STATEMENT OF TEACHING
| G_Cobb_statement_of_teaching.pdf |
My aim and passion as an educator is to develop and implement fine arts programs that are engaging, empowering, relevant, and transformational for today’s music learners. The impact of new media technologies has resulted in a generation of music learners who are creating musical texts that are becoming more multimodal than previous generations. Today’s youth are actively engaged in multimodal composing practices, extending the reach of music as a mode of representation and meaning making. Simply put, musical ideas can be expressed and composed through sounds, words, images, gesture, or movement, and new media technologies provide compositional resources that enable music learners to create multimodally across a spectrum of traditional and newly emerging genres such as music videos, mini-documentaries, remixes, and mashups. In teaching these ‘new musical literacies’, my youth-led and learner-centred approach to music education aims to give youth a voice through creative musical initiatives that incorporate new media technologies and multimodal composing practices with traditional forms of music and fine arts education.
Also central to my teaching is the importance of fostering dialogue, inquiry, and collaboration within musical pedagogies. Music education can be transformational for today’s music learners when they are able to reflect critically on their values and beliefs in relation to the musical activities that they are involved with. These personal expressions of self-awareness, often captured in lyrics, melodies, and moving images can provide the musical artist with a cultural grounding and context for the world within which he or she lives. Today’s music artists now have the means to write the stories of their lives, becoming producers of their own artistic development and even the creators of their own careers as musicians. As music learners begin to sense ownership of their ideas and their creative output, they also become inspired and empowered, developing a sense of independence, autonomy, and agency that is unprecedented in the history of music education. I believe today’s music learners are capable of becoming active agents in the direction of their own artistic and musical development, working within participatory cultures and engaging in critical discourse and reflection as they develop and discover a sense of self along the way.
Finally, my passion in teaching is to create and facilitate learning environments that are democratic, practical, and resourceful, where students can take risks, learn from their peers, and make contributions to their community that they believe matter. My ultimate aim in all my teaching is to prepare today’s music learners for musical careers that are meaningful, impactful, and prolific.
Finally, my passion in teaching is to create and facilitate learning environments that are democratic, practical, and resourceful, where students can take risks, learn from their peers, and make contributions to their community that they believe matter. My ultimate aim in all my teaching is to prepare today’s music learners for musical careers that are meaningful, impactful, and prolific.