others – HECC 2023

Unveiling the Influence of Emotions on Students’ Feedback Uptake

cdtlsd Paper Presentations December 4, 2023December 4, 2023others

Sreeja NARAYANANKUTTY¹*, Yang Yann FOO¹, Fong Yee CHIU¹, and Joo Seng GAN²

¹Department of Technology Enhanced Learning & Innovation, Office of Education,
Duke-NUS Medical School
²Centre for Development of Teaching & Learning, NUS

*sree_81@nus.edu.sg

Narayanankutty, S., Foo, Y. Y., Chiu, F. Y., & Gan, M. J. S. (2023). Unveiling the influence of emotions on students' feedback uptake [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/unveiling-the-influence-of-emotions-on-students-feedback-uptake/

SUB-THEME

Others

KEYWORDS

Feedback uptake, emotions, emotion regulation, peer support, control and value appraisals

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation

BACKGROUND

The ongoing challenge to improve students’ variable feedback uptake (Jonsson & Panadero, 2018) has prompted calls to understand how emotions (Goetz et al., 2018) affect the way students process and use feedback (Lipnevich & Smith, 2022). Our study was underpinned by Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions, and was guided by this question: How do emotions influence graduate medical students’ feedback uptake?

SUMMARY OF WORK

We conducted six focus group discussions (FGD) and twelve interviews with 27 graduate medical students in Singapore (age: 18 to 35, with and without working experience). We asked them to describe the emotions they experienced when given positive and negative feedback, and how these emotions influenced their feedback uptake. Voluntary recruitment was made via email, posters, and presentations at student meetings. The FGD and interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic (Terry et al., 2017). We wrote familiarisation notes, coded the data inductively (at both latent and semantic levels), and deductively (sensitised by CVT constructs of perceived control, perceived value and activating achievement emotions). Candidate themes were then constructed, revised, and finalised.

SUMMARY OF RESULTS

We constructed three themes: 1) control and value appraisals may supersede valence in influencing feedback uptake; 2) emotion regulation facilitated productive feedback processing; and 3) peers helped students to process their emotions. Feedback valence seemed less important than whether the feedback offered students opportunities to improve. Positive feedback deemed disingenuous or incongruous undermined the credibility of the feedback provider and tended to be ignored, while negative feedback that enhanced participants’ perceived self-efficacy to successfully tackle some future tasks (control appraisals) that supported their learning goals (value appraisals) were accepted. Even though negative feedback would upset the participants, they regulated their emotions by practicing mindfulness to calm themselves down to process the feedback in a more calibrated fashion. Participants also reported that they turned to peers to process the negative emotions they experienced. Below are some of the selected quotes for illustrating each theme and more will be shared later.

Theme 1

“I’ve been told, very straightforward that, hey, this will not work, and this is why it will not work. Regardless of whether I attach my identity to what I was doing, feedback (that helps me improve) is very easy to accept, because we all have to achieve the same goal.” (Year 1_P8)

Theme 2

“Emotion is something we cannot control many times. But we can actually control our behavior. I practice mindfulness to calm myself down.” (Year 3_P1)

Theme 3

“If it’s pertaining to stress or whatever, I have my external support network, my friends and classmates help a great deal.” (Year 2_P2)

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that negative feedback could be accepted, which contrasts with prior research indicating that negative feedback aroused negative emotions leading to poor uptake (Sargeant et al., 2005; Goetz et al., 2018). However, for negative feedback to be accepted it needs to have high perceived control and value. To accept such feedback, participants had to process their emotions on their own and also with peer support. Hence it may be useful for university teachers to consider adopting feedback models such as R2C2 (Sargent et al., 2015, 2016, 2017), an evidence-based and theoretically-informed approach that promotes feedback dialogue by building relationship, exploring reactions, exploring content, and coaching for performance change. Pertaining to feedback uptake, the exploring content component could provide opportunities for teachers to guide students to self-assess goals the latter deem important using stated rubrics. By so doing, it may help the students be aware of the changes they need to make, and the desire for improvement might motivate them to exercise emotion regulation strategies to accept and use the teachers’ feedback.

