Mind the Gap: Planning Modelling and Consultation in Online Music Professional Learning

Abstract

Professional learning (PL) requirements and requests differ between individual Music teachers and school settings. Providers of online PL have their own set of goals that sometimes: align with teacher needs, cater to school system requirements, embed current research, and relate to today's Australian school students. Combinations of mandatory and voluntary PL offerings incorporating a mix of traditional and experiential pedagogies may address the priorities and needs of all stakeholders involved in PL.

This dissertation identified three active ingredients in designing, creating, and delivering useful, memorable, and relevant PL experiences: (1) extensive planning, (2) modelling of pedagogies in PL delivery, and (3) stakeholder consultation. To achieve the common goal of improving student learning all stakeholders, (online PL providers, PL presenters, governing bodies, school leaders, academics, musicians, and teachers-as-learners), have crucial roles in designing, delivering, supporting, evaluating, and engaging with PL.

Two distinct purposes for PL were identified: addressing short-term needs (such as engaging lesson ideas) and long-term goals (involving philosophical evolution and paradigm shifts in education). Detailed data collection and analysis using a grounded theory approach highlighted the need for presenters of online Music professional learning (OMPL) to model a variety of classroom pedagogies when delivering OMPL and to apply adult learning theories (andragogy and UDL) in course design. When pedagogies are explicitly modelled, teaching ideas are contextualised, and practical connections can be made between educational theory and classroom practice.