PME 811: Blog Entry 10 - My innovation in education: AP Music Theory goes online

My innovation in education: AP Music Theory goes online

Fun fact: my boss thinks I work too hard. I'm one of those people who hears about an opportunity and just cannot let it go by. I've learned how to bit off only as much as I can chew, but I try to jump on everything and really try to build on or with it. So, when I first heard that the global network of independent schools to which my own workplace belongs was launching an online school, I jumped.

They needed a certified AP Music Theory teacher... I was not certified for AP.

They wanted a candidate with a master's degree in education... I did not have one.

They wanted someone with Blackboard software experience... I had seen the software once, and I hated it.

Naturally, I applied. Somewhat unnaturally, I got the job! It's been years now and I can honestly say that I love it. I teach one section of AP Music Theory to a group of teenagers in multiple time zones with diverse skill levels, and prepare them for a university-level music exam for credit, all asynchronously. The craziest part? When I attended the certification classes I was taught by the man who literally wrote (and writes) the exam and he told me that I was the first person he was aware of to ever teach the whole course online.

He told me straight up that I was crazy.

I'm still not sure whether he meant that I was crazy because it wouldn't work, or that it would be SO much work, or... well, I should have asked for details but the point is, my kiddos' scores have made beautiful bell curves every year. It HAS worked and this project has taught me so much about teaching and learning that I don't even know where to start. I'll try, though, because it's been a career-shaping experience for me that has subtly changed the way I look at innovation in the classroom forever.

Innovation is possible for everyone. I searched, talked, and read myself into a deep hole looking for materials to use to create this online course and found very little that could be used holistically. I found nothing that could be used in order, much less cover-to-cover so I built it all from scratch (at least twice because of textbook changes and software crashes). That creativity didn't need me to be a world expert. When that exam-writer told me I was crazy, he followed the comment up by saying that he wanted me to come back to him with my work because he believed that anything in education was possible - he knew I'd work for it and that was enough. I didn't go in thinking that it was possible for a young teacher to really be innovative. I felt a bit presumptuous for trying. In the end, it didn't matter who I was - the innovation, however small in the grand scheme of things, was the product of thought and effort and that is something we ALL have access to.

The internet can overcome disability. I broke my foot halfway through the second year and while my day job teaching in an old building with lots of stairs was an ordeal, the online course eliminated that barrier. One of my students took pneumonia in the first year and worked from her bed for a few weeks. Another girl had laser eye surgery and had her laptop read the material to her, then recorded her voice answering the assignment questions that week which I then graded as her paper. Technology is a powerful tool in any classroom but my experiences with online learning has taught me that some barriers are incredibly well-served by bringing education to the internet. Innovative teaching is just scratching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using it in the classroom and I think that distance education is going to be an enormous societal force in the years to come.

... and finally: teenagers are amazing. You can pile on the work and they will exceed your expectations. They will rearrange their entire schedule just so they can be online for ten minutes at exactly 1:22 p.m. just to ask you a single question about diminished triads because they actually do care that much. I don't know where our society got this idea that teens are awful but seriously - these kids are incredible in their drive, determination, and intelligence.