REFERENCES

Goetz, T., Lipnevich, A. A., Krannich, M., & Gogol, K. (2018). Performance feedback and emotions. In A. A. Lipnevich & J. K. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback (1st ed., pp. 554–574). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316832134.027

Jonsson, A., & Panadero, E. (2018). Facilitating students’ active engagement with feedback. In A. A. Lipnevich & J. K. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback (1st ed., pp. 531–553). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316832134.026

Lipnevich, A. A., & Smith, J. K. (2022). Student–feedback interaction model: Revised. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 75, 101208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2022.101208

Pekrun, R. (2006). The control-value theory of achievement emotions: Assumptions, corollaries, and implications for educational research and practice. Educational Psychology Review, 18(4), 315–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-006-9029-9

Sargeant, J., Mann, K., & Ferrier, S. (2005). Exploring family physicians’ reactions to multisource feedback: Perceptions of credibility and usefulness: original article. Medical Education, 39(5), 497–504. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2005.02124.x

Sargeant, J., Lockyer, J. M., Mann, K., Armson, H., Warren, A., Zetkulic, M., Soklaridis, S., Könings, K. D., Ross, K., Silver, I., Holmboe, E., Shearer, C., & Boudreau, M. (2018). The R2C2 model in residency education: How does it foster coaching and promote feedback use? Academic Medicine, 93(7), 1055–63. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000002131

Sargeant, J., Lockyer, J., Mann, K., Holmboe, E., Silver, I., Armson, H., Driessen, E., MacLeod, T., Yen, W., Ross, K., & Power, M. (2015). Facilitated reflective performance feedback: Developing an evidence- and theory-based model that builds relationship, explores reactions and content, and coaches for performance change (R2C2). Academic Medicine, 90(12), 1698–1706. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000809

Sargeant, J., Mann, K., Manos, S., Epstein, I., Warren, A., Shearer, C., & Boudreau, M. (2017). R2C2 in action: Testing an evidence-based model to facilitate feedback and coaching in residency. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 9(2), 165–170. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-16-00398.1

Terry, G., Hayfield, N., Clarke, V., & Braun V. (2017). Thematic analysis. In C. Willig, W. Stainton Rogers (Eds), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17-37. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5251-4_103 .

FUNDING

This research is supported by Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Tertiary Education Research Fund (MOE2021-TRF-032). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of the Ministry of Education, Singapore.

Scaffolding of Project-based Learning of Hardware Design via Test Automation

cdtlsd Poster November 29, 2023November 30, 2023others, project-based learning, scaffolding, self-checking testbench.

Rajesh C. PANICKER

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
College of Design and Engineering (CDE)

*rajesh@nus.edu.sg

Panicker, R. C. (2023). Scaffolding of project-based learning of hardware design via test automation [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/scaffolding-of-project-based-learning-of-hardware-design-via-test-automation/

SUB-THEME

Others

KEYWORDS

Project-based learning, scaffolding, self-checking testbench

CATEGORY

Poster Presentations

INTRODUCTION

The technological revolution that we are witnessing is enabled by advances in hardware design, and hence designing powerful computing hardware is a popular topic. The course EE4218 “Embedded Hardware System Design” at NUS is designed to provide students with the knowledge and experience in designing a complete system that involves custom hardware and software. However, hardware design is a field with a relatively steep learning curve. Project-based learning (PBL) is a powerful technique frequently employed in engineering courses (Hadim et al, 2002). In EE4218, students learn hardware design and hardware-software co-design concepts through a project that involves developing a system that performs a classification task using a neural network, accelerated using a custom co-processor written in a hardware description language (HDL).

CHALLENGES IN PBL OF HARDWARE DESIGN

To ensure the success of PBL, appropriate scaffolding is crucial (Condliffe et al., 2017). This is especially the case with hardware design, where evaluating the functionality of the design after each change can take substantial time and effort. Students incur several tens of minutes, even for minor changes, if they test it directly as a full system. If the result obtained is not as intended, there is no easy mechanism to debug the mistake. This can be a demotivating factor for students, based on the qualitative comments from past student feedback. This is despite providing some scaffolding in the form of a series of four labs, with a wiki (Panicker, 2023) used as a platform for information dissemination and interaction. Though there are no user-friendly tools that exist for full-system simulation (to the best of the author’s knowledge), the co-processor (a component of the system that is the main design challenge) can be tested to a good extent via simulation of the HDL code. While students were required to test the co-processor via simulation in the past, many students did not do so given the complexity of creating an HDL testbench for this purpose. This resulted in them trying directly as a full system, with less than desirable outcomes.

