett, and Sunny Kim.
Here is an AI-made transcript of the episode:
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This week I’m thinking about the project that I’ll create for our undergraduates and postgraduates at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music to learn about Project Based Learning (and similar pedagogies) with and through. In this episode, I share some of the previous projects with you, and talk about what Project Based Learning (PBL) is, and how when we do music education well, everything’s a project!
Comments are still broken on my blog, so please just send me a message in any format with your thoughts!
Here’s an AI-generated transcript:
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Explicit Teaching (not dissimilar to Direct Instruction) is really in vogue with our local government at the moment, and this coming week all government school teachers have to undertake professional development in it. Of course, there’s a research base behind the use of Explicit Teaching, but does much of that research come from music education? And if it doesn’t, what should music teachers make of Explicit Teaching and similar ideas? Are they useful for music education, or will they get in the way of best practice?
In this episode, I speak to music teacher and research Dr Brad Fuller, who published a wonderful article on this very subject just last year: Is What Works Best, Best For Music Education?
Apparently my blog isn’t accepting comments at the moment, so please feel free to comment by dropping me an email or over on the socials!
Here’s the transcript of this episode, made by Otter.ai (so it will have a few inaccuracies!):
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I know, everyone is writing and podcasting about AI at the moment – YAWN! But the AI generation of music (audio) has just taken another huge leap forward, and in this podcast I wonder what it means for the teaching and learning of music creation – composition, songwriting, producing, and so on. Can students just get AI to do their work for them? Should we be encouraging it or banning it? And if the really good technologies make audio, not MIDI, how easy is it to create a score for that audio (in school systems where a score is still required)? I’ve created a load of tracks with Suno.ai and I’ll be breaking them down. Here is the score of Broken Pieces, one of the tracks that I speak about:
Broken-PiecesDownloadPlease get involved by sharing your thoughts athttps://humberstone.org/2024/04/19/musiczettel-s3e12-ai-and-teaching-music-creation/
Here is a transcript also made by AI (so it won’t be 100% accurate!):
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Today’s show is sponsored by Abble and their new product the iSlave Mini, as well as by FcDonald’s. Please check out these unreliable products!
In this episode I’m reflecting on the list of pre-service music teachers’ blogs that I published via my blog yesterday, and the courses to which each relates. I make links to the brilliant Electronic Music School by Will Kuhn and Ethan Hein, and also to the DAYTiME music conference coming up in Adelaide and streamed online on June 14th this year.
I explain why public blogging is useful as a tool to encourage critical thinking, not just in undergraduate and postgraduate music education students, but, following my own research, for in-service music teachers, too.
Here is a transcript that should be tolerably accurate, thanks to Otter.ai:
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Any of you who have been reading my blog this century will know that I’m a big fan of getting students to publicly blog about their project work, and to develop portfolios and professional websites online. There’s a research backing behind this, by the way. If you’re interested in that, I’ve posted three paragraphs from one of my own publications below.
But I’m not starting with that, because I want to share links to my students’ work, first. This work is from two classes – first MUED4002 Technology in Music Education, a course you may well be familiar with, in which students undertake a project of their own design on any aspect of technology in music education.
The second course is an Extension course for double stream music candidates (postgraduates who are studying to be music teachers with no second teaching area, and so get double the music pedagogy training) in the Master of Teaching (Secondary). This course allows them to explore one of the specialisations that fit into the undergraduate degree but do not fit into the postgraduate one (including Jazz in music education, Composition in music education, and Popular Music Studies), and then extends them by getting them to reimagine these subjects with a technology-based, 21st century-bent, if music education didn’t already have a history. Kuhn and Hein suggest it would look more like an art class, and we use their fabulous book Electronic Music School to give us activities to do, assessment rubrics, and then to plan out our own creative ideas.
So, the students blog about what happens in classes, or on themes that arise from the classes and (mostly optional) readings, and then they plan a project, and make a thing. This year we are coordinating with Music EDNet to present some of the projects at the internationally streamed DAYTiME (a day of technology in music education) on Friday 14th June. So, check out student work by clicking on their links, below!
