[Smt-talk] Online music courses?

[VINCENT PEREZ BENITEZ JR]

Dear Eric and Gretchen, 

At Penn State, I have authored and am currently teaching an online music appreciation course using the music of the Beatles. Presently in a pilot version with 50 students, the course (Music 109) will be an official part of the Penn State curriculum next semester with an enrollment of 100 students per section. 

"The Music of the Beatles" is a Gen Ed course geared to non-music majors. It meets four principal goals: (1) to promote musical literacy by using the songs of the Beatles to help students become more sophisticated listeners; (2) to foster an appreciation and knowledge of the musical styles and literature of both popular and classical music; (3) to advance a deep comprehension of the interaction of popular music with its socio-cultural contexts; and (4) to make music more accessible to students outside of the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State by offering them a course that uses a more contemporary, multimedia approach, with an exploration of topics and issues that are more relevant to their lives.

After teaching several in-class versions of this course for music majors, I developed Music 109 with the help of the e-Learning Institute at Penn State. The course is wholly online, with a narrative enhanced by strategically placed pictures, audio files, and video clips (such as "The Beatles Come to Town"; performances on the Drop in TV Show, the Ed Sullivan Show, and Shindig; and "The Making of Sgt. Pepper"). Students take 12 quizzes and 3 exams. They also are divided into teams (Johnny and the Moondogs, the Silver Beatles, the Plastic Ono Band, Wings, the Quarry Band) for purposes of discussion boards in which they post their opinions on selected topics (one discussion board centered on the topic of sexuality in the 1950s, where students viewed videos of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly on the Ed Sullivan Show and then compared the two performances). Finally, all students write a creative essay at the end of the semester in which they analyze 3-5 Beatle songs (not covered during the semester), using the knowledge they have gleaned from the course.

So far, I have received anecdotal information about the course's effectiveness from a dozen students, who have all stated how much they love the course. 

Sincerely, 

Vincent Benitez

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric J Isaacson" <isaacso at indiana.edu>
To: "smt-talk" societymusictheory.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 10:45:06 PM
Subject: [Smt-talk] Online music courses?



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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-- 
Vincent Benitez, Ph.D., D.M.A.
School of Music
225 Music Building I
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
(814) 863-5392