A Multi-arts Creative Approach to Music Education: Its Impact on Generalist Primary Teacher Education Students' Confidence and Competence to Teach Music
Several reviews of music education have lamented the poor standard of music curriculum delivery in many primary schools. Among the reasons cited is the low confidence and competence levels of teachers to deliver music. This is often attributed to both the content and teaching styles of generalist primary teacher education courses in music. This paper reports on a qualitative study which investigated how participation in a multi-disciplinary performing arts group creative project impacted on generalist primary teacher education students' perceptions of their own ability in music and their ability to teach music. Student responses suggested it is possible to significantly enhance confidence and competence in one arts discipline (in this case music) through a multi-arts approach. There could be considerable merit in incorporating a project such as the one in this study into generalist primary teacher arts education courses.
How can we develop and evaluate contextual cultural learning through exploration and participation in a virtual heritage environment? This article discusses one way of evaluating cultural learning, through measuring the cultural understanding of participants who learn about the same environments but via different methods of interaction (observation, social instruction, and activity-based exploration). Task performance, understanding of local cultural practices, memory of what was written and memory of events and objects, were recorded. Issues arising from the chosen internet-based technology, and how these issues could have been avoided, will also be discussed.