Music-ITE

Getting pupils to talk together to learn is now an accepted way of working in the classroom. While composing in pairs or groups, pupils will discuss how to go about the task and how to best make progress. Sometimes they will help each other to understand the task through demonstration or through talk. The teacher, as facilitator, will also talk to group members and will try to help them to move forward or will ask questions to steer them towards a particular goal or understanding. At key points in the lesson the teacher will talk to the whole class and either model the task, ask questions to check their understanding and also might ask questions which allow pupils to express their opinions about a particular piece of work or to suggest how the work might be developed in peer appraising.

This kind of talk goes on all the time. Talk is linked to thinking, a kind of thinking aloud but not all thinking is evidenced by what people say of course. Dialogic teaching and learning is a topic which is currently of importance across the curriculum and across the key stages. Clearly many aspects of ‘assessment for learning’ involve talk in the classroom which might involve the teacher in monitoring the learning and understanding of pupils, of focussing talk on the outcomes of a task and making judgements against criterion-related goals leading to summative outcomes.

While there are inevitable overlaps in the role of talk, it might be useful to consider a broader role of talk and a look at the need for encouraging a greater quality of what pupils say in developing their skills of criticism and critical thinking.

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Teacher talk

There is a great danger that classrooms are places where teachers do most of the talking. We all know that this is a common focus for development for student teachers on school placements and early career teachers in their induction year - and in fact in some experienced teachers! There is also a danger that questioning fails to allow pupils to think and to reflect and to give extended answers in whole class discussions. This is especially noticeable in plenary sessions when discussing a pupil’s performance and there is limited time available.

In 2007 the term ‘appraising’ was removed from the new version of the National Curriculum (See Major 2008 for a historical account). The removal of the term (which has always caused confusion) has not made a difference and the use of the word ‘evaluation’ is helpful to teachers. Reviewing and evaluating are still key processes in the new National Curriculum. In the attainment descriptors, for example, pupils are expected to, “analyse, compare and evaluate how music reflects the contexts in which it is created, performed and heard…(making) improvements to their own and others’ work in the light of the chosen style (level 6)”. It involves therefore the skills of encouraging pupils to develop skills of critical thinking and analysis of what is happening.

The use of pupil’s own work to develop the skills of criticism and evaluation, to teach pupils to respect each others’ work and to engender a climate of trust in performing within the class is one of the skills which were developed as part of the process of ‘appraisal’ and became embedded into the formative assessment procedures. The National Curriculum (2007) states however that, engaging with and analysing music involves, engaging with music through performance and listening, and appraising music that covers a range of styles, genres and traditions. The emphasis of evaluating music performed by pupils has shifted to the implication that it refers to the evaluation of ‘recorded music by established composers’. Most importantly, pupil evaluation skills during practical composing lessons are now firmly established as a part of the assessment for learning process in music lessons.

Active learning and PLTS

Mercer (2000) and Alexander (2008) view talk as being central to extending pupil’s thinking and in fostering their learning and developing their understanding. Both authors view talk in the classroom as something more than just interactive teaching but rather as stimulating and extending children’s thinking skills in order to advance their understandings of a task or topic.

Music teachers use discussion and questioning with pupils in the classroom to develop their understanding of terminology and to evaluate and review progress on their compositions. The idea of children working in pairs or groups to explore experientially a musical idea, or to work on a musical task together, is an everyday activity in most music classrooms. For some time now, music teachers have facilitated ‘active learning’ where pupils take ownership and responsibility for what they are doing and learning. The six areas of the Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) framework (QCA, 2008) have relevance both for active learning and for the importance of dialogue between pupils and teachers. Four of the PLTS are particularly relevant for dialogic teaching and learning and for music lessons. These are: to analyse and evaluate information in order to develop independent enquirers; to assess themselves and others in order to develop as reflective learners; to identify opportunities and achievements, collaborating with others in team work; and to try out alternative solutions and follow through ideas in creative learning (QCA, 2008).

When pupils are engaged in active learning the teacher is more able to help pupils, to monitor their progress and to spend time helping them to develop skills and understandings about what they are doing. There is likely to be greater personal satisfaction on the part of the pupils in relation to the outcomes of their work and also because they are learning through experience, greater understanding. The pupils will be talking together about their work in order to decide what they are going to do and what roles they will be playing in the performance of the composition. The teacher will be talking to the groups and asking questions. In order to develop children’s thinking skills when analysing and evaluating, what would teachers need to do?

In Jodie’s lesson, the teacher did not allow time for the performance of pupil’s work, for checking up on what the pupils had learnt and understood during the lesson and pupils did not get the chance to comment on their work or progress.

So, what is the role of dialogue in music lessons? Writers have provided some views on the value of dialogue. Both, Glover (2000) and Burnard (2000) wrote about the importance of using dialogue to become more aware of the processes children use to compose. This reflection on the processes of how we compose or what we have done (meta-cognition) is an increasingly important skill to use with children. Campbell (1998) articulated the value of dialogue in sharing musical terminology, a skill that music teachers have skilfully taken on, and Swanwick (1994) saw reflective discourse about music, thinking and reflecting, as a central aspect of music education, hence, I suspect the introduction of the notion of ‘appraising’ into the National Curriculum at that time.

