What I Learned - Week 4

This week has been very enlightening.  As I searched for articles an research about my topic, I realized how little research actually exists.  There is, of course, lots of information on the benefits and dangers of virtual education overall, but not a lot on music education in particular.  I was surprised that much of the research I uncovered was from Europe.  In addition, a significant portion of the online music education articles actually relate to collegiate and graduate study (and lots of articles on online graduate degrees for teachers).  

As a virtual music educator, I find my research topic to be extremely relevant and important to American music education.  I have had conversations with my colleagues about how they are concerned that online music courses will draw students away from their general music classes and ensembles.  I tend to disagree.  In my short time at FLVS, I have had students tell me that they are more interested in joining a music class at their local school because of their involvement with my Music of the World course.  I believe that this course opens them up to a new way of thinking about music, and they have a better understanding and appreciation for the history of western music (the main focus of the class) and they want to know more.  This experience with my own students is the entire foundation of my research topic project.  

My discussions with my classmates were very enlightening and enjoyable this week.  Although we did talk a bit about the article we read and the design of it, much of our discussion focused on how we related to the stressors indicated in the article.  It was nice to read how my fellow music educators sometimes struggle with the same issues that I have.  

As we progress through this class, I am becoming more and more comfortable with the general format of a research article.  I have found that as a reader, I prefer the qualitative studies due to their more narrative format.  However, as a writer, I feel as though I would be more comfortable with a quantitative study, due to my comfort level in working with numbers.   I am still uncomfortable with the small number of subjects in a qualitative research study, because I feel as though a test group of only 3 or 4 people does not constitute a viable cross section of a particular group.  I am anxious to learn more about the way these studies are conducted so when the time comes to conduct my own I am confident in my ability to do it well.