Teaching
Teaching

Teaching

New Plugins on Open Music Academy

I am excited to announce that my digital teaching fellowship at Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf has yielded some results. The public platform Open Music Academy, currently run as a project of Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, now features four new plugins that allow persistent user entries within tutorials, introducing functions such as form fields, file upload, and a customisable whiteboard. These plugins are available and ready for use within virtual learning rooms and collaborative environments, and also include a commentary function for assessment and individual feedback. Please feel free to create an account and give it a try!

It is my hope that these plugins will be applied with benefit for designing modular tutorials, teaching materials, and online assignments. Many thanks to the developers, Andreas Helmberger and Adriana Luchian, for their proficient coding, to Ulrich Kaiser for his most valuable support, and to some of my colleagues from the RSH music theory faculty who supervised and tested the new features.

Remarks on Sustainable Academic Teaching

I wrote a few lines again on the subject of precarious working conditions in professional music education. In a recent article for the NOIES Musikszene NRW magazine, I focus on the situation of adjunct teachers at German music universities. This part of faculty manage 40–60 percent of the overall teaching load, mostly ineligible for social welfare schemes, while taking all the entrepreneurial risks of freelancing. After summarising the origins of this academic grievance, I outline some perspectives and possible solutions to the problem.

The Digital Music Theory Classroom

Dear colleagues and everybody involved in academic music education, I would like to share a first draft of my conception for teaching music theory on the basis of digital media, online platforms, and collaborative tools and documents. The strategies outlined here are the product of the past three years, reflecting the attempt to transfer methods and strategies from remote and hybrid teaching to in-person classes wherever convenient, and to develop an integrative model for the benefit of both students and teachers. Please feel free to comment and get in touch if you have any remarks, suggestions, or additions from your own experience.

Joint Panel on Pre-University Music Theory

I am excited to co-organise a panel discussion, jointly hosted by the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie and Society for Music Analysis, which will be entitled »Essentials or Preliminaries? Perspectives on Pre-University Music Theory«. This will be the first collaboration of the SMA Zoom Colloquium and the GMTH International Music Theory Lectures, featuring Rebekka Albrecht, Esther Cavett, Laura Krämer, James Olsen, Mark Richards, and Kenneth Smith, who will contribute their views as lecturers at secondary schools, music schools, and universities. Really looking forward to this exchange of thoughts—if you are interested as well, please join the session on Thursday, 1 June, 19:30 CEST (18:30 BST). Further information on the speakers and the Zoom details can be found on this website and also on this website.

Being a Digital Fellow

Happy to announce that I have been awarded a fellowship for innovation in digital teaching at Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf. This means that I will be able to realise a collaborative project titled Music Theory Tutor 2.0, dedicated to the advancement of technology-based music theory teaching. With the support of a software developer, I aim to create a tool (or a set of plugins) for designing modular assignments with music scores and audio content that can be edited, solved, and evaluated via an interactive online platform. Can’t wait to move forward this exciting project!