Technology in Music Education cohort
| Name | URL | Socials | | --- | --- | --- | | Daisy Batty | https://daisybatty5.wixsite.com/daisy-batty—music | | CB | https://techinmusiceducation.wordpress.com/ | | Lachlan Cain | https://lachsmustech.wordpress.com/ | | Sooa Chae | https://eppingmelody.wordpress.com/ | | Gemma-Anne Curry | https://gcur5440.wordpress.com/ | | Nicola De Sensi | https://nicoladesensi.wixsite.com/website | Heaps via the blog, including: Spotify | | Grace Dinh | https://sites.google.com/view/technology-in-music-education/home | | Nathan Eastman | https://nathaneastman04.wixsite.com/nathaneastmanmusic | | Paityne Eminovski | https://musiceducationblog4.wordpress.com/ | | Issy Epps | https://iepp3631.wixsite.com/isabelle-epps | | M Fish | https://www.tumblr.com/fish-off-the-wharf | | Elena K | https://mued4002.wordpress.com/ | | Caelan Lee | https://musiciancaelan.wixsite.com/technologyjourney/my-blog | | Kevin Li | https://lkc.gallery/ | | Felicity Yau | https://felicitymusic2.wordpress.com/ |
Music Curriculum 1 Extension cohort
| Name | URL | Socials | | --- | --- | --- | | Alex Marie Tablizo | https://alexandramarie0.wordpress.com/ | Instagram TikTok @amouriemusic | | Dolores Bao | https://doloresbao.wordpress.com/ | | Lucy Lush | https://lucyamlush.wixsite.com/llearnstoteach | | Sam Zhan | https://samzhanmusic.com/ | | Lachlan Dibley | https://dibleymusiced.wordpress.com/ | | Paityne Eminovski | https://musiceducationblog4.wordpress.com/2024/02/23/music-education-blog-post-1/ | | Susan | https://kyoo44.wordpress.com/2024/02/21/there-is-always-a-first-time-for-everything-in-life/ | | Angelina Garay | https://confessionsofamusicfreak3.wordpress.com/ | YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@angelinagaray7331 | | Miko Lam | https://mikomusic1.wordpress.com/about/ | Insta: https://www.instagram.com/miko__11.29/ | | Junman Luo | https://www.youtube.com/@junmanluo | | Evan Batkin | https://batkinmusiced.wordpress.com/ |
Encouraging Critical Thinking (CT) in school teachers and pre-service educators through public blogging, from my own published research.
There is convincing evidence that reflective public blogging provides excellent stimulus for CT. As Woo and Wang (2009) put it, “Web 2.0 tools such as weblogs and discussion forums have the potential to promote students’ critical thinking, for they allow students to publish information to a broader audience and hence students have to take more responsibility and think further before they post” (p. 541). In their own review of the literature, Woo and Wang point to two decades of research, beginning with the analytical model they adopt (Newman, Webb, & Cochrane, 1995) and ending with more recent analyses of critical thinking in asynchronous discussion forums (Marra, Moore, & Klimczak, 2004; Perkins & Murphy, 2006), both of which demonstrate evidence of CT in multiple studies.
Giarré and Jaccheri (2008) found that asking students to blog a research project publicly stimulated high levels of student engagement even after the course was over. Interestingly, they also found that students preferred to communicate as a group in a private forum. Using a similar approach, the MOOC supported discussion privately through the Coursera system, while the assignment blogs were public-facing. Turvey and Heyler (2017) demonstrated similar success when asking pre-service teachers to blog about their learning and professional experiences, explaining that by “giving voice to the personal in a public arena, there is the opportunity for collaboration in the exchange of ideas and experience; a favourable condition for the generation and building of professional knowledge and understanding” (p. 43).
Freeman and Brett (2012) explored issues affecting frequency of blogging in a postgraduate distance learning course and found that scaffolded prompts were successful in creating more timely and reflective writing, which in turn made the experience closer to that of an authentic blogger, defined as “writing regularly about ideas that are personally meaningful” (p. 1040). Zandi, Thang, and Krish (2014) investigated the impact of introducing public blogging to practicing educators and found that it had “a positive effect on teacher learning within a community of practice” (p. 530).
Humberstone, J. H. B., Zhao, C., & Liu, D. (2020). Nurturing vulnerability to develop pedagogical change through MOOC participation and public blogging. In J. Waldron, S. Horsley, & K. K. Veblen (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning (pp. 590–617). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190660772.013.35
I published these a few weeks ago, and then had an update to my website, and the post was deleted – sorry about that! Here I’m providing the Unit of Work planner that I developed to help our pre-service music teachers at the Sydney Conservatorium plan creative and musical units of work for Stage 4 (Year 7 & 8) classes. Following feedback from my colleague Brad Fuller, these were updated a couple of years ago, and then with the release of the new NSW Music 7-10 syllabus, I’ve created a new one for mapping to the new (56!) content points.
The aim here is to get teachers to think about creative contexts for teaching – as I wrote on the first page, “500 years of bass lines” is better than “Music with ground bass” which is still better than something as plain as “the Baroque period”, because it encourages transcultural, pluralist, student-relevant, and creative thinking.
We then use the learning experiences (in the new syllabus, those have been renamed “Focus Areas”) to brainstorm musical activities around that context, and scribble arrows between them to show how they’re all linked (since, as the syllabus reminds us, learning in music occurs best when these experiences are integrated). The models I provide for the students include my Cryptography unit (show here), and my Flipping Samples unit.
