Episode 209: Research vs. Reality with Ellie Johnson

I find that too often, as practicing teachers we either ignore new research all together, or we read the boiler plate summary, take it as gospel and move on without examining it critically. Ellie Johnson tries to help us thread the needle.

Ellie is a PhD Music Education candidate and researcher, and the host of The Merfy Pod. She loves to dive in to the research and summarize it so we don’t have to. She is also now a monthly contributor in the Choralosophy Community blog space where she curates short summaries and links to important new research you should know about.

In this episode we talk through the contributions and gaps in a recent study called “Assessment Practices and Beliefs of Secondary Choir Teachers” by Ben Kambs which focuses on the questionable practice of music educators grading students on attendance, participation, and attitude, as well as “Serious musicking: choral pedagogy in ‘low-threshold’ choirs” by Jansson, Døving, and Haugland Balsnes that features the ideas found embedded in ideas of Critical Choral Pedagogy and other frameworks, which “alleviates the notion of the leader as more knowledgeable than the followers” and aims to disrupt the hierarchal structure of typical choir programs via reexamining auditions, self selection and even fundamental pedagogical practices like assigning at home practice, and addressing singers individually for instruction.

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Tune in, and have your thinking stimulated and challenged. Then, weigh in yourself with your related ideas and experiences on Facebook in the Choralosophers group or over on choralosophy.substack.com

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Ellie Johnson has been a music educator in Nebraska since 2015. She is currently a PhD candidate and Hixson-Lied fellow at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, where she helps train undergraduate pre-service teachers and conducts music education research.

Ellie has worked primarily with middle school students in both general music and choral settings. In addition to solo research on increasing student autonomy in aural skills coursework, Ellie recently presented collaborative research on music student mental health and inclusive choral teaching at the International Society for Music Education World Conference in Helsinki, Finland.

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She hosts the MERFY podcast where she summarizes music education research for you in short palatable episodes – available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Conference.

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