Vygotsky (1978) viewed interaction as central to learning, particularly verbally, in order to make connections between ideas to enable greater understanding. Vygotsky’s idea of the ‘zone of proximal development’ describes a process through which learners will reach new understandings through interaction with a teacher or more informed member of the class. The dynamic interrelation of engaging with a musical idea, through playing together and discussion and then the teacher who comes along and asks some relevant and leading questions to steer the learners and to help them to understand further what they are doing, could be part of this process. Dialogue here moves on the pupils’ understanding, but only partially, the engagement with the music and the ideas of the task work together to help children towards a greater understanding.

Another idea, Mercer’s ‘intermental development zone’(IDZ)(2000) further helps our understanding of another process happening when children work together and discuss ideas related to their task. This is a more dynamic and ever-changing understanding of what is going on during pupil and teacher discussion. Here, there is joint activity with a shared and negotiated communicative space. The teacher and the learner share a common understanding which changes as dialogue continues and as the task progresses. Successful management of a building of understandings can allow the learner to come to understand something which is beyond their capabilities and which challenges their skills or understanding. It is a kind of ‘scaffolded’ learning which is common in music classrooms, particularly with examination students preparing composing coursework.

However, without quality leadership and the skilful facilitation of the teacher, and without a willingness on the part of the pupil to engage in discussion which is adult-like, it is unlikely to develop in the way described above. The discussion has to build on shared experience. The role of the teacher in composing lessons requires a degree of shared empathetic sensitivity in order for the pupil to maintain motivation while at the same time, the teacher needs to be able to criticise and say when something might be better if tackled in a different way.

This mutual trust is one which is important and which allows, for the duration of the discussion, a sense of equality in the role of teacher and learner. The pupils know that the teacher has the experience and expertise which they need in order to achieve a successful outcome but at the same time, the pupil can communicate their own intentions and understandings through their music and through their explanations in a more equal relationship between teacher and pupil(s) where the teacher still teaches but where the pupils also contribute important insights and where collaboration and negotiation can take place through dialogue. We know that in some situations, and with some pupils, this can happen. It represents an ideal.

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A diagram to summarise the role of dialogue in the music classroom

If you consider the diagram above, there is no consideration of the development of critical thinking skills or the development of the way to approach criticism of music heard. You might think that in a busy key stage 3 classroom with all that has to be fitted into ever shorter lessons times, adding another dimension would be problematic – but when else, but when children are already talking about their compositions or are already evaluating pieces of music (their own and others), and developing skills of criticism. This is surely the time to include some consideration of quality in their responses?

My research into the way children talk in classrooms (Major, 2007) explored the talk of key stage 3 pupils while they worked on composing tasks without the presence of a teacher, in other words, a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ approach. Key stage 4 pupils talked with the teacher about their own compositions which they were preparing for their GCSE coursework. In analysing the outcomes of the talk it was found that even intelligent Key stage 4 GCSE pupils fail to engage in evaluative talk if they do not engage with ownership and feeling about their compositions, in other words if they see it as an exercise to be completed but do not regard it with any personal ownership or confidence. This leads to the consideration that in order to encourage pupils to talk with confidence about their work they need to be motivated in the task set and to feel some ownership of it.

Schools who promote and explore ideas from the ‘Musical Futures’ project and the work of Lucy Green (2008) on the importance of engaging with pupils’ motivations and informal learning strategies, have seen the value of pupils’ engagement with tasks which are meaningful to themselves and which have children’s perceived value as a musical outcome. The new National Curriculum acknowledges emotional and ‘feeling’ aspects of music learning. Affective engagement in a musical task is creative and research has shown that engagement in an imaginative or interesting or relevant task is the ideal arena for developing their talking skills.

Recent research with early years children aged 6 and 7 years (Major and Cottle), revealed even more surprising results when it was found that given the right circumstances and when fully immersed in an imaginative topic (affective engagement), these young children were able to evaluate their work meaningfully comparing different versions of their composition and evaluating the effectiveness of their music against the ideas in the story. They were able to effectively synthesise the ideas of a story explored in other curriculum lessons, and to apply these ideas to musical sounds, and to discuss which were the most important for their piece of music. They were able to negotiate with each other to decide which instrument not to use in a final composing task, and to evaluate in advance what the impact of removing an instrument would have on the resulting composition.

Mercer describes this kind of dialogic exchange where children are actively collaborating on the construction of arguments together, as Exploratory Talk and describes it as, “the embodiment of critical thinking … which is also essential for successful participation in ‘educated’ communities of discourse” (200-:66). This differs from the IDZ discussed earlier which involves the teacher and pupil (s) conversing together about the task in progress. These ‘exploratory talk’ peer discussions include evidence of reasoning and deduction as they negotiate to make a decision. In my research with pupils of six and seven years, I found significantly and perhaps surprisingly, that they were also able to reflect on the processes of what they were doing and were able to provide reasons why the task was useful and what aspects of the processes of what they were doing were important.

