Reflecting on the Curriculum
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Reflecting on the Curriculum:
Integrating Numeracy into a Musical Context
Martin T. Buckingham
S214 ETL421 Assignment 2
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PreambleIn ETP 414 Assignment 1, I discussed a practical guitar class. Upon starting the
second assignment, however, I quickly came to the conclusion that my original lesson plan
wasn’t very conducive to the requirements of the assignment. Further, it was apparent that the
practical nature of the task, playing guitars, had a very tenuous link to the practice of
integrating numeracy, therefore making it difficult to discuss. Fortunately, a much more
suitable lesson reviled itself in the course of my practicum. This lesson allows me to now
present a real life account of a numeracy-rich music theory lesson, utilizing action research in
its most basic form.
While giving this lesson I was also better able to address my ‘surprising idea’ from
Assignment 1. This idea is the connection between the learning of music and improved
literacy and numeracy skills. I discovered that music education is in itself a possible method
for overcoming ‘barriers to numeracy.’ This realisation came as I started my lesson analysis.
In essence, the cross contextualisation used in the discussion of music and its notation forces
the mind to deal with cross-subject problem solving strategies in order to formulate new
understanding of intangible musical concepts. In other words, music involves attaching
concepts to abstract symbols and then being able to understand and re-organize them in an
infinite number of logical constructions. This process could possibly be applied to aid other
learning areas as well.
Narrative
I started my second practicum period at an all-girls Catholic College teaching in the
secondary music department. Like my previous practicum, the majority of my classes
consisted of year 7 and 8 core music. Trying to avoid breaking up the expected learning
pattern of the class, I began with a rhythm dictation. I asked the class to notate 3 bars of 4/4
time. The students looked confused. A flurry of questions followed:
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Student: Don’t you mean 4 bars sir?
Teacher: No I mean 3 bars.
Student: But that doesn’t make sense.
Teacher: (unsure if they were playing up at this point) How does it not make sense?
Student: In 4/4 there is meant to be 4 bars.
Teacher: There could be 4 bars, true. Or I could have 3, 5 or even 1000 bars if I wished.
Very confused looks followed, the students started looking up the back, virtually inviting my
supervisor to throw this mad man from the room. Despite this, I insisted on pushing through
with my dictation. The girls were lost.
Initial Reflection
I soon discovered the same confusion in all of the year 7 and 8 classes.
Firstly, I consulted the class notes written by my supervisor. These simply referred to the
rhythm dictations as being too difficult. Upon reflection, I decided that this was not the case
due to the disproportionately positive results I was getting in other, almost identical tasks.
So I followed up with my supervisor directly about what had been happening in class.
Dettmer, Thurston & Dyck (1999) suggest that effective personal professional development,
“is commonly in collaborative practice, and is usually enhanced when colleagues work
together on common issues” (cited in Arthur-Kelly et al., 2006, p.46). My supervisor started
by telling me that the class usually do 4/4 dictation in four bars. “In that case”, I responded,
“the task should have been easier for them. I was asking for a shorter notation…” “Oh..”, My
supervisor replied, “And they have a problem understanding time signatures. We’ve tried to
teach this to them but they just don’t seem to get it,” she says. “Have you tried a comparison
between American and British terminology?” I offered. “No, you should try that,” she said.
This was a prime opportunity to engage in Action Research. That is, “the deliberate
provision of opportunities to take a fresh look at… class…issues and ways of addressing
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them” (Arthur Kelly et al., 2006, p. 48). I had a basic method for the class in mind. Now I
needed a frame work. To begin my ‘Action Research,’ I decided to use a four phase system
adapted from Grundy (1995) and Kemmis & McTaggart (1988), which runs as follows (cited
in Arthur-Kelly et al., 2006, p.50):
Phase 1: Develop Plans
Phase 2: Activate Plans
Phase 3: Observe and Record
Phase 4: Reflect on Findings
Phase 1: Develop Plans
Booker (2004) and Heddens (1986) believe that the “…process of moving from
concrete to abstract level of reasoning marks the point at which some children begin to have
difficulty with mathematics” (as cited in Westwood, 2008) . It is so too with music. In order
to help address this, I decided to develop a lesson using a comparison between British and
American musical terminology. American terminology by comparison to the British system,
which we use in Australia, is numeracy centred. My reasoning is that the association between
the notated symbols, values and their functions, would become more apparent to the students
when presented with the more familiar numeric terms. For this reason, the graph in Fig: 1
becomes instrumental in helping the student make a connection between sound, symbols and
logical application.
In Fig: 1, the top reference given for each note symbol (e.g. Semibreve) is the British term.
Beneath it, in brackets, is the American term. The associated symbol runs down the left side
of the table. With the American terminology, the note values instantly present the associated
recognisable sequence.
