Running head: HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM?

How does the use of technology influence student learning in a music classroom? Jonathan Pratt Azusa Pacific University

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? Abstract The music classroom is unique: students are constantly making sounds, students work together through constant collaboration and teamwork, and students are perpetually creating, analyzing, and correcting their work in an endless cycle. With these distinctive qualities, it is necessary for a music teacher to take advantage of every productive and

valuable resource that is available. This study seeks to determine the usefulness of various technology-rich teaching aides within the context of a 4th grade general music class. Through the use of a control class and a variable class, students will be taught identical information one through traditional methods, and the other through technology-rich methods. It is expected that the use of technology will assist the students in gaining a deeper understanding of the topic. Through these findings, music teachers may then arm themselves appropriately when leading their own musicians deeper into the 21st century. Keywords: music, teacher, technology, 21st century

Section One: Introduction Modern education circles contain many buzzwords: 21st century, digital natives, disruptive technology, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), flipping, etc. With new computers, tablets, phones, and apps, being introduced each day, its no wonder that teachers and students alike might find it cumbersome to sort through the dross of technology in order to find the real gems. Through Personal Learning Networks (PLNs), edublogs, and #coffeecues (https://twitter.com/CoffeeCue), teachers have alot of at-your-fingertip ideas on how to make their classrooms better. But will all of these #eduawesome (www.billselak.com) ideas be a big #eduwaste of time?

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? As a music teacher, I take joy in teaching a subject that I genuinely enjoy and care about. Additionally, I have a great responsibility in instructing beyond my subject, and using my coursework as a method for teaching teamwork, responsibility, cooperation, and discipline. Because I see my role as having effects that last a lifetime, I see a need to not only reach each student where they currently are, but also use tools that students will be using long into their professional and personal years.

But how much of this technology makes a difference in student learning? How much of it is unnecessary and doesnt produce the kinds of quantitative results that administrators would like to see? These questions bring us to the reason for this study determining the usefulness of technology in a music classroom.

Section Two: Implementation These 4th grade students are members of general music, which receives choral and general musicianship instruction. All 4th graders are also members of Beginning Band. The students attend an elementary charter school located in an agrarian community, although much of the student population travels from a neighboring city. The two sample classes are formed based upon their current class rosters; therefore, students will be instructed with classmates with which they are familiar. This study takes place over 5 class sessions where students will be learning about musical terms that are necessary for their continued growth and development as Beginning Band students (e.g., tempo, key signature, fermata, tie). Students will take part in teacherled and student-led instruction that aims to prepare the students for the spring term and advancement into Advanced Band.

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? Students will be evaluated based on their individual grades, charted from the

diagnostic assessment to the summative assessment. This data will be compiled in order to judge the efficacy of combining the technology, teaching methods, and topics taught. Each class was initially assessed through the use of a single-sided quiz where students matched terms with their definitions. The terms and their definitions were taken from their Beginning Band method book. Students were given 15 minutes to complete the quiz. During this time they were allowed to ask questions, although students were generally encouraged to find the best definition for each term regardless of their question. Following the allotted time, quizzes were gathered and instruction began. In class A, the students were taught using traditional educational styles without the use of any technology. Students were taught using a white board and direct instruction. On one day, students were broken into teams where they created brief presentations based on the terms. Each team had a large sheet of white paper that they could design and use in presenting the terms. They were responsible for explaining, demonstrating, reviewing each term with the class. Following each team, the class was asked to give informal feedback about the teams content and presentation. In class B, students were taught using an abundance of technology. Rather than using direct instruction, the teacher used the website www.mindmeister.com (MeisterLabs, 2014) to build a mind map that organized the terms into a useful chart that was easy to edit, maneuver, and share with the entire class. Students also used iPads to create their own presentations. Students had the option to use MindMeister or ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard (2013) in order to organize their thoughts and present their designated term to the entire class. In these presentations,

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? students had one iPad for approximately 3 students and had the ability to create a layout that worked best for them. Ideally these students would learn this material more by using technology in a way that spoke to them and their individual intelligence.

Section Three: Results Pre-assessments were conducted on the first day of research. (Even though the individual classes met on separate days, for the sake of brevity, the writer will refer to each day as the number day with that individual class.) These assessments found that each class had a very low understanding of the material. The following scores count the number of correct responses out of 18 total questions. Pre-Assessment Results Mode Class A Class B 2 0 Median 3 4 Mean (Average) 4 5 Class Average 19.63% 28.16%

From these results, it was hypothesized that these students were unfamiliar with a number of things: the information, the style of test, the wording of the definitions, or the speed at which the test was carried out. Class B also demonstrated a higher level of initial understanding, because, while Class A had zero students score above 10 correct, Class B had 6 students score with double digits. In contrast, Class B had a lower mode score, and Class A did not have any students who scored zero correct.

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM?

On the 5th day of research, students were formally assessed in order to determine the growth in understanding that had developed since the prior weeks. The assessment was carried out in the same way that the pre-assessment had been conducted. The results, again, show the number of correct answers out of 18 questions. Post-Assessment Results Mode Class A Class B 4 4 Median 6 6 Mean (Average) 6 8 Class Score 34.26% 42.34% Change in Score 14.63% 14.18%

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM?