SCAFFOLDING VIA TEST AUTOMATION

In order to provide further scaffolding, in a subsequent semester, a sample automated (self-checking) testbench (Bergeron et al, 2012) was provided. This allowed some level of automation in testing their designs in simulation before venturing into full-system testing. Students could use the provided testbench to test a simple skeleton hardware code provided and modify it to test their own hardware in an automated manner. The stimulus (inputs) and the desired response (outputs) can be stored in a text file, which is then used by the testbench to determine the functionality of the HDL code. To ensure that students make use of this self-checking testbench, it was made a mandatory requirement for the first lab itself. Testing via simulation using a testbench also allows students more options for debugging, as opposed to a full-system test. It also provides more instantaneous feedback for the students.

RESULTS

The use of the provided self-checking testbench before a full-system test improved the students’ ability to meet the project requirements substantially. The number of students who managed to meet the outcome of implementing a functional system with a HDL-based co-processor increased from 74% (class size: 43) to 89% (class size: 36). The qualitative comments, as well as the module learning outcome survey, also showed improvements, though these could be due to a combination of factors and not necessarily due to the intervention detailed here alone.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

The primary outcome/student achievement from the project improved significantly after the introduction of a self-checking testbench as a scaffold. Hence, we believe the intervention is an improvement, though it does take away the students’ chance to design a testbench from scratch. Future directions include exploring options to do larger-scale, system-level testing through simulation.

REFERENCES

Bergeron, J., (2012). Writing testbenches: functional verification of HDL models. Springer Science & Business Media.

Condliffe, B., (2017). Project-based learning: A literature review. Working Paper. MDRC.

Hadim, H. A., & Esche, S. K. (2002, November). Enhancing the engineering curriculum through project-based learning. In 32nd Annual Frontiers in Education (Vol. 2, pp. F3F-F3F). IEEE.

Panicker, R. C., (2023). EE4218 Labs. https://wiki.nus.edu.sg/display/ee4218

Exploring Padlet as an Online Tool for Collaborative Peer Learning in Blended Learning Environments: A Case Study in Civil Engineering Education

cdtlsd Paper Presentations November 3, 2023December 1, 2023asynchronous learning, blended learning, collaborative peer learning, online tool, others, Padlet

Kevin S. C. KUANG
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Design and Engineering (CDE)

kevinkuang@nus.edu.sg


Kuang, K. S. C. (2023). Exploring Padlet as an online tool for collaborative peer learning in blended learning environments: A case study in civil engineering education [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/exploring-padlet-as-an-online-tool-for-collaborative-peer-learning-in-blended-learning-environments-a-case-study-in-civil-engineering-education/

SUB-THEME

Others

KEYWORDS

Padlet, online tool, collaborative peer learning, blended learning, asynchronous learning

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation

INTRODUCTION

Blended learning approaches have gained significant attention in recent years, as educators strive to create engaging and interactive learning experiences for students (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, Owston et al., 2013). By combining traditional face-to-face instruction with online components, blended learning offers the potential to enhance student engagement and promote collaborative learning (Dziuban et al., 2018). In alignment with NUS BL2.0 initiatives, courses are being transformed or designed to incorporate blended learning, thereby enhancing the overall learning experience for students.

In the graduate engineering course CE5515 “Structural Health Monitoring”, a blended learning format was adopted to enhance the students’ learning experience, many of whom are working professionals. This module was introduced for the first time in the second semester of Academic Year 2022/23, with a cohort comprising 22 students. The course incorporates a range of student activities, including laboratory work, critical analysis of journal papers, and the completion of mini projects. These mini projects centres around tackling practical, real-world issues such as early landslide detection and the assessment of damage to coastal infrastructure caused by rising sea levels. Collaborative teamwork is emphasised, as students are expected to devise innovative solutions to these complex real-world challenges.

An essential element in promoting collaborative learning is the availability of a user-friendly and visually appealing platform that functions as a virtual gallery. This platform serves as a space for students to engage in critique, appreciation, and the exchange of ideas, fostering cross-fertilisation of knowledge and promoting active learning. A digital tool that offers both content curation capability and content distribution will be ideal in achieving the aims and learning outcomes of this course.

