Music Listening and Critical Thinking: Teaching Using a Constructivist Paradigm

Abstract

Music, a universal human endeavor, offers a unique perspective on studying the humanities. Studying music combines the intellectual and emotional meaning listeners make from music, engaging them in aesthetically focused-activities. In this article, the benefits of teaching music using a methodology based on critical thinking are discussed. Additionally, the nature of critical thinking as an instructional methodology is explored from multiple perspectives. To elevate intellectual standards and to effect a qualitative change in thinking, critical thinking advocates have encouraged students to think for themselves by guiding students' reflection on their own experiences, by developing listening as a critical thinking skill, and by asking probing questions. To reflect the fast-paced technological changes in contemporary society and education, teachers should impart thinking skills instead of mere information. As Whitehead suggested, the real goal of education is the development of thought processes instead of the accumulation of information. Constructivism, an approach emphasizing the meaning students create in the process of education, is also examined in terms of musical settings. While human beings are naturally predisposed to create meaning and construct concepts, particular ways in which we make sense of the world are learned. From constructivist paradigms to educational interventions, critical thinking is discussed as a movement based both on theory and applied techniques. Among the goals of this movement is the responsibility to educate independent thinkers and autonomous learners who actively make their own meaning of the world. Implications for understanding music, critical thinking, and the humanities in general conclude this paper.

Critical Listening in the Ensemble Rehearsal: A Community of Learners

“…and reflection based upon affective responses and prior musical experiences." 13 One researcher suggests four criteria for successful critical thinking activities: The teacher (1) structures an atmosphere of cognitive challenge, (2) plans a specific incident of intellectual dissonance, (3) helps the student develop a repertoire of questions to activate the reasoning process, and (4) critical thinking culminates in a sense of success. 14 In agreement, Apfelstadt believes that "teaching for development of critical thinking skills demands that we engage our students in situations where they will be challenged intellectually, not merely expected to comply with our demands."…”

Critical Thinking and School Music Education: Literature Review, Research Findings, and Perspectives

“…Daniel Johnson (2006) claims that music teaching that is in accordance with critical thinking strengthens all the higher functions of thought as well as reviving students' interest. Johnson studied the progress of two groups of Year Five students (N=82), who, during sixteen 45-minute lessons focused on listening to works of music.…”

“…The value of promoting critical thinking in music education is not a mere matter of a theoretical or intellectual conception, but can be translated into action, into activities, into practice. However, researchers and scholars find that music educators are interested, first of all, in performing and creating music, without attaching much importance to reflection, knowledge about knowledge, or the students' own verbal expression, that is, to those processes which promote critical thinking (Colwell, 2011;May, 1989;Bamberger, 2000;Johnson, 2006). In other words, while the dialog about the role of critical thinking in music education has been increased, there have been minimal changes in the content of the national curricula, in the U.S.A. and in many European countries, regarding the importance of critical thinking (Kokkidou, 2006).…”

Listening to music with the aim of developing high-school students’ musical culture

“…Although students of all ages can think critically because they already have rich life experience and abundant prior knowledge for further more complex thinking, critical thinking in teaching is unfortunately still more present in theory than in practice (Buchberger, 2012). Likewise, since students' ability to understand and process information does not keep pace with the vast resources available to them (Meyers, 1986), Wegner suggests that teachers teach students through as inventive topics as possible based on thinking and discussion with a view of a critical approach in order to shi the pedagogical focus from content to cognition (Wegner, 1989; as cited in Johnson, 2004).…”

“…In music education and the eld of music listening, the processes of comparison, evaluation, re ection, judgment and classi cation point to the need to develop students' critical thinking (Bundra, 1993) because learning about musical works o en includes elements of general and subject-speci c thinking (Woodford, 1995). E ective music listening pedagogy should develop students' experience in music listening including feelings and thoughts expressed through the music medium (Tait, Haack, 1984; as cited in Johnson, 2004), but the development of multimedia and digital technology has changed the nature of listeners' musical experiences. e contemporary music listeners thus have unlimited access to heaps of information and a large selection of music that they most o en choose according to their own preferences (Johnson, 2004) or passively consume it (O 'Brien, 1987;Sims, 1990).…”