Student-as-master? Reflections on a learning innovation in popular music pedagogy

If the modern conservatorium is to prosper in a rapidly changing cultural and economic landscape, it will need to provide a learning experience that produces multi-skilled and adaptable graduates who are self-monitoring and self-directing. By implication, teaching practices that have dominated in the past will need to be re-thought, and alternatives considered that are likely to produce graduates with the abilities and attributes necessary to adapt readily to a changing environment. As a response to this imperative, one conservatorium has developed a pedagogical approach based on the creation of a scaffolded self-directed learning community, a master-less studio. It is embedded in a popular music programme that explicitly values the development of learning characteristics that will help graduates deal with an unpredictable future. Student feedback on the impact of these practices has been gathered during the evolution of this process. It includes survey data, formal and informal student feedback, and a number of interviews in which students describe how aspects of this learning-centred approach have interacted with their music-making and their career expectations. From this feedback, it is evident that greater student autonomy and self-efficacy result from the a-synchronous reflection on performance that is enabled through recording, the self-reflection that is required by self-assessing, and the reflections on the work of others that peer-based assessment demands.