In the context of CE5515, the focus is on the utilisation of Padlet, an online tool, as a means of facilitating collaborative peer learning in an asynchronous learning environment. Padlet provides a digital platform for students to share their work, ideas, and insights, fostering interaction and collaboration among students (Frison & Tino, 2019). The asynchronous nature of the online tool further facilitated increased opportunities for peer-learning. Students could access and contribute to Padlet at their own pace, allowing for deeper reflection and thoughtful responses. This flexibility in time and space enabled students to engage in discussions and collaborations beyond the confines of traditional classroom settings.

Surprisingly, the interaction among students in the Padlet environment exceeded expectations. Students actively engaged with their peers’ work, offering thoughtful feedback, posing relevant queries, and providing constructive comments. This experiment revealed students’ willingness to actively participate and contribute to their classmates’ learning experience, indicating a strong sense of community and a desire for meaningful engagement. The benefits of peer learning is also well recognised in the literature (Slavin, 1983).

To incentivise participation and encourage further engagement, a leaderboard and point system were introduced. Students were awarded points based on the quality of their textual input, taking into consideration the depth of their thoughts, the relevance of their responses, and the originality of their ideas. Additionally, evidence of meaningful interaction, including back-and-forth discussions between questioners and respondents, was also rewarded with points. This gamification element motivated students to actively interact with their peers’ work and promoted a sense of healthy competition. Figure 1 shows a screenshot of the Padlet environment used in this study. In this presentation, the author will explore the benefits, challenges, and student experiences of using Padlet as an instructional tool in teaching a graduate course. The aim is to provide practical implications for educators who are interested in integrating collaborative technologies into their own courses.

*Figure 1*. Screenshot showing the Padlet layout used for this study.

In conclusion, this study aims to provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of blended learning strategies and in particular, the benefits of digital tools such as Padlet which they bring to student learning outcomes. By embracing blended learning and leveraging online tools like Padlet, educators can create engaging, collaborative, and student-centred learning experiences that prepare students for success in a rapidly evolving educational landscape.

REFERENCES

Dziuban, C., Graham, C. R., Moskal, P. D., Norberg, A., & Sicilia, N. (2018). Blended learning: The new normal and emerging technologies. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 15(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0087-5

Frison, D., & Tino, C. (2019). Fostering knowledge sharing via technology: A case study of collaborative learning using Padlet. Connecting Adult Learning and Knowledge Management: Strategies for Learning and Change in Higher Education and Organizations, 227-35. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29872-2_13

Garrison, D. R., & Vaughn, N. D. (2008). Blended learning in higher education. Framework, principles, and guidelines. Jossey-Bass Publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118269558

Owston, R., York, D., & Murtha, S. (2013). Student perceptions and achievement in a university blended learning strategic initiative. The Internet and Higher Education, 18, 38-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.12.003

Slavin, R. E. (1983). When does cooperative learning increase student achievement? Psychological Bulletin, 94(3), 429-45. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.94.3.429

A Journey Through A Quantitative Reasoning Course with Quirkiness and Laughter

cdtlsd Lighting Talks October 17, 2023November 22, 2023Humour, motivation, others, quantitative reasoning

Da Yang TAN
NUS College

dytan@nus.edu.sg

Tan, D. Y. (2023). A journey through a quantitative reasoning course with quirkiness and laughter [Lightning talk]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/a-journey-through-a-quantitative-reasoning-course-with-quirkiness-and-laughter/

SUB-THEME

Others

KEYWORDS

Humour, motivation, quantitative reasoning

CATEGORY

Lightning Talks

ABSTRACT

As the timeless saying goes, “laughter is the best medicine”. In my latest run of GEA1000N “Quantitative Reasoning with Data” (Ng et al. 2022), I explored the use of humour within my classes as a mediator to engage students from diverse academic backgrounds. As it is known, humour, when used appropriately, creates an engaging and enjoyable learning environment that captures students’ attention and encourages active participation. It helps to alleviate the often-dreaded monotony of lectures, making the content more relatable and memorable (Neumann et al., 2009). Moreover, humour can serve as an effective communication bridge between instructors and students, breaking down barriers and building rapport, thereby fostering a positive and light-hearted classroom atmosphere conducive to learning (Lomax & Moosavi, 2002). Furthermore, discovering humour within the subject requires a profound understanding of the subject matter, and this stimulates students’ higher order thinking towards the subject at hand (Garner, 2006; Ziv, 1988; Daumiller et al., 2020). In this Lightning Talk, I will elaborate on my strategies and approaches to incorporate humour within a technical and quantitative classroom. In the following, I propose three possible levels in which the humour could be implemented:

LEVEL 1000: SLAPSTICK COMEDY TO ATTRACT STUDENTS’ ATTENTION

Figure 1 illustrates an example of attracting students’ attention through the wordplay of established bubble tea chains (another subject that students will be interested in) to encourage the students to look and think about the questions posed to them. The humour at this Level 1000 lowest tier serves as a psychological break from the monotony of the lesson, especially when I attempt to pronounce the names of the chain and when students break into laughter (or at least a sheepish smile). However, it is important to capture the opportunity to broach about a serious subject or the content matter once the attention has been captured.

