Date
8-9-2024
Department
School of Music
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education (PhD)
Chair
Brian Stiffler
Keywords
twenty-first-century instruction, student-centered learning, music curriculum, higher-order thinking skills
Disciplines
Education | Music
Recommended Citation
McGarry, Dave, "Creating Thinking Classrooms in Music Education: Teacher and Student Perspectives of Twenty-First-Century Instruction" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 5888.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5888
Abstract
Despite changes to provincial documents in British Columbia, many music educators still rely on traditional teaching methods. This convergent mixed methods case study aimed to understand student and teacher perspectives on twenty-first-century instruction in the music classroom, providing insights to enhance and enrich experiences in musical learning. Data were collected from thirty-one students in a singular grade nine to twelve instrumental band class through interviews, lesson journals, direct observations, surveys, student artifacts, field notes, and pre-and post-test measures. The study analyzed students' musical self-confidence inventories and examined the effects of a twenty-first-century student-centered curriculum over six weeks. This curriculum emphasized student compositions, improvisation, and musical interpretation, aligned with British Columbia’s core competencies. The findings aim to contribute to the ongoing discourse on music education curricula and provide practical implications for educators seeking to implement a twenty-first-century curriculum and student-centered learning opportunities.
