Blended Learning in the Music Class

The main goal of a music class should be to give students an opportunity to create and perform music together, which is not as conducive to a blended learning environment. However, there are a variety ways that blended learning can be utilized in the music classroom. A natural place to use blended learning is in stations for areas such as music history and instrument families. One example would be a jazz unit. You could create stations to explore different elements of jazz. One station could be using iPads to look up pictures of jazz musicians and inferring things about what jazz is. Another station could be using YouTube to watch clips of original performances of jazz artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. A 3rd station could be working with the teacher to learn elements of jazz vocabulary. And one more station could be a research station on the historical time frame of jazz. Stations seem to be the most organic way to incorporate blended learning in a class where you only see students once a week, there are limited "lectures", students have limited access to technology at home, and there is limited technology in the music classroom.