How Close Should I Get to the Choir While Teaching?
Hello again and happy fall semester from the MERFY pod! I’m truly unsure if I’m excited about this being the August report or if I’m still in denial about the end of summer…
August 2024 EPISODE DIGEST FOR CHORALOSOPHY BLOG
Regardless, here are a few music education research studies to consider as we settle back into the school year.
In this back-to-school round up, I’m highlighting topics that might be useful to you as you establish early routines and practices. The episodes and studies below include rationale for using open ensemble setups, some benefits of autonomy-supportive teaching, a list of metaphors for thinking about how your students may be perceiving pitch, and some information about the prevalence of bullying to help us build awareness and take proactive action.
Episode 24: Use of Proximity & Classroom Space in Secondary Ensembles
In the article, “A Survey of Secondary Choir Teachers’ Immediacy, Ensemble Setup, and Use of Classroom Space,” author Nicholas E. Roseth showed that getting stuck behind the piano or the podium isn’t just a poor habit among student teachers - it’s a poor habit among in-service teachers too. Participants were shown to use closed, traditional setups that limited the teachers’ ability to walk among the students, despite many cited examples of the ways proximity or “immediacy” has been linked to positive student perceptions and outcomes. Roseth includes some suggestions in light of his findings, including the use of aisles within ensemble seating charts, and incorporating instructional strategies that help free us from the podium and the piano.
Roseth, N. E. (2024). A Survey of Secondary Choir Teachers’ Immediacy, Ensemble Setup, and Use of Classroom Space. Update : Applications of Research in Music Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/87551233241256353
Links to listen for more: Spotify. Apple Podcasts. Amazon Music.
Episode 1: Autonomy-Supportive Music Teaching for Student Well-Being
In the very first MERFY podcast episode, I covered the piece, “Teaching Music to Support Students: How Autonomy-Supportive Music Teachers Increase Students’ Well-Being” by Arielle Bonneville-Roussy, Emese Hruska, and Hayley Trower. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the title, researchers found that:
1) Both teachers and students in the study felt that teachers were already providing some autonomy-support;
2) Teacher passion toward music and support of student choice had a positive impact on student well-being and controlling teacher behaviors had a negative impact on student well-being;
3) While student participants mentioned concerns related to mental health and well-being, no teacher participants raised the same concerns or made mention of mental health at all.
Where the teachers and students within this study are concerned, participants reported educational spaces that fostered student choice and provided students with rationale about why they were studying what they were studying - that’s a positive finding that we can use to replicate this experience or improve upon it in the future. The authors also provided a research-backed list of things teachers can do to help support student autonomy, including incorporating authentic choice, discussing plans and rationale for study with students, and validating student perspectives.
Bonneville-Roussy, A., Hruska, E., & Trower, H. (2020). Teaching Music to Support Students: How Autonomy-Supportive Music Teachers Increase Students’ Well-Being. Journal of Research in Music Education, 68(1), 97–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429419897611
Links to listen for more: Spotify. Apple Podcasts. Amazon Music.
Episode 6: Pitch Perception, Auralization, and a Student-Validated Research Process
In a 2004 qualitative study by Kathy A. Thompson, students helped validate the identification of six metaphors for pitch perception. Essentially, Thompson worked to distill data down into six different vignettes describing how their aural skills students were perceiving pitch during tasks like dictation and sight singing. Here’s a simplified look at each of the metaphors Thompson and their students described:
The Follower: I’m good at sight singing when I can sing with others or with instrument support.
The Button-Pusher: I can sight read with my instrument.
The Contour-Singer: I give my best guess at the pitch based on the shape of the line on the page.
The Tonal-Thinker: I use a tonal system like solfège and my musical intuition to sight sing.
The Builder: I am great with intervals and measuring music in increments.
The Tone-Builder: I pull strengths from The Builder and The Tonal-Thinker and I think of intervals as existing within a tonal framework.
Thompson identified “The Tone-Builder” metaphor as the most useful blend of strategies for students in their aural skills classroom.
Thompson, K.A. (2004). Thinking In Sound - A Qualitative Study Of Metaphors For Pitch Perception. Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy: Vol. 18, Article 5.
Links to listen for more: Spotify. Apple Podcasts. Amazon Music.
And episode 9: Prevalence of Bullying Among Performing Arts Students
In a harrowing article titled, “Bullying Victimization Among Music Ensemble and Theatre Students in the United States,” authors Kenneth Elpus and Bruce Allen Carter used large, pre-existing datasets to show that performing arts students face a greater likelihood than their non-performing arts peers to experience bullying at school. Performing arts students within this study were shown to have a higher predicted probability of being bullied than both non-performing arts students and the general population. When compared with their non-arts peers, this study found that female identifying performing arts students were at a 41% greater risk of bullying and male identifying performing arts students showed a 69% greater risk. Elpus and Carter emphasized the importance of school-wide anti-bullying initiatives. Students who bully other students may be doing so in overt and covert ways both in and outside of arts classrooms. Starting with school-wide, anti-bullying systems that specify ways to approach all parties involved, no matter the setting within the school structure, could help teachers and students understand what the fallout from bullying incidents will look like and how we might move forward. It could help address bullying behaviors between student populations and those occurring in often unstructured transition zones in the school like hallways and the cafeteria.
Elpus, K., & Carter, B. A. (2016). Bullying Victimization Among Music Ensemble and Theatre Students in the United States. Journal of Research in Music Education, 64(3), 322–343. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429416658642
Links to listen for more: Spotify. Apple Podcasts. Amazon Music.
As always, I’m excited to hear your thoughts on these studies and their implications both here and over on the MERFY podcast socials. I wish you all a smooth start to the school year and a supportive, joyful, and musical fall semester.
Thanks for reading! Now go sing, play, or practice something. We’ll talk soon.
From Choralosophy
Other ways to find the show: Visit Choralosophy.com, or search “Choralosophy” on YouTube or any Podcast app.
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