Lightning Talk Tan Da Yang Fig 1 — *Figure 1.* An example on how wordplay is used to capture students’ attention. (The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products are intended or should be inferred.)

Figure 2 shows a whimsical made-up scenario to get students to start thinking about the validity of using average in a Likert scale. Like the first example, the idea is to capture students’ attention by introducing something that is considered fun for them.

Lightning Talk Tan Da Yang Fig 2 — *Figure 2.* A whimsical hypothetical scenario on bubble tea production for students to think about the correct use of the Likert scale (or to brainstorm new bubble tea flavours).

LEVEL 2000: CONTEXTUALISED HUMOUR TO GET STUDENTS THINKING

Within the course, one of the hardest concepts to grasp in probability is the concept of mutual exclusivity, which refers to the fact that events do not occur at the same time; and independence, in which the occurrence of one event does not affect the chance of occurrence of the other event. To demonstrate the differences, I showed a slide that says:

Mutual exclusivity: Both of you have zero chance of being together.
Independence: The chance of being together has nothing to do with whether you like the person.

The main objective is to contextualise potentially conceptually confusing pain points into ideas that students may appreciate, and then infuse some form of humour to get them to think why the formal definitions could be applied in their personal context, in this case, relationships.

LEVEL 3000: HUMOUR FOR MEMORY RETENTION

To demonstrate what null hypothesis is about, I wore red shirts for six of my lessons, and in the eighth lesson where the concept of hypothesis testing is covered, I asked the class the question as shown in Figure 3. While not all the students selected the correct answer on the first attempt, the act itself was achieved both Level 1000 and Level 2000, and there was ample attention given to myself when I explained the solution. Furthermore, in the last lesson of the course, an informal survey was administered, and students were able to recall and mention the incident, therefore demonstrating some degree of retention.

Lightning Talk Tan Da Yang Fig 3 — *Figure 3.* Building up of a playful narrative over multiple weeks with the aim that students will remember the important concept of null hypothesis in hypothesis testing. (The red shirt was washed every week well before the lesson.)

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Although the use of humour is not new and have been incorporated to varying degrees by instructors, having a framework and discourse that highlights its value as a useful pedagogical strategy would assist in purposefully reflecting on our teaching practices (Bieg & Dresel, 2018). This Lightning Talk aims to precisely provide that by encouraging intentional and deliberate consideration of how humour can be effectively employed in the classroom.

REFERENCES

Bieg, S., & Dresel, M. (2018). Relevance of perceived teacher humor types for instruction and student learning. Social Psychology of Education, 21, 805-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-018-9428-z

Daumiller, M., Bieg, S., Dickhäuser, O., & Dresel, M. (2020). Humor in university teaching: role of teachers’ achievement goals and self-efficacy for their use of content-related humor. Studies in Higher Education, 45(12), 2619-33. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1623772

Garner, R. L. (2006). Humor in pedagogy: How ha-ha can lead to aha! College Teaching, 54(1), 177-80. https://doi.org/10.3200/CTCH.54.1.177-180

Lomax, R. G., & Moosavi, S. A. (2002). Using humor to teach statistics: Must they be orthogonal? Understanding Statistics: Statistical Issues in Psychology, Education, and the Social Sciences, 1(2), 113-30. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328031US0102_04

Neumann, D. L., Hood, M., & Neumann, M. M. (2009). Statistics? You must be joking: The application and evaluation of humor when teaching statistics. Journal of Statistics Education, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2009.11889525

Ng, K. L., Hartman, K., Gan, M. J., Lu, M., & Tan, S. W. (2022). Data literacy for all: Designing GEA1000 “Quantitative Reasoning with Data” with an eye towards inclusivity [Paper presentation]. Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2022, 7-8 December. National University of Singapore. Retrieved from https://nus.edu.sg/cdtl/engagement/conferences/higher-education-campus-conference-2022/hecc-2022-home/ebooklet.pdf

