In a previous reflection update I spoke of a World Music Course Announcement I had designed for 2016 Digital Scholar. After creating the Scholar announcement I had the opportunity to teach a face to face version of the class at a small university in my hometown. What I found from my teaching experience was that I assigned too much content for the class (readings, videos, and audio tracks). This was not as well received as I would have liked; the majority of the students didn’t do all or even much of the work. I spent most class periods getting students up to speed instead of engaging in the class group discussions I had hoped for.

What I discovered between developing the course announcement and putting it into practice is that I tended to overlook or deprioritize my students’ active engagement in their own learning. Instead, I focused on curating, crafting, and presenting course content based on “traveling the world through music,” a philosophy that impels me to try to make all the musical stops in a rapid-paced, harried world tour. While teaching I found this approach to be untenable, in a 4 week course or even the 16-week version I offered face to face. I wanted to share as much music and info as possible (I didn’t want to cut Japan from the fun, but then, what about Korea—it’s amazing too!!!), but my learners felt put off and overwhelmed.

While I had written out some detailed course objectives, these objectives didn’t always align with the content I presented throughout the class. It was too much for the students, and when they shut down, the course become more about fluff and surface, less about substance and deep learning.

How would I restructure the course to prioritize learning outcomes, and to give students agency in their own learning?

The answer lies in the learning activities the students were assigned to complete. One of the activities was a final group project that the students shared with other students during the last week of class. Below is a screenshot of the assignment instructions.

final assignment

I think this assignment offers a missed opportunity to build effective student engagement with world music. As you can see above, I divided this assignment in two parts: The first part consists of more generalized coverage and discussion of a type of music, and the second part send learners into their neighborhood to directly engage with the music topic.

The next time I teach this class I will frame my content to support the types of enquiry I want my students to explore in their final projects. I will also flesh out the learning rubrics and criterion so that the students have a clearer idea of what is expected of them.

Do your learning objectives and learning activities support one another?