Leading music pedagogy research with practical teaching outcomes

This focus area reflects on the way music learning and teaching occurs in a wide variety of contexts. Our projects include the nature of one-to-one pedagogy, assessment in music, the healthy musician, global mobility, graduate outcomes and higher degree pedagogy.

Research and scholarship in this focus area has yielded well over 100 publications in the past five years alone, a suite of books published by leading education publishers Springer, as well as a continuing stream of grants and fellowships from the Australian Government Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT).

Focus area convenor

Professor Gemma Carey

Gemma has developed innovative techniques in learning and teaching, and has established pedagogy at both undergraduate and postgraduate level and for community teachers. Gemma is a well-known author in the area of performance pedagogy, curriculum, and learning and teaching.

Music Learning & Teaching

Music Learning & Teaching at QCRC

In this video we meet Professor Gemma Carey, Deputy Director of Learning and Teaching at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University and Convenor of the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre's Music Learning and Teaching focus area. Gemma discusses the projects in the Music Learning & Teaching focus area and who she works with as a member of QCRC's extensive collaborative network.

Project highlight

The Global-Local Music Project

The Global-Local Music Project at QCGU explored ways to enhance international "mobility" programs for students at QCGU. In 2017, 17 undergraduate students had a short-term international experience as a part of their studies, hosted by partner organisations in the Asia Pacific. The research project surrounding this initiative explored the role that such overseas experiences play in preparing work-ready graduates. It also examined how mobility programs foster the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable students to be more informed and engaged citizens, locally and globally. The research built on the QCGU team’s sustained work with partners in China, India, and Cambodia over several years. By focusing on three mobility programs in music that featured collaborations with community partners, universities and NGOs, this project tackled the need for more systematic and evidence-based approaches to including these experiences in higher education curricula. Outcomes of the project included creative outputs produced in collaboration with the overseas project partners, a series of digital stories that will form learning resources for future mobility program participants and other students, and academic outputs (conference presentations and journal articles).

Team members: Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, Catherine Grant, Vanessa Tomlinson, Kim Cunio, Charulatha Mani.

Transforming One-to-One Pedagogy

This national project provides strategies and resources to assist students, teachers and institutions maximise teaching and learning outcomes. The project was funded by the OLT and led by Professor Gemma Carey with partners at The University of Queensland, The University of New South Wales, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

In 2016 the project hosted a two-day symposium, the first of its kind to be held in Australia, with internationally-renowned keynote presenters and delegates travelling from interstate and overseas to attend. This project builds on Professor Carey's sustained commitment to researching the one-to-one learning and teaching context over a number of years and feeds directly into the curriculum at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.

Project brochure

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