[Smt-talk] Online music courses?

[hestekin at mun.ca]

A few years ago, we launched an on-line version of our rudiments course.
Rudiments is now taught on campus (by a grad student) in the fall and on-line
(by me) in the winter. The target audience for these offerings is primarily
non-music majors as an elective. We also offer the course in summer in a fast
track 6-week format for incoming music majors who did not pass the placement
exam.

As it has to "serve two masters" the course runs the gamut from identifying
notes on a staff through note values and basic principles of rhythmic notation,
scales, intervals, triads and seventh chords to very basic principles of voice
leading.

The format is reading material online, an occasional video clip and an optional
supplemental text. There are several interactive exercise on line for each
topic.

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons beyond my control, there is no online
evaluation. This means that because of logistics, evaluation is limited to a
few paper and pencil exams, a significant weakness. For the incoming music
majors this isn't a serious problem but for non-majors who may have little or
no background, I don't know they're in trouble until they're already going
under for the third time unless they avail of on-line/ on-campus office hours.

Kjellrun Hestekin
Memorial University (ret)
St. John's, Newfoundland

Quoting "Isaacson, Eric J" <isaacso at indiana.edu>:

> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> We would be interested in hearing about the experiences you or your
> institutional colleagues have had with online teaching in music. Our interest
> is not limited to music theory, but could encompass music history, music
> education, other academic areas, as well as performance studies. We are NOT
> interested in speculative critiques of the idea of online education (we are
> perfectly capable of conjuring these ourselves!), but rather in real-world
> stories from the trenches. Responses might address:
> 
>   *   What subject was taught?
>   *   Who was the target population?
>   *   Was it an online adaptation of an existing course or designed for
> online delivery?
>   *   Was the course wholly online or blended?
>   *   What technolog(ies) were involved?
>   *   Is there any statistical or anecdotal information about the course's
> effectiveness, efficiency, etc., from the perspective of the students? The
> instructor?
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Eric J. Isaacson
> Director of Graduate Studies, Assoc. Professor of Music Theory
> Gretchen Horlacher
> Assistant to the Dean for Research and Administration, Assoc. Professor of
> Music Theory
> Indiana University Jacobs School of Music
> 
> 




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