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Constructivism in music education can help teachers and students alike better their educational experience by working as a collaborative team. In the choral classroom, constructivist teaching establishes the teacher as the facilitator of learning rather than the “teacher as conductor.” Teachers help foster the musical-thinking of the ensemble. Students learn and retain information when teachers can support learners’ understanding of musical ideas and work within the student’s zone of proximal development. Through the use of teacher-guided questioning, cognitive apprenticeship, informal music-making, CMP, problem-solving, and Understanding by Design, students become active participants. Included are supplemental activities for the traditional choir classroom that give a sense of how to provide meaningful lessons to students through a constructivist lens. Each activity is objective-based, working from what the students will know or be able to do by the end of the activity, to how to foster the learning in a way that builds past experiences into new experiences.

Researchers agree that teachers are the single most influential school-related factor in a child's level of academic achievement. Teaching style may influence students' academic achievement as well as facilitate students' development of social skills and a sense-of-community within the classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between high-school choir directors' (n = 42) teaching-style and their high-school choir students' (n =1,108) psychological sense-of-community. Student participants in grades 9-12 within a mid-Atlantic state were members of a 9th-Grade Chorus (n = 2), Men's Chorus (n = 1), Women's Chorus (n = 8), Select Ensemble (n = 7), or Concert Choir (n = 38). Results from students' scores on the Classroom Community Scale revealed that 9th-grade students reported lower levels of sense-of-community, connectedness, and learning than students in grades 10, 11, and 12. Students in Select Ensembles reported significantly higher levels of sense-of-community, connectedness, and learning than students in Concert Choirs, and students in choirs that performed five or more times per school year reported significantly higher levels of sense-of-community than students in choirs that performed four or less times per school year. Results revealed no main effect for gender, students' years-of-experience in high school choir, or choir-class length and frequency. Teachers' scores on the Music Teaching Style Inventory revealed that teachers preferred the Assertive Teaching (M = 3.80), Nonverbal Motivation (M = 3.75), Time Efficiency (M = 4.33), and Positive Learning Environment (M = 4.27) teaching-styles that focus on teacher-led activities. Music Concept Learning (M = 3.48), Artistic Music Performance (M = 3.46), Student Independence (M = 3.30), Group Dynamics (M = 2.84), teaching-styles with a focus on student-led activities were least preferred by the teachers in this study. Group Dynamics teaching style was a low or the lowest preferred teaching-style for 40 of the 42 participating teachers. Results revealed no main effect for teachers' gender or years-of-experience teaching. Teaching-style preference was not a significant predictor for students' levels of sense-of-community or connectedness. Time Efficiency and Student Independence teaching-styles positively correlated with students' perceived level of learning while the Artistic Music Performance teaching-style negatively correlated with students' perceived level learning. Within teachers' reports of observed student behaviors, teachers identified all four elements of sense-of-community: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection. Teachers also reported purposefully planning activities in order to facilitate their choir students' sense-of-community. Activities included teaching behaviors found within the Positive Learning Environment, Group Dynamics, Artistic Music Performance, and Student Independence teaching-styles. Teachers expressed that a sense-of-community has importance in that it effects students' musical expression; students' ability to achieve their potential for musical performance; students' retention within choir ensembles; teachers' advocacy for choir programs; and student's participation in musical ensembles beyond high school. / Music Education

The purpose of this research was to investigate factors affecting choral music preferences of adolescents. The rationale for this research comes from the importance of teaching culturally diverse music in 21st-century music classrooms and the possibility that curricular content and ethnic identity may affect preferences for this music. Six research questions guided the study: (1) How are middle school students' preferences for choral arrangements of folk music grouped? (2) Is there a significant main effect of type of curriculum content instruction on middle school choral students' choral music preference scores? (3) Is there a significant main effect of time on middle school choral students' choral music preference scores? (4) Is there a significant type of curriculum content by time interaction? (5) Descriptively, within each ethnic group, does strength of identity relate differently to growth in scores in different interventions? (6) How do middle school students describe their reasons for their preference? One hundred and thirty-two sixth, seventh, and eighth grade chorus members (11 to 15 years old) participated in the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups receiving different curricular content: music concept-based, sociocultural-based, or discussion-based. At the outset of the study, all subjects took a measure of ethnic identity. Two weeks later, all subjects took a preference pretest of eight music excerpts from choral arrangements of folk songs originating from the following cultures: African, American, Asian, and Latin American/Caribbean. One week after their pretest session, subjects took a posttest while simultaneously receiving one of three interventions based on one of three approaches to curricular content. Two factors emerged from principal axis factor analysis of pretest scores. The first factor (simple texture subscale) included arrangements of folk songs with simple unison or predominantly homophonic vocal textures. The second factor (complex texture subscale) included arrangements of folk songs with complex polyphonic vocal textures. A split-plot ANOVA analysis revealed no statistically significant main effects of intervention or time, and no statistically significant interaction of intervention and time for the simple texture subscale. A second split-plot ANOVA revealed no statistically significant main effects, but a statistically significant interaction of intervention and time for the complex texture subscale. A regression analysis revealed that adding ethnic identity scores to preference pretest scores did not help predict to a significantly better extent posttest scores for any of the three intervention groups. Subjects' open-ended responses were placed into one of four categories: musical, sociocultural/linguistic, affect, or perception of performance. Subjects in the sociocultural-based group wrote more sociocultural/linguistic comments than subjects in the other two groups, and subjects in the discussion-based group wrote more affect comments than subjects in the other two groups. Subjects in all three groups seemed to lack the musical vocabulary to describe why they liked or disliked the selections. Comments about perception of performance most often referred to subjects' perceptions that singing songs with complex textures or songs in a foreign language would be too difficult for their chorus. Numerous factors interact to affect music preferences. By continuing to study their students' music preferences, general music teachers and choral directors can gain further insights into how to best approach culturally unfamiliar music. Using a combination of music concept-based, sociocultural-based, and discussion-based curricular content may be an answer to ways to foster positive preferences for culturally unfamiliar choral music. Focusing on curricular content is important; however, general music teachers and choral directors may find success by initially introducing students to culturally unfamiliar choral music with simple vocal textures before songs with complex vocal textures. / Music Education