Photo by Pavel Danilyuk: https://www.pexels.com/photo/music-teacher-and-student-looking-at-notes-drawn-on-a-blackboard-7521299/
Today’s lecture provided us with an opportunity to reflect on the traditional practices we use in education, and how these often exclude many groups of students. The idea of sitting for hours on end, presenting information via lecturing and textbooks, standardized testing, and being in a fast paced environment is not inclusive for all learners. Our students deserve to receive education in a way that is inclusive of their ways of learning, and there are lots of emerging technologies that we can employ in the classroom that can help make our education more inclusive.
Some examples of technology that we can use in the classroom are speech to text, AI notetaker, using a microphone, and having auto captions during lectures. In music class specifically, I think that there are varying ways that we can use technology to help students. The overall traditional music class has the ability to be exclusive for learners, as it prioritizes performing and learning written music. However, in making it more inclusive, we can provide education that teaches students about composition (which can use writing technology), improvisation (which focuses less on written notation), and playing music from other genres.
In my future as a music educator, I think it is unfair to determine students’ success by their ability to perform on an instrument in a way that is expected of them in that grade. The reality is that not everyone learns that way, or is able to demonstrate their learning in that way. Therefore, we should learn how to start presenting information in a more diverse way that is more accessible to learners, which can lead to more diverse ways of assessing and engaging students. I think that by reflecting on these ways of presenting, engaging, and assessing, we can make music classes be more inclusive for all learners.