Asking the Why Questions: Eliciting Deep Reflection During Music-Making Activities

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Meaning-Making in Arts Education: New Reflective Approaches to Research

Abstract

Research into the arts and learning, and specifically music, has focused on the outcomes (e.g., artifacts) learners produce and the correctness of the artifacts and/or answers a learner gives. While these types of approaches have advanced our thinking about research into the arts and learning, the research presented in this proposal reflects on the role the practitioner has on the learners’ willingness to engage in classroom discourse. Data from a five-week computer-music making class utilizing 36 fourth-grade students was analyzed to determine what role the practitioner has on students’ ability to engage in discourse that goes beyond general responses (e.g., that song sounds cool) to more of a reasoned response (e.g., why the song sounds cool).

Author

• Michael Downton, St. John's University