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With younger children, the role of questioning by the teacher is very important. In this research project with early years children, questioning types (Bloom’s taxonomy revised by Anderson and Drathwohl, 2001) were used as predictors of expected responses. The findings supported previous research on the importance of scaffolding questioning in order to encourage higher order responses in children’s talk in the classroom.

When children were asked to describe or to show understanding of what was happening they typically responded in a descriptive manner by offering accounts of what is happening. When asked how to apply an idea or analyse why something might have gone well, children typically gave their opinions often with reasons. When asked about the impact of what they had composed, if they liked one version more than another, they typically were able to evaluate their ideas and decide which they liked best and give reasons why. When asked to find a solution creatively in their composing task, they demonstrated that they were able to predict what would happen and then discuss their views about the outcome of the changes made. Finally, and most significantly they were able to reflect on their own processes and say how it might have been improved as a task or why doing something the way they had done, worked well(see diagram below).

It is interesting that imaginative engagement in music composing tasks provide very good opportunities to develop pupil’s analytical and critical skills which are so important when analysing music, when discussing pieces of music and that through discussion which is meaningful, teachers can encourage pupils to develop these skills during their work in music lessons while at the same time gain useful insight into their thinking and learning.

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When children are thinking critically, they discuss, building on each others’ ideas and they challenge and work out problems. They evaluate, thinking of alternative possibilities against what is expected by the teacher. They are able to engage in higher order dialogue which might mean evaluating, synthesising ideas, solving problems while being able to imagine what will happen if I do something (predicting while problem solving).

Thinking critically in the classroom requires extra time for evaluating work in progress, and may require discussion in groups to consolidate ideas as well as questions led by the teacher to stimulate thinking and further understanding. Early year’s expert, Robson (2006:169) suggests that critical thinking in young children involves observation, comparison, explanation and prediction. Others see it as part of reflection. These definitions fit well with evaluating music making. What is important here though is the awareness by the teacher that while dialogue already plays an important role in the music classroom in furthering learning, the quality and development of dialogic skills can also be focussed on with thought and planning, and also, in allowing time to carry this through.

If talk between the teacher and learners in a music lesson is meaningful it will move learning forward. Assessment for learning encourages pupils to evaluate their work against the outcomes for the task.

Websites:
Music National Curriculum(2007) – http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/...index.aspx

Musical Futures website – http://www.musicalfutures.org.uk/

Personal Learning and Thinking Skills - http://www.qcda.gov.uk/8753.aspx

Further reading

Alexander, R.J.2008. Towards Dialogic Teaching: rethinking classroom talk (4th edition), Dialogos

Burnard, P. 2000. How children ascribe meaning to improvisation and composition: Rethinkingpedagogy in music education. MusicEducation Research, 2, No 1:7-23

Campbell, P. 1998. Songs in their heads: music and its meaning in children’s lives. New York:Oxford University Press

Glover, J. 2000. Children Composing 4-14. London:Routledge/Falmer

Green, L. 2008. Music, Informal Learning and theSchool: A New Classroom Pedagogy. Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series

Krathwohl, D.R. 2002, A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy : An overview, Theory into Practice, 41:4, 212-218

Mercer, N. 2000. Words and Minds: how we use language to think together, London: Routledge.

Major, A.E. 2007. Talking about composing in secondary school music lessons. British Journal of Music Education 24, No2:1-14.

Major, A.E. 2008.Appraising composing in secondary-school music lessons. Music Education Research, 10, No 2:307-319.

Major, A andCottle, M. (pending publication). Learning and teaching through talk: music composing in the classroomwith children aged six to seven years (journal article)

Robson, S. 2006. Developing Thinking and Understanding in YoungChildren. London: Routledge

Swanwick, K.1994. Musical knowledge: intuition, analysis and music education. London: Routledge

Vygotsky, L.S.. 1978. Mind in Society: Thedevelopment of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press

• Dialogue in practical music lessons, when children are working in groups, is central to the learning process
•  Assessment for learning processes overlap and necessitate dialogue between pupils and between the teacher and pupils in order to focus on learning outcomes and the monitoring process
• Students during training have a lot to cope with in learning how to effectively use questioning, how to structure lessons to enable effective monitoring of what is being learnt – so, working on the quality of student responses may be a later process?
• The quality of pupil responses will inevitably provide more information and feedback for teachers on learning and on pupil processes.
• Providing more time for dialogue in lessons will further encourage pupil’s thinking and the development of personal reflections on their work.
• Teacher and pupil joint problem-solving during music-making further encourages meta-cognitive (reflective) processes and problem-solving.
• Giving time for critical thinking processes may not always be through whole class dialogue. Many peer and self assessing strategies can feed into summative discussion when pupils have been given time to think together prior to whole class discussion.