Abstract:
This study aims to describe how collaborative partnerships between teachers, researchers, and community experts not only embolden teachers to implement new pedagogies that effectively targets outcomes related to student learning, but also help community musicians perpetuate the relevance of their traditions in the consciousness of educators and learners. It demonstrates this process through a design-based research (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012; McKenney & Reeves, 2013) in music education, abstracting the learning structures from community music in its traditional environments and adapting them in specific classroom contexts. The study engaged four teachers from three secondary schools and one primary school. The sampling of classes is purposeful and convenient and include student profiles of high academic and low progress learners. There are three phases to the study: Grounded Theory observation phase; development and implementation phase; re-iteration and translation phase. The teachers co-designed the modules based on their specific classroom needs. The musicians are involved in the professional development of the teachers in the traditions and in providing authentic encounters to the students within the module design. The study also collected pre-post student surveys on critical musicality, habits of mind and student engagement (experimental and control groups), teacher reflections, interviews with musicians, focus group discussions with students and videotaped lesson observations.The study showed that (1) Collaborative partnerships that engage knowledgeable experts increase teacher efficacy in the creation and implementation of new pedagogies; (2) Collaborative partnerships where individuals see their capacities to contribute to a common purpose result in innovative pedagogies that effectively target desired student outcomes; and (3) Collaborative partnerships between community musicians and institutions increase global and social awareness with regards to issues of diversity in the schools. It has significant implications to Policy in stressing the importance of school-institution-community partnerships to enable teachers to innovate pedagogies for positive student outcomes, including responsible global citizenship. It affirms the literature which stressed that strong partnerships between teachers, artists, and communities is the foremost defining characteristic of high quality arts education (Bamford, 2006). ReferencesAnderson, T. and Shattuck, J. (2012). Design-Based Research: A Decade of Progress in Education Research. Educational Researcher, 41 (1), 16-25. Bamford, A. (2006). The Wow Factor: Global research compendium on the impact of the arts in education. Münster: Waxmann.McKenney, S. and Reeves, T.C. (2013). Systematic Review of Design-Based Research Progress: Is a Little Knowledge a Dangerous Thing?. Educational Researcher, 42 (2), 97-100.