Rocío Chao-Fernández

Free software in music education: an interdisciplinary practical approach in Primary School

The ICT are part of our everyday lives1. The teaching-learning processes must transform in order to adapt to our modern times. The education professionals should be experts in edu-communication to take advantage of the new possibilities that the ICT offer in the classroom to train competent citizens in the utilization of media, citizens that who are active, critical and true prosumers [1]. In the area of music education, there are few experiences and materials that can be used to work this subject an interdisciplinary manner within the school context, especially in Spain. This research work brings together the experiences with a group of 22 students from 6th grade of Primary School students from a public Spanish school, working with the subjects of Music and Culture and Digital Practice in an interdisciplinary manner through free music software and by using techniques of data gathering such as the questionnaire and observation of the participants. The results allow for the verification that the use of the ICT in the Music classroom has a positive influence on the development of motivation and academic performance in both subjects, as both the music and digital competencies were re-enforced.

Art, Science and Magic: Music and Math the classroom

Music1 and mathematics are two closely-related subjects as both enclose numbers, proportions, measurements, operations... Pythagoras was the first person to link them, and from that moment on, many questions have been asked and many research lines have been created in order to study how one affects the other. Also, music contributes many benefits for the cognitive development of the students, positively contributing to their integral education, as it plays a fundamental role in the acquisition and the strengthening of knowledge during the learning process. However, there are very few experiences and materials to work with it in an interdisciplinary manner within the school context, especially in Spain. In order to verify if music instruction or lessons benefit the study of mathematics, a research study was conducted on 68 4th-grade students enrolled in a Spanish primary school. A questionnaire, observations of many sessions and interviews given to three teachers were used for the gathering of data. The results gathered confirmed that musical training has a positive influence on academic performance of mathematics students.

O piano matemático

No contexto educativo estase a poner moita enfase na interdisciplinariedade, na educacion emocional, nas actitudes ou na motivacion do alumnado. Poren, o noso sistema educativo adoece dunha preocupante falta de formacion do profesorado nestes aspectos, nas propostas e materiais didacticos especificos para o ensino e na disposicion de interrelacionar as diversas areas do curriculo. Neste traballo levase a cabo unha proposta interdisciplinar para desenvolver nos escolares de Educacion Infantil as capacidades musicais e matematicas. A interaccion de ambas materias axudalle ao alumnado a acadar unha educacion integral e non fragmentada.

DIFFERENCES IN THE INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING OF MUSIC AND MATHEMATICS BETWEEN GALICIA (SPAIN) AND LISBON (PORTUGAL)

Music has several benefits for the proper development of children. On another note, Mathematics is considered one of the subjects with a worse school performance. However, its study is fundamental; as not in vain it contributes to the development of logical thinking, exactitude and spatial perception. Both disciplines keep a closer relation than what it might seem at first sight. Taking that into account, we must pay attention to the teaching-learning process of both subjects connectedly; therefore our research is based on finding out whether they are taught interdisciplinary during the earliest school years. In order to reach this aim, we have designed a questionnaire that was applied in the province of Galicia (Spain) and in Lisbon District (Portugal), to ascertain if there are any differences when it comes to interdisciplinary work between both countries. The results show that most of teachers belong to public schools and give the same importance to both subjects, although they do not feel prepared to work with them in an interdisciplinar way.

ICT IN THE MUSIC CLASSROOM. ACHIEVING MUSICAL LITERACY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

In the realms of Information and Communication, technology waits for no man. Although most Teaching Institutions now have the necessary infrastructure to adapt their syllabus to the demands of new technology, a lack of preparation on the part of the staff to teach via the new media leads to a failure to adapt, marked discrepancies in performance and frustration on the part of teachers. There is a need to develop teaching and learning processes that may be applied to ICT, to modify teaching models and methodology and to unite universities and schools in a commitment to reformulate it towards the “educational 2.0”. This research was initiated in the 2013-14 course at the Faculty of Education Sciences of the University of Cadiz (UCA). The objective is to propose the musical literacy of the students of Degree of Pre School and Primary Education through the use of programs of free software. Each year students use these computer programs to perform good ICT practices in the music classroom. Our results indicate that the use of ICT in learning music promotes the process of building and rebuilding knowledge in a new interactive climate of cooperation, while eliminating spatial and temporal barriers. It affords the opportunity of creating virtual -learning communities, increases the motivation, concentration and understanding of the student and ultimately enhances the development of students’ musical and IT skills.

Incidence of hearing training in musical reading at first sight: an exploratory research

When it comes to learning Music, both sight-reading and reading music are some of the greatest challenges and one of the most time-consuming skills and hardest difficulties to overcome. Currently, the learning process of these skills is developed following ancestral methods of teaching, despite developments that have taken place in musical pedagogy. This investigation comes up from the relation of hearing as a perceptive means for novel musicians and the significant impact it can have on the primary stages of their musical training development, and specifically in musical sight-reading. However, schools do not use this method, despite it being the most intuitive and simple one in the initial levels of music education. Therefore the aim of this study is to develop an innovative and different instructional sequence to the traditional method used in musical training centres, and to prove its usefulness in the performance of sight-reading. To carry out the study, we made an exploratory test that involved students and teachers of the Conservatory of Music of Villalba. After its implementation, it can be concluded that the instructional modification does improve the results of sight-reading.

ICT as an interdisciplinary learning platform of mathematics, music and arts in secondary education

This paper discusses the benefits of online educational material to work in an interdisciplinary way the subjects of Mathematics, Music and Plastic with a group of 3rd year students of Secondary Education (12-16 years) in A Coruna (Spain). It is impossible to successfully develop the act of teaching due to the passivity and lack of encouragement of students in several subjects and the consequent number of academic failures. It was decided to rethink the traditional method of teaching and to implement an educational resource that encourages participation of students and teachers. This is a selection of paintings by Dali in a website platform in order to be able work the three subjects together. This approach gives an innovative character to ICT teaching in which we focus on the importance of discovering motivational strategies in the teaching and learning process. The instruments used were Logical-Mathematical Intelligence Test, Spatial Intelligence Test and Musical Intelligence Test from the book Educational Implications of Emotional Intelligence by Gallego, Alonso, Cruz & Lizama [1] and Attitudes towards Mathematics Test by Mato-Vázquez [2]. The results confirm the hypothesis that digital materials have improved the achievements of the sample in each of these subjects