Abstract

Fundamentals of Tonal Music is a first-year two-semester foundation course in the undergraduate music program. The course provides an integrated introduction of tonal theory, connecting written theory, musicianship skills, and music making outside of class. Each class meeting is divided into two parts: (1) knowledge-based lecture; and (2) small group drills for practical applications of the materials learned in the lecture towards musicianship skills training. Due to the nature of the training and the big difference among students’ prior preparation and ability, students are assigned to a group of 10-12 according to their levels in the small group drills when they are engaged with hands-on learning activities and receive greater individual attention. For decades, selected postgraduate students were involved in teaching the small group drills along with the course instructor. These teaching assistants meet with the course instructor periodically, select learning materials according to their groups’ ability and progress, engage students in the drills, and assess their students’ works. For most postgraduate students involved, it is a challenging task since their pedagogical competence has never been developed and on-site supervision by the course instructor is not possible due to limited manpower. For the course instructor, it is hard to help these TAs and to ensure effectiveness of the delivery without observing their teaching in person. With professionals hired for teaching support, training, and on-site supervision, this project aims to (1) better identify the current needs when involving postgraduate students in undergraduate teaching; (2) develop postgraduate students’ pedagogical competence and better prepare them to teach in the undergraduate program; (3) engage postgraduate students as active partner in course design, teaching and learning materials development, assessment, and evaluation; and (4) provide them with more continue support during the process.

Brief write-up

Project objectives

Musicianship training in a first-year foundation course is currently delivered by postgraduate students. This project aims to 1) better identify the current needs when involving postgraduate students in undergraduate teaching; 2) develop postgraduate students’ pedagogical competence and better prepare them to teach; and 3) engage postgraduate students as active partner in course design, teaching and learning materials development, assessment, and evaluation.

Activities, process and outcomes

Professionals were hired to work with the Principal Supervisor to 1) develop and deliver training sessions on pedagogical issues; 2) provide on-site teaching observation, 3) give feedback to the observed PGSs; 4) work with PGSs on teaching materials preparation and assessment; 5) equip them to be active teaching partners; and to 6) provide continue support. The Co-supervisor facilitated 5 PGSs to consolidate previous teaching materials and to develop a semester teaching plan with revised teaching materials, and worked with the Principal Supervisor to revise the current curriculum.

Deliverables and evaluation

1. 12 PGS training sessions/meetings delivered in group/individually
2. 12 tutorial class observations
3. 2 PGS sharing sessions
4. A web resource of musicianship training curriculum with weekly teaching materials for 4 groups of students, developed collaboratively by 6 PGSs.

A comparative study on the same tutorials delivered without training were conducted based on instructor’s class observation and evaluation on PGSs’ work samples. A survey on PGSs’ teaching were also completed. The result was positive.

Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices

Experience gained from the implementation of the project and its evaluation will be disseminated together with other e-learning initiatives at the annual CUHK Teaching and Learning Innovation Expo and other experience sharing sessions.

Impact on teaching and learning

This training and peer learning programme for PGS is expected to be self-sustaining and the web source is expected to keep expanding as more future PGSs will continue to contribute their work as they teach.