Quality teaching and music
This support material was presented in one-day workshops held across NSW to support the implementation of the new Music Years 7-10 syllabus in Terms 1 and 2 2004.
Quality Teaching in NSW schools: an annotated bibliography
Key questions
- What do we want the students to learn?
- What does the learning matter?
- How are they going to learn?
- What will it look like? What sort of standard are we looking for?
The three dimensions of quality teaching
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Pedagogy should be based on promoting high levels of intellectual quality
Pedagogy should be soundly based on promoting a quality learning environment
Pedagogy should develop and make explicit to the students, the significance of their work.
The aim is to include all three dimensions in each lesson, but not all of the eighteen elements.
Each of the three dimensions of pedagogy can be described in terms of a number of elements.
Intellectual quality
Deep | The spiral curriculum. Themes behind the story, big picture ideas. In music: compositional techniques. |
Deep | Providing opportunities to demonstrate knowledge. Linked to assessment task design that is open enough to enable this to happen. |
Problematic knowledge | Knowledge constructed for a particular purpose or place, such as knowledge of stylistic characteristics and differences between style, score conventions (figured bass, tablature etc). Knowledge constructed for a purpose in this place in time. |
Higher-order thinking | Reminding us to move beyond recall and comprehension. There is a need for this in learning skills but their utilisation requires higher order thinking. |
Metalanguage | Taking time to comment on technical language used within the lesson. |
Substantive communication | More than firing questions. Build in more depth to the discussion. Relates to the notion of what we want students to know, not just what we want them to do. Higher order thinking is part of substantive communication. |
Quality learning environment
Refers to establishment of an environment that facilitates learning. It is not just about welfare.
Explicit quality criteria | What is the teacher looking for? Communicating assessment criteria. |
Engagement | Productive engagement (on time, equipment works, students on task etc). Also, connection with the work being undertaken. |
High | Of all students. |
Social | Positive, value contributions, kids enjoy being in the room. |
Student | Students so involved there are few discipline problems. Interesting and intellectually challenging lessons result in better student behaviour. “Busy work” doesn’t solve behaviour problems. |
Student | Student choice about their learning where possible. Choice within assignments, choice of approaches etc. Caters for different learning styles. |
Significance
Students need to be able to make the connections and the teacher needs to facilitate this. Why does it matter to the student?
Background knowledge | Connections to previous lessons. Background on the material. Valuing student knowledge and using it. |
Cultural | Economic class, race, religion etc |
Knowledge integration | Helping students piece the information together (refers to within subjects as well as across them) |
Inclusivity | Publicly acknowledging the contribution of all students and groups and encouraging their involvement. |
Connectedness | School knowledge needs to connect to real life, the student’s world etc Give them tasks based on/in real life with real purpose. |
Narrative | Telling stories as a way of communicating, not just rattling off facts to them. |
Links
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Quality teaching in NSW public schools: An annotated bibliography
 | This bibliography summarises research explaining why a central focus must be placed on pedagogy and provides further information on the dimensions of quality teaching. download document (pdf - 444kb) |
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