Beyond Coverage: Teaching for Understanding in the Music History Classroom

  • Timothy Mark Crain University of Massachusetts Lowell
Keywords: History, Pedagogy, Course Design, Coverage and Uncoverage

Abstract

Music historians face the problem of an enlarging amount of material which must be “covered†in the music history survey courses that emphasizes the transmission of knowledge from instructor to student, typically focusing on surface detail in order to get through the material. Facts are easy to come by in the information age, and I argue that music students need music history teachers to provide them with the tools to assess the validity of facts, to weigh their significance, and to deploy them in everyday activities which all types of musicians undertake.

The first half of this paper reviews pedagogical methodologies from other disciplines that I have found helpful in addressing these priorities in music history survey courses: “uncoverage;†“backward design†(as described in the work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTiegh); Lee Schulmnan’s concept of “Signature Pedagogies;†and new approaches to assessment. The second half of the essay describes how I apply those ideas in teaching with a developmental model for music history and a composition assignment using the concept of isorhythm.

  

Author Biography

Timothy Mark Crain, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Timothy Crain is Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He also holds the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Historical Musicology from the Florida State University, specializing in American music and the music of the twentieth century. Crain’s scholarly publications include reviews, articles, and book chapters on a wide range of topics, from popular music to art music traditions. He has also read numerous scholarly papers for many regional, national, and international professional societies, including the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Society of Early Americanists, the Southern Chapter of The College Music Society, and the Southern Chapter of the American Musicological Society.

Published
2013-10-01
Issue
Vol 4 No 2 (2014): Spring 2014: Essays in Honor of Douglass Seaton
Section
Articles

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