Maker spaces and project based learning in music education

~ mitchelljamesdavis

This week’s topic for technology in music education took a step back from screens, processors and digital beeps. The maker space movement was introduced to use, spaces in which ideas of any kind can become reality with enough conceptualising, drafting, creating, critiquing and reworking.

Our lesson was centred around an interview that our lecturer James did with Phil Nanlohy, a highly experienced figure in education within Sydney. After many years as a teacher and teacher educator, Phil was put in charge of designing a maker space to support project based learning for primary school students. He described the maker space as a space which allowed for a practical extension on the learning taking place in classes outside of the English and mathematics realms. Equipment that Phil chose included sewing machines, child friendly power tools and hand tools, electrical circuits and depending on the project, various recycled materials that could be up cycled and transformed into a new project with purpose and educational value.

An American teacher named Wesley Fryer has shared several ideas on integrating maker space concepts into combining general music and science concepts for primary (or elementary in North America) education. Such examples include the “waterphone centre activity” in which jars are filled with water to different levels, changing their pitch when used as a percussion instrument. Another example is the “sound through string and wire” activity in which students explore sound travelling down lengths of string and vibration in the air causing sound. These activities make for great fundamental science based exercises for primary students and open the window into practical music education beyond learning to sing or play an instrument.

Thank you reading, Please let me know if you have found this page through facebook 🙂

Unknown's avatar

Published by mitchelljamesdavis

Mitchell Davis is currently a music education student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, born in 1997 in Sydney. Following a positive experience with music education in primary and secondary school combined with a personal interest in music as an art form and pastime, the decision to become a secondary school music teacher was naturally made. Complimentary to studying music education, Mitchell also holds ongoing experience working casually in a youth centre in his home town of Liverpool, New South Wales. After studying a Certificate IV in Youth Work, It was here that he initially found his confidence and appreciation for working with young people to achieve positive outcomes, predominately running various sport and recreational youth programs both in local Liverpool school environments and at the youth centre's facilities. Mitchell's specific area of musical expertise is in contemporary popular music. He is a guitarist and songwriter who enjoys genres such as heavy metal, extreme metal, hard rock, blues and pop. He has begun to write, release and perform his original music in order to gain greater experience in the world of contemporary music and give more value to his skills in becoming a music educator.

Leave a comment