(Student B23 left the school between the Pre-assessment and the Post-assessment, therefore the initial score was removed) The change in class scores indicates that Class A showed the greatest increase from pre-assessment to post-assessment. This would suggest that the technology-rich instruction not only did not greatly increase the learning of the students, but it, in fact, caused less learning than a traditional teaching style. Class A was still only able to have five students score with double digits, while Class B grew to have 10 students produce 10 or more answers correct. In fact, Class B boasted three students who earned a 100% on their post-assessment. It would seem that this big of an improvement for the technology-rich

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? class would prove the merit of this teaching style, but Class A still produced a greater increase in scores as far as overall percentages are concerned.

Section Four: Conclusions There are a few key conclusions that seem to be fairly possible based on the outcome of the assessments. The first is this type of assessment does not adequately measure the information learned through the use of technology as an instructional aide. Perhaps because both initial and final assessments were done with a hard copy, students who used technology throughout their learning werent ready to switch back to a final paper test. Instead, by using student iPads for the assessment process, perhaps the students would have been able to display a deeper understanding of the information. Second, students at this school do not learn best through the use of technology. While some schools very well may fall into this category, it is the writers opinion that this is not the case. These students use technology in the classroom fairly regularly, however, it is rarely used to assist in learning rather it is most often used for the purpose of assessing student growth. Because of this, the use of student iPads during instruction may have been too much of a novelty item to these students. Finally, here is a two-part conclusion that might shed the most light on the results. The first part is that technology does not necessarily increase student learning. This might come as a shock to some people but it doesnt surprise the writer at all. Ultimately the use of technology is only going to be as successful as the preparation that the teacher makes. Because of this, the second part of the conclusion is that the teacher needs to spend more

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? time coming up with long chains of technology-rich instruction that will turn these

students into connoisseurs of what technology has to offer. Once these students are primed to learn through technology, then they will test, and excel at demonstrating their understanding. During this study, the students had just completed their winter program when the pre-assessment was given. Then, a week into instruction, there was a three-week long Christmas Break. Because of this break from instruction, the students overall scores did not go up as high as expected. Additionally, the students were likely not as focused on both ends of the break due to excitement upon departure and sadness upon arrival. A study like this needs to be done with no interruptions and a longer window to create more lessons with creativity and depth.

Section Five: General Comments Three years ago, I would have never claimed to enjoy the research process; however, after beginning and completing my Masters Degree, I would say that I am interested in doing this more often. I like the use of assessments to gauge understanding, the instruction that attempts to shine light on a specific aspect of teaching, and the crunching of the numbers that gives us the backbone for our claims and concerns for going forward. Interestingly enough, I most enjoyed the data entry aspect, where I could find the trends and correlations. For not being very good at math, I sure do enjoy piecing together the big picture with the help of graphs and charts that make results clear.

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? Bibliography

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Carpenter, R. A. (1991). Technology in the Music Classroom. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. This book provides many useful descriptions and explanations of ways of incorporating technology into the classroom. Although, its technologies are dated, some of the principles behind technology integration are still relevant today. Carpenter also describes some reasons why music teachers are hesitant to use technology in their classrooms: they dont see the value in using technology during instruction, or they dont want to use the necessary resources to obtain the next level of technology. Either way, Carpenter gives many reasons of how these might be initially valid, but if a teacher takes the time to be proficient with the technology, it can ultimately save them personal and instructional time down the road. Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons. New York, New York: Basic Books. In this book, Howard Gardner presents his unique theory of Multiple Intelligences. Since his original edition, Gardner has updated his list to fully include VerbalLinguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist. While this theory is sometimes thought to pigeon-hole students, it seeks to create useful avenues for students to learn and communicate what theyve learned. In the classroom, teachers can benefit from Gardners theory by hypothesizing, learning, and reevaluating how they seek to connect with students. The ultimate goal is to create a connections with students through which they can learn life skills and content, and Gardners approach is useful in doing just that. McKenzie, W. (2005). Multiple Intelligences and Instructional Technology (2nd ed.). Eugene, Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Walter McKenzie describes methods through which educators can incorporate Gardners Theory of Multiple Intelligences and the ever-changing realm of classroom technology. He offers unit and lesson ideas, ways of modifying existing content, and ways to build your own abilities to create new lessons and assessments. Through reading his summary of Gardners theory, one comes to a general understanding of how to incorporate Multiple Intelligences and technology into the classroom. Then, as he continues to unpack his own growth in the field, its evident

HOW DOES THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCE STUDENT LEARNING IN A MUSIC CLASSROOM? how all aspects of education can and should change when technology is used to increase learning. MeisterLabs (2014). MindMeister. Available from http://www.mindmeister.com/ This website functions as a way to map out ideas whether they are from scratch, from lecture, or from a text. Students have the unique ability to create, edit, move, connect, and basically be in complete control of their thoughts and ideas.

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In the classroom, this website gives teachers the ability to map out the ideas of a lesson as its being taught or give students the ability to individually map out their process of receiving information. This method works great with spatial learners because they can process information in the ways that work best for them.