<p>I want students to develop a love of learning, music and creation. Not just to bank NCEA credits. Therefore I deliberately get them to do tasks that are not assessed. They are pushed hard to focus on NCEA assessment in all their other subjects so they are very much in the habit of focusing on [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Over the last week and a half in New Zealand we have been on a nationwide shutdown. All non-essential services, businesses and schools have been shut down, with only supermarkets, pharmacies and the health services remaining functioning in our country. State schools had their holidays brought forward two weeks but many Independent schools like St [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Have students play their compositions in front of the rest of the class. And make the students all comment on each other&#8217;s work with something they like, and something they recommend doing to take it to the next level (comments must be specific and referred to the elements of music, no &#8216;wishy washy&#8217; comments allowed). [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I feel very honoured to be one of the keynote presenters at the Music Education New Zealand conference in October. How do I create personalised programmes? How do students have intrinsic motivation so that they work hard for the love of music, not for assessment credits? What are the best technology and tools for my [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Teaching composition to New Zealand high school students has changed hugely over the last 10-15 years.  Around 2005 many schools across the country embraced the Sibelius (or Encore) notation application as a way of notating student compositions. However, this quite quickly became what students considered to be composition.  They couldn&#8217;t really &#8216;do&#8217; composition apart from Sibelius.  [&hellip;]</p>

<p>There is currently massive change going on in the music industry and in music education.  With new degrees like those offered by Massey University in Wellington, and with new initiatives in cross-curricular arts courses like what Victoria University are offering, school music programmes need to adapt to better prepare their students.  We need to focus [&hellip;]</p>

<p>As I write this I&#8217;m winging my way to Europe to attend the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute.  One of the workshops I&#8217;ll present while I&#8217;m there is demonstrating how my students have been using three key Apple Apps as part of their creative workshop. Music Memos GarageBand Logic Pro X What I love about what [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At my school, St Andrew&#8217;s College, we&#8217;ve got one of the best Music Technology programmes in New Zealand.  We have a world class studio.  Students are making albums in which they compose, perform and record all their own material.  But the thing is&#8230; I&#8217;ve just had the insight that I&#8217;ve never really had a strategy for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>For New Zealand High School teachers here are the details of some Professional Development workshops I&#8217;m running.  Please register your interest by emailing sales@learningideas.co.nz Tuesday 12 April &#8211; Incorporating Music Technology into your Music Department Cost: free (this day is funded by the Heads of Independent Secondary Schools Trust so is only available to teachers [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Over the last five weeks I&#8217;ve been trying a new way of running collaborative composition in my year 10 Option Music class. This year I&#8217;ve been blessed to have a large class of highly motivated and talented students, so they were the perfect class to take a risk and jump into what is for me [&hellip;]</p>

<p>One thing I get asked a lot on courses I run is about how I structure my NCEA music classes.  If a typical NCEA subject consists of 22-24 credits some teachers are a little incredulous when they hear I offer 53 credits at level 2 and 64 credits at level 3. The first thing I point [&hellip;]</p>

<p>This year with my year 13 music students we are deciding to make a point of not focusing on assessment as being the driver of learning in class (as it should never be but is rarely the case in most NZ schools).  Therefore we are deciding to focus on projects our students can complete through [&hellip;]</p>

<p>This year my year 13 music class is going to focus less on assessment and more on developing the craft to produce great art. The focus for my students will be on choosing a project that will be the focus of their year’s work… Project Based Learning. They will come up with a project that [&hellip;]</p>

<p>There are many guides to mixing all over the internet, YouTube, Amazon, etc &#8211; it can all be a little overwhelming if you&#8217;re a high school teacher wanting to do music technology/recording/mixing with your students.  Where do you start? Well, if you have the time, in my opinion the best resource is the book Mixing [&hellip;]</p>

<p>I was reading this really interesting blog the other day by Suzie Boss which looks at the research of the New Zealand education researcher and professor John Hattie and how his findings could influence Project Based Learning (this blog is well worth a read, follow the link). There is a really interesting section of the blog: But [&hellip;]</p>