The sheets encourage this creative work first, and only when the activities are planned, does the second half/page come into use, which is where we tick off outcomes (current syllabus) or content points (new syllabus). I’ve had a go at filling in the new one, so I’ll include that example too. But the main thing here is we don’t plan according to syllabus outcomes, we plan to teach engaging and enactive music. Then, we go back, and always find that we’ve met lots of outcomes along the way. While there are many more in the new syllabus, the process doesn’t change. Not only do we not plan to the syllabus, we actually end up teaching beyond the syllabus!
So if you’ve been worried about taking your old units and updating them for the new syllabus, feel free to use these planning sheets to help you along.
Structuring-a-unit-of-work-Brad-improvedDownloadStructuring-a-unit-of-work-2024-syllabusDownloadPlanner-for-CryptographyDownloadPlanner-for-Flipping-SamplesDownload2024-Planner-for-CryptographyDownload
Having had a grumble about the lack of an evidence-base in the local government’s supposedly “Evidence-based syllabus” in the last episode, I turn this into a positive, with the first of several podcasts accounting for my own research in music education, as well as others’. In this episode, specifically, my chapter on teaching music creation in Australia which is part of a relatively new book “The Routledge Companion to Teaching Music in Schools”.
I would really LOVE it if you’d add comments on the corresponding blog post for this episode… https://humberstone.org/2024/04/04/musiczettel-s3e10-teaching-music-creation-in-australia/
Here is an AI-generated transcript (so it may have a few errors!):
S3E10-Teaching-music-creation-in-Australia_otter_aiDownload
Following on from the last episode of MusicZettel, in which I focused on the positive things about the new NSW Syllabus, in this episode, I look at the things that the New South Wales Education Standards Authority (NESA) got wrong, especially given that they’re claiming this is an “Evidence-Based Syllabus”. I hope that this critical look at the syllabus is useful for listeners in other states and countries also being affected by syllabus/curriculum reform. NB This podcast was removed for a day following my website upgrade yesterday – there was no government conspiracy!
I would love to know what you think about this topic – please leave comments on the blog at https://humberstone.org/2024/03/28/musiczettel-s3e9-the-new-nsw-syllabus-pt-2-when-ideology-gets-in-the-way-of-educative-evidence-based-practice/.
I will post the unit of work planning resources for teachers planning for both the new and old syllabi on my blog in the coming days (again!).
Here is an AI transcription of the podcast:
S3E9-The-new-NSW-Syllabus-pt.-2_-When-ideology-gets-in-the-way-of-educative-evidence-based-practice_otter_aiDownload
I’m asking the big questions today, prompted by the new year 7 to 10 (12 to 16 years) music syllabus released recently by the NSW Government: what is classroom music education for? What are the aims of this syllabus, and can we remember the good to avoid the not-so-good? Today I’m focusing (mostly) on what’s good in this new syllabus, and using that to advocate for the same aims in Music Education.
I also mention an article that I wrote recently for AARE (The Australian Association for Research in Education) responding to the new syllabus, and you can read that here: https://blog.aare.edu.au/the-brand-new-syllabus-should-let-the-music-play/?unapproved=234158&moderation-hash=5ce8abd82ef18bc132a6a4b9443b8915
Please leave comments on the blog post for this episode at https://humberstone.org/2024/03/14/music-zettel-s3e8-the-new-nsw-syllabus-pt-1-what-is-classroom-music-education-for/.
Here is a transcript, generated by Otter.ai:
s3e8-syllabus-pt-1_otter_aiDownload
The Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) have published my considered thoughts on the new NSW years 7 to 10 syllabus on their blog. Please do comment there or here on this post!
The brand new syllabus should let the music play
In today’s episode I talk about ways I’ve used samping in my own composition and production, and ways that I’ve used it to teach composition and engage children in my music classes. There are lots of ideas, and examples of music that I’ve written. My page of resources on teaching sampling with the Flip Sampler app is available here.