Ziv, A. (1988). Teaching and learning with humor: Experiment and replication. The Journal of Experimental Education, 57(1), 4-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1988.10806492

Aural Skills and Improvisation: The Development of an Online Teaching and Learning Guide

cdtlsd Paper Presentations October 12, 2023November 22, 2023aural skills, improvisation, Music, online learning, online teaching, others

Karst DE JONG
Department of Contextual Studies, Yong Siew Toh (YST) Conservatory of Music

muskabdj@nus.edu.sg

De Jong, K. (2023). Aural skills and improvisation: The development of an online teaching and learning guide [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/aural-skills-and-improvisation-the-development-of-an-online-teaching-and-learning-guide/

SUB-THEME

Others

KEYWORDS

Music, aural skills, improvisation, online learning, online teaching

CATEGORY

Paper Presentation

ABSTRACT

In the light of the theme “Navigating Uncharted Frontiers”, I would like to propose a paper presentation discussing a few cutting-edge innovations in the teaching of aural skills for students in Higher Music Education (HME), as they are currently being implemented at the NUS Yong Siew Toh (YST) Conservatory of Music. Central to these innovations are the use of improvisation as a learning catalyst, a new simplified system of hand-signs, and the development of an online teaching and learning guide to change the dynamic and organisation of the teaching and learning process.

PEDAGOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

A new simplified set of hand signs is proposed to add to an ongoing discussion about representation of musical notes and their connection to aural imagination of tonal melodies and harmonies (Lam, 2021).

PaHECC2023-a37-Fig1 — *Figure 1.* Simplified hand signs for the seven degrees of the scale.

As there is very little existing material online about aural skills teaching materials specifically targeted at the high level required for conservatory students, we decided to start a joint project with the Royal Conservatoire of Den Haag to generate video materials and explore the best ways of integrating these in the teaching and learning process. The project focusses on collaborative learning with students playing their instruments in the classroom. Inspiration is taken from a subject which was developed by the theory department of the Royal Conservatoire of Den Haag: Aural Skills and Improvisation (ASI). At the basis is the realisation that teaching music theory to conservatory students would have little effect if it does not manage to make a convincing connection to the repertoire and the aural experience. Furthermore, improvisation, even on a very basic level, can greatly enhance the understanding of the inner workings of music, as well as being a highly effective catalyst for both internalising pitch relations in tonal music and creating an immediate connection with the instrument or voice. Thus, the methodology of the aural skills and improvisation lessons is directed toward achieving an active inner aural imagination, and an immediate application of this imagination in performance, along with the development of agility, creativity, originality, and a strong sense of tonality.

Just like when learning to speak a language, there is the need to have an active command of the musical language, as well as collaborative skills of communicating in that language. This goes hand in hand with the development of musical vocabulary as well as a rigorous acquaintance with scales, harmony and the idiomatic use of musical materials.

A TEACHING AND LEARNING GUIDE

At the heart of the online guide is a series of teaching and learning videos, organised in collections. They cover four key areas: materials and vocabulary, interplay, repertoire-connection, and improvisation. These areas complement and reinforce each other to ensure a complete aural development. During practice, there should be a continuous feedback loop of playing, listening and correcting oneself. The intimate knowledge of materials makes fast execution of those same materials much easier, and creates a higher level of knowledge, which is less cerebral and more connected to bodily knowledge and practice. In turn, this knowledge fortifies the aural imagination. One can speak here of internalisation of musical materials. Improvisation is the catalyst for learning, and the ultimate measure for mastery of aural skills and the creation of musical ideas.

During the paper presentation, I will show some examples from the videos and explain how we intend to use them, effectively creating a blended learning environment. I will also discuss where our pedagogical insights and goals differ from established views in the field, and which considerations we have in shaping this part of the curriculum at YST.

REFERENCES

Sarath, E. (2010). Music theory through improvisation. Routledge.

De Jong, K. (n.d.). Aural skills and improvisation: a teaching and learning guide. Research Catalogue. https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1882701/1882704

Lam, N. L., Finding common ground in the Do-/La-Minor solfège debate. In Cleland, K. D., & Fleet, P. (2021). The Routledge Companion to Aural Skills Pedagogy (pp. 389-401). Routledge.