Literacy Loops and Online Groups: Promoting Writing Skills in Large Undergraduate Music Classes

Nancy Rachel November The University of Auckland

Keywords: E-learning, online group work, music history pedagogy

Abstract

This article describes online group assignment sequences that were carried out in a large undergraduate music course, “Turning Points in Western Music.” These assignment sequences were developed to build on students’ high levels of digital literacy, using their enthusiasm and skill in online interactions in order to promote their writing skills. The assignment sequences involved online student-student discussions assisted by e-moderators, and sequenced online writing tasks based on existing best practice models in online learning. The benefits of this practice, from both the student and teacher perspective, are discussed, and some guidelines as well as suggested further developments are provided.

Author Biography

Nancy Rachel November, The University of Auckland

Nancy November is a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland. Her research and teaching interests focus on the music of the late eighteenth century: aesthetics, analysis, and performance history and practices. She has published review articles in MLA Notes and in the Critical Forum of Music Analysis. Recent Haydn-related publications include essays on Haydn and musical melancholy (Eighteenth-Century Music, 2007), Haydn’s compositional use of register in the strings quartets (Music Analysis, 2008), and “voice” in Haydn’s early string quartets (Music and Letters, 2008). An edition of Adalbert Gyrowetz’s String Quartets Op. 29 is forthcoming from Steglein Publishing, and an edition of Paul Wranitzky’s Six Sextets is forthcoming from A-R Editions. She is currently working on a book on Beethoven’s middle period string quartets.

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Published

2011-07-26

Issue

Vol 2 No 1: (Fall 2011)

Section

Reports and Practices

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