If you have any comments, I’d love you to leave them on my blog, where I publish this podcast series. https://humberstone.org/2024/03/08/music-zettel-s3e7-teaching-music-through-sampling/
Here is an Otter.ai transcription of this episode:
s3e7-sampling_otter_aiDownload
Following on from my blog yesterday, I’m sharing the second article I prepared for @SydneyCon students before the strikes last week, so they would understand why we’re striking, and perhaps even join us on the picket line to ask for better working conditions for the teachers which we argue are better learning conditions for them. … Continue reading The experience of casual teachers at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
This last week, I was a picket captain for the first time in my life, during the two-day #USydStrike. While I’ve decades of experience in social justice work, from marching in rallies, to picketing visiting politicians, through to my teaching and research/creative work, I only joined and became active in the National Tertiary Education Union … Continue reading Why our Conservatory students should care about the 40:40:20
Yes, it’s that time of year again, when I share my students’ websites with the world! We’re 11 weeks into my course MUED4002 Technology in Music Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and as usual we’ve learned lots of simple techy skills (audio and MIDI recording and editing, graphic creation, creative commons and notation … Continue reading Announcing the #SCMTME & MTeach Extension cohorts, 2022
Well, who’d’ve thunk it? I’m back again after a quiet 10 months on this blog, to introduce the next cohort in my Technology in Music Education course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Yes I did plan some other blogs, and a 3rd series to my podcast, but Covid, eh? Anyway, no time for excuses. … Continue reading Introducing the #SCMTME cohort of 2021
Well, five episodes in five days, and today’s episode coincides with our public presentation of learning, which you can still sign up for if you’re very quick: https://bit.ly/InventIdeas. In this episode, I look at the 5th elective stream – new pedagogies and technologies – including projects to build new social media, to build instrumental ensembles, … Continue reading Music Zettel S2E5 – Thongaphone!
In this episode of Music Zettel, I look at the theme of Virtual ensembles, multi-screen mixes, and animation in recent work by my students following my Technology in Music Education course. I’m sure you’ve all been wowed by virtual choirs, orchestras, and other ensembles of people “performing together, apart” over the lockdowns due to the … Continue reading Music Zettel S2E4 – Oh no, virtual choirs.
In the third Zettel of the week, I take you through a number of songwriting, composition, and other zany creative projects that our pre-service music teachers have produced in response to my Tech in Music Education course. Music included in this episode is by Kyra McMorrow, Matt O’Brien, Katrina Wu, and Emily Turner. If you’re … Continue reading Music Zettel S2E3 – Songwriting, composing, & creativity
In the second episode of this micro-season of Music Zettel, I’m looking at projects undertaken in the stream of digital resources for teaching, learning, and music making, and the related content from my Unit of Study “Technology in Music Education” at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. We’ll look at a number of digital resources that … Continue reading Music Zettel S2E2 – Free Resources FTW
Here I am, back with a second micro-season of MusicZettel, after abandoning the first one just when it was getting good (or was it?). Anyway, in this episode I’m going to tell you what the plan is for this short season, and for the future, as well as about a fabulous event coming Friday! If … Continue reading MusicZettel S2E1 – The Elephant in the Room
That time of the year has come earlier this year, as my Technology in Music Education class at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music has moved semesters this year (and next year moves a whole year earlier in the degree, so we can tool-up our students in their second year!). This year we also welcome some … Continue reading Introducing the #SCMTME cohort of 2020!
Last week I was lucky enough to meet Anna Bull, the author of Class, Control, and Classical Music (Oxford University Press, 2019: Kindle | OUP). We had a great chat over a long lunch and I know her work is going to make a huge impact on my own, both research-wise and in my teaching. … Continue reading Class, control, and classical music
MZ8 A load of Pollak We’ve just had three wonderful days with our Maker-in-Residence, Linsey Pollak! In this episode, I reflect on the learning that went on, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Good, and we hear from my students who were involved in the residency at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
If you’d like to hear more music from Linsey and the other musicians/projects I mentioned in this week’s episode, please check out:
- Linsey’s website
- Linsey’s YouTube channel
- Jon Madin
- Mal Webb
- Odysseus
A week ago I gave the keynote speech on the opening day of New Zealand’s national music education MENZA conference. I’ll write more about what I shared in a podcast later this year but I wanted to share a quick thought in a blog this morning.
Duncan Ferguson giving the day 3 keynote at the MENZA conference Before the keynote they were the usual opening bits and bobs that you get it every conference. In Australian conferences we should always acknowledge the traditional (Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander) owners of the land on which we meet, something I’ve noticed we’re getting better at over the last decade. Personally speaking, I also acknowledge country at the start of every Unit of Study that I teach at the University of Sydney.
But in New Zealand they go so much deeper. Every single talk that I attended began with a friendly “kia ora”, and then an introduction to the session entirely in te reo Māori. It just seemed such a warm, inclusive and respectful way to begin a class.
When I mentioned this to my Kiwi colleagues they replied “oh, but we are not so good. We still have so much to fix for the Maori people”. And I think that’s part of it too. Having raised the bar to demand knowledge, understanding and respect from our leaders (and in case you don’t realise it, educators are leaders of their communities), there is now a shared ownership of the issues. Shared responsibility, too. People care because they have a stake in it.
What what a great model for Australia. We could start by taking all of the best bits of their treaty and adding our own Australian flavour. We could look how it is expressed in education and nurture a generation of Australians empowered to care and actually enact change.
I’m going to look for ways I can make this happen with my pre-service music education students.