Music Education at Delaware by Suzanne Burton
Undergraduate Music Education Researchers Study Music Teaching and Learning
Over the past two years, undergraduate music education research scholars Emily (Paolini) Strab and Stephanie (Kleinert) Kistler worked collaboratively with Dr. Suzanne Burton, Associate Professor of Music Education on projects related to music teaching and learning. To become undergraduate research scholars, Strab and Kistler went through an application process to seek approval to study their topics over a summer session. Their projects continued for the following academic year, and ultimately led to each scholar writing a senior thesis based upon their research. Strab conducted research on the use of multicultural music in elementary general music while Kistler conducted an action research project on emergent music literacy. Both scholars presented their work with Dr. Burton at a peer reviewed poster session for the MENC: The National Association for Music Education Eastern Division Conference this past spring.
Crossing Borders: The Attitudes of Elementary School Students and the Comfort and Practices of Teachers Regarding Multicultural Music
As a junior-year service-learning scholar, Emily (Paolini) Strab created a Latin American music resource for elementary general music teachers as a contribution toward bringing Latin American music into the classroom. Strab researched authentic Latin American music and created lesson plans and musical arrangements. The lesson plans were field tested with students at a Latin American community center’s summer day camp. These lesson plans were then developed into a web-based resource entitled, Crossing Borders: A Multicultural Music Resource on Latin American Music. With the help of the Office of Service-Learning, Strab had the resource professionally reproduced, enabling dissemination to Delaware and Pennsylvania elementary general music teachers.
After creating the resource and giving it to teachers, Strab began to question how general music teachers use multicultural music in their curriculum. This led Strab to investigate the comfort and attitudes of music teachers for using multicultural music in their classrooms and to see if it impacted their students’ attitudes toward other cultures. Strab’s work resulted in the successful defense of her senior thesis, and graduating with an Honors Degree with Distinction in Music Education. She will be attending the University of Maryland with a full fellowship to pursue a master’s degree in ethnomusicology.
Emergent Music Literacy: Problems and Possibilities
Stephanie (Kleinert) Kistler began her undergraduate research uncovering the process of music literacy in her junior year. Using a conceptual framework which posited that music and language learning are parallel processes, Kistler employed a curriculum that explored music reading and writing as a developmental progression with kindergarten children at the University of Delaware’s Lab Preschool. Her research was largely based on the work of Dr. Edwin Gordon who proposes that a child first learns music through developing a musical listening foundation, followed by the child responding musically through singing, chanting and moving, then by the child communicating and interacting musically with others. Surrounding these processes is audiation, or the ability to think in music. It is through these processes that the foundation for reading and writing music with comprehension is formed.
Teaching in the kindergarten for a year, Kistler studied the effect of this curriculum on the children’s ability to read and write music. Her work resulted in a large scale action research project, which has provided insight into the capability of young children to learn how to read and write music in a natural, developmental manner. Kistler successfully defended her senior thesis and graduated with an Honors Degree with Distinction in Music Education. She has taken a general music and strings teaching position with the Avon-Grove School District.
As young scholars, both Strab and Kistler have made important contributions to the field of music education through their inquiry into teaching and learning music.