This article reports on a case study in a Norwegian primary school where nearly 50 fifth-grade pupils took part in a creative music-making project. Facilitated by two professional artists, they created an original piece of music and performed their composition for an audience at the end of the project week. A substantial part of the data consisted…

The purpose of this collective case study was to examine how four elementary music teachers (from different U.S. regions) integrated modern band into their curricula. Data included semi-structured interviews, videos, emails, and a researcher journal. Teachers integrated modern band to improve student "buy-in" and to gain instruments. All…

Using an action research methodology, I conducted a self-study to improve my capacity to implement creative music pedagogies with Grade 4 and 5 students (N = 43) in a school on the Canadian prairies. Data sources included: field notes, student assessments, video recordings, debriefing sessions, small group conversations, and surveys. Qualitative…

This study examines group robotics' impacts on elementary students' attitudes toward music, attitudes toward group work, and music composition when they are composing music via a robotics platform in collaborative and cooperative groups. One hundred ninety-one students in fourth and fifth grades completed the music composing project over the…

This socioculturally informed study examines space-time configurations of students' technology-mediated creative learning practices in a Finnish elementary school over a school musical project. This study focuses on the social practices of 21 students who worked with personal laptops, wireless internet access, and a collaborative writing service,…

The present study aims to contribute to the understanding of the effects of music education, in particular music composition as a classroom activity for fifth- and sixth-graders. The intervention (experimental condition) focused on a three-step-model for music composition, based on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory of education, and has been…

How might songs, like John Lennon's "Imagine" or Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the wind", offer ways to explore alternative ways of being in the world, to challenge the status quo? How might these songs become springboards for original pieces that capture students' ideas about world issues? In this article, I observe what happens…

This case study consisted of an examination of the perspectives of students, teachers, and administrators at the Shuangling Primary School, a rural Chinese school in Shaanxi Province, as they relate to themes of China's most recent curricular reform efforts. The intent was to understand these perspectives and determine how to best assist teachers…

The purpose of this study was to examine and describe children's music improvisations and the interactions that transpired within their four-person groups during regular weekly music classes as they planned and performed music improvisations in response to three different prompts: a poem, a painting, and a musical composition. Participants were…

This researcher sought to investigate the relationship between perceptual learning modalities of fifth grade elementary school students and their compositional processes and products. Music composition, at the elementary school level, has been studied for many years, as the creation of new music can give students a more active role in learning,…

Music composition is a rewarding activity for students. Through composition, teachers not only address National Standard 4 (composing and arranging music within specified guidelines), but also cover other areas of the music curriculum such as singing, notation, improvisation, form, style, tempo, dynamics, music vocabulary, and assessment. During…

During Winter/Spring of 2004, Danielle Cione, a 5th grade classroom teacher at New York City's PS 199, and Tanya Witek, a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic School Partnership Program, planned and implemented a series of lessons exploring the relationship of the Writer's Workshop as taught in the schools and the process used by…