Feedback as a driving force behind a self-learning environment

Abstract

Singing is an essential part of music teaching in most countries. Nevertheless, in many schools the singing does not take place or then with a poor quality. Martin Ashley locates in his new book «Singing in the Lower Secondary School» the reason in «lack of knowledge». That can not be seen only in England but also in Switzerland. In order to address this problem a (self-)learning environment for the subject singing will be developed. There are two main objectives. Teachers and pupils need to know more about the development of the youthful voice and singing in general. Three perspectives were taken to approach the singing: sound quality (voice change in puberty, articulation, vocal registers), singing melody lines (intonation, tonal imagination, sight-reading) and performance (singing alone or in a group, emotional singing). The second objective is the interaction in the classroom. Personal feedback and a more individualized approach seems to promise an improvement. A personal portfolio for each student provides the framework. The learning environment makes available knowledge in an easily and understandable manner, accessible to teachers and students. This leads to tasks which will be done either in the classroom, in groups or alone. The teacher's role is to schedule the tasks, to lead the class and to pay attention to the group dynamics. The pupils document the development of their voice in their personal portfolios. An object at the start could be a survey that produces a profile about singing and the recording of a simple tune. This might be the basis for the teacher to give personal feedback and to choose the appropriate secondary tasks for each student. One must keep in mind that the personal self-concept with respect to sing is a crucial factor for the success. We are already investigating several aspects in selected classes. One aspect is the use of recordings as a diagnostic tool. In an age of digital media, it is not a big effort to create recordings as homework. We found out, that these recordings lead to a different view and a better understanding for the teacher. It changes the way secondary tasks are chosen. The presentation lays a theoretical basis and shows parts of the learning environment and selected samples of a new feedback culture. This project is part of a project of the school of education of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland.