Currently, various higher education (HE) institutes develop flexible curricula for various reasons, including promoting accessibility of HE, the societal need for more self-regulated professionals who engage in life-long learning, and the desire to increase motivation of students. Increasing flexibility in curricula allows students to choose for example what they learn, when they learn, how they learn, where they learn, and/or with whom. However, HE institutes raise the question of what preferences and needs different stakeholders have with regard to flexibility, so that suitable choices can be made in the design of policies, curricula, and student support programs. In this workshop, we focus on student preferences and share recent insights from research on HE students' preferences regarding flexible education. Moreover, we use participants’ expertise to identify new (research) questions to further explore what students’ needs imply for several domains, namely curriculum-design, student support that is provided by educators/staff, policy, management, and the professional field. Firstly, a conceptual framework on flexible education and student’s preferences will be presented. Secondly, participants reflect in groups on student personas. Then, discussion groups have a Delphi-based discussion to collect new ideas for research. Finally, participants share the outcomes on a ‘willing wall’ and a ‘wailing wall’.
MULTIFILE
With this “invitation for action”, the Diversity, Inclusion & Gender Equality (DIGE) Working Group of the AEC - Empowering Artists as Makers in Society project (hereafter, ARTEMIS) welcomes all the AEC member institutions to explore, discuss and implement practices fostering Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in Higher Music Education (HME). We invite our colleagues to collectively dream up possible futures for HME through DEI work, which responds to the need to accommodate the plurality of backgrounds, artistic paradigms, access capabilities, identities and aspirations amongst current as well as future students and staff. Through this publication we wish to encourage the AEC memberinstitutions to grasp this simultaneously evident and complex task and to explore what diversity, equity and inclusion could mean if musicians are seen as “makers in, for and of society” (Gaunt et al. 2021). For us as a Working Group, this proactive view has been central to our work from the beginning, as we asked ourselves whether HME institutions find themselves predominantly adapting (or not) to inevitable local and global changes and pressures, and whether the HMEinstitutions could see themselves as part of a network of change makers in society. Focusing on the latter, we see DEI work as being directly connected to the core artistic practices of the institutions. As reflections from many of our colleagues in various AEC member institutions illustrate, the commitment to DEI work nurtures artistic imagination, widens pedagogical approaches, and expands the scope of professional practice.
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Non-formal music education is the field of music education outside the regular school curriculum, and delivered by music teachers / music leaders other than the teacher in the classroom. The main body of this research consists of case studies in the Netherlands. In addition there is a number of case studies in other European countries.
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Students in Higher Music Education (HME) are not facilitated to develop both their artistic and academic musical competences. Conservatoires (professional education, or ‘HBO’) traditionally foster the development of musical craftsmanship, while university musicology departments (academic education, or ‘WO’) promote broader perspectives on music’s place in society. All the while, music professionals are increasingly required to combine musical and scholarly knowledge. Indeed, musicianship is more than performance, and musicology more than reflection—a robust musical practice requires people who are versed in both domains. It’s time our education mirrors this blended profession. This proposal entails collaborative projects between a conservatory and a university in two cities where musical performance and musicology equally thrive: Amsterdam (Conservatory and University of Amsterdam) and Utrecht (HKU Utrechts Conservatorium and Utrecht University). Each project will pilot a joint program of study, combining existing modules with newly developed ones. The feasibility of joint degrees will be explored: a combined bachelor’s degree in Amsterdam; and a combined master’s degree in Utrecht. The full innovation process will be translated to a transferable infrastructural model. For 125 students it will fuse praxis-based musical knowledge and skills, practice-led research and academic training. Beyond this, the partners will also use the Comenius funds as a springboard for collaboration between the two cities to enrich their respective BA and MA programs. In the end, the programme will diversify the educational possibilities for students of music in the Netherlands, and thereby increase their professional opportunities in today’s job market.
