Abstract
The sound quality of Zoom meeting is undesirable for playbacks of audio examples in music courses. If Zoom is the sole source of eLearning in these courses, the effectiveness of teaching and learning will be compromised. Thus, it is imperative that micro-modules with high audio quality be developed to enhance students’ learning of the core concepts and allow more time in the Zoom session for group interaction and feedback on the learning progress.
A core course of the Department of Music, the course Fundamental of Tonal Music II introduces students to the basic concepts of tonal music from the western classical music tradition through listening, reading, and writing music. An important part of the course is to train students the creative skills of writing harmony for a melody through hands-on experience. This project aims to produce a total of three video-modules that covers three proposed topics: scale degree and harmonic function, cadences, and common progressions. These areas are chosen because delivery with quality audio is fundamental to the understanding of these concepts. In addition, it is often time-consuming to take care of students of varying abilities in these areas, and they are fundamental to understanding and creating harmonies for a piece of music.
Students are expected to go through the core concepts through videos, complete assignments, and share and discuss their work with the instructor and their peers. Music examples will be transcribed and notated with an engraving software, and the audio examples will either be recorded acoustically or produced by the use of midi and virtual instrument technology. Students will also be able to hear their music they write through computer simulation.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
This project addresses the major drawback of using Zoom instruction in music courses. The compressed audio in Zoom has compromised the quality of instruction when illustration with music examples is called for. This project aims to produce self-learning materials with copyright-free music examples of high audio quality, to enhance students’ learning experience.
Activities, process and outcomes
This project has produced a total of three video-modules that covers three proposed topics: scale degree and harmonic function, cadences, and common progressions. Students had to go through the core concepts through videos, complete assignments, and share and discuss their work with the instructor and their peers. The modules are successfully implemented in “Fundamentals of Tonal Music II” in 2019-20, and “Materials and Structures of Music” in 2020-21.
Deliverables and evaluation
A set of micromodule videos, totaling six units and 42 minutes in duration, was uploaded as a YouTube playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnkYm3PTqsM&list=PLEfnxBQLxnWLUby6CFtrpiiK_aCSHxAzu
The Course and Teaching Evaluation (CTE) scores of “Fundamentals of Tonal Music II” has improved markedly – the score for “satisfaction with course” has increased 7.3% from 5.23 in 2019 to 5.61 in 2020.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
Putting the videos on a centralized YouTube playlist facilitate easy access for the students as they do not have to log in to view the content – the reduced access barrier might have contributed to the popularity and positive feedback of the videos.
Impact on teaching and learning
The pre-recorded materials have allowed the instructor to free up more class time for interactions. The increased time for hands-on activities (i.e. music writing) and peer critique exercise has allowed my students to better achieve the learning outcomes.
