Music Education in the 21st Century

Music Education and the Life Ahead  

Today, many schools adopted new trends in teaching and thus music education as part of the curriculum should cope up and be flexible enough to go with the flow on the new stream in the education perspective. So what about now? 

Are we familiar with the word 21st Century learner? Millenials?, these words are used almost in every aspect of educational research to further improve the educational system of any school in any country. But, who, what are they? How do they best learn? 

In the Music Educators Journal Vol. 103 No. 2 in its December 2016 issue with the article entitled 

" Music Education is the Key to Success" by Denese Odegard. She stated that a classrom to be considered great should incorporate these simple yet effective strategies in the music class.

1. Collaboration

• it entails help from others
• performs with classmates
• respect other peoples musical tradition and culture
• develop responsible musicians with the ability to fit well with other performers
• teacher and students performances
• develop aesthetics, emotions and artistry through collaborative performances

2. Communication

• instructions should be clear
• shows respect to one another
• Verbal and non-verbal interaction during the performance
• Repertoires should at least makes listeners aware of its meaning 
• Advocacy
• Teacher feedback is a must to improve performance

3. Creativity

• students create their own improvisation and interpret it 
• altering existing musical elements
• make students compose and create their own music using their styles
• create and execute decisions during performances

4. Critical Thinking

• give musical problems and let them solve
• explore the deep meaning of pieces, how it was written, for whom, for what.
• foster their opinions and comments of a musical work
• ask questions related to music performed or heard

5. Technology Skills

• asked students to record songs
• video blog
• music videos
• record performance
• blogging
• Finale 
• Sibelius
• Audition and many more 
• Notation Apps
• Video Collaboration

Music Educators are one of the most hardworking people in the world and may this strategies help in effectively delivering music instructions to our children.