Memory, Learning and Theory Pedagogy with Leigh VanHandel

Dr. Leigh VanHandel joins us to talk about the science of memory and learning, and how it can help us better structure our teaching. We also chat about her new book, the Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, which recently received an Outstanding Multi-Authored Collection award from the Society for Music Theory, and about the Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy series she coordinates.

Links:

Leigh VanHandel's faculty page at the University of British Columbia

The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy: 

Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy

Ask Dr. Van

uTheory

Chapters:

00:00:20 Introductions

00:01:45 Editing the Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy

00:07:56 How math pedagogy research can inform our teaching of music theory

00:12:34 Long term, short term and working memory.

00:15:24 The relationship of working memory and visuo-spatial skills

00:19:00 How learning happens, neurologically. (Schema forming)

00:21:21 The implications of schemas for how we teach

00:24:13 The curse of expertise, and working memory

00:32:30 The value of memorization vs. deriving concepts

00:34:30 Using schema to teach for fluency

00:44:58 Strategies for identifying and helping students with working memory limitations

00:50:20 Reducing cognitive load to help students focus on what they're learning

00:55:31 Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy series

00:59:50 What else are you up to, now that the book is out?

1:00:00 Where can we follow you?

1:03:18 Wrap-up

Transcript:

[music]

0:00:21.2 David Newman: Welcome to Notes from the Staff, a podcast from the creators of uTheory, where we dive into conversations about music theory, ear training and music technology with members of the uTheory staff and thought leaders from the world of music education.

0:00:34.5 Gregory Ristow: Hi, I'm Greg Ristow, founder of uTheory and associate professor of conducting at the Oberlin Conservatory.

0:00:40.3 DN: And I'm David Newman. I teach Voice and Music Theory at James Madison University and I write code and create content for uTheory.

0:00:48.7 GR: Thank you, listeners, for your comments and episode suggestions. We love to read them. Send them our way by email at notes@utheory.com and remember to like us and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

0:01:00.1 DN: Our topic for today is music theory and working memory and joining us to talk about this as well as her new book, The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, is Dr. Leigh VanHandel. Dr. VanHandel is associate professor and chair of the Division of Music Theory at the University of British Columbia. Her primary research areas are music theory pedagogy, music cognition, and the relationship between music and language. Her research is published in Music Perception, the Journal of New Music Research and the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy. She is co-director with Gary Karpinski of the Workshops in Music Theory Pedagogy program, a week-long summer intensive where teachers can learn from six experts in the teaching of music theory. Leigh, it's an honor to have you join us.

0:01:46.2 Leigh VanHandel: It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much.

0:01:48.6 DN: And especially right after you won this award at SMT for, what is the... The award was for? 

0:01:54.7 LV: Outstanding Multi-Author Collection.

0:02:00.5 DN: Fantastic.

0:02:00.6 LV: Yeah. So The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy had an insane number, 68 authors and contributors. And so I think that qualifies as multi-author. [laughter]

0:02:17.6 GR: It's a delightful book, I have to say. We had a chance to speak with Melissa Hoag a couple of weeks ago and Stefanie Dickinson just about a week ago. And I have been just really loving going through the articles in it. It's a really... I think so many pedagogy textbooks come from one author's perspective and I've just been delighted by the variety of perspectives offered. Could you maybe talk a little bit about the origins of the book? 

0:02:50.7 LV: Yeah, sure. So I'd been approached by Routledge about putting together some essay collection and the Norton Music Theory Pedagogy book was in its final stages. We knew what the format was gonna be, we knew who the authors were gonna be. And I had that moment where I went, "Well, why do we need another one of those? What can I do that's gonna be different?" And it was literally a shower thought, you're in the shower, you're washing your hair and you go, "Well, wait a minute, what if, what if I did this crazy thing where instead of these long essays, we put together a bunch of lesson plans and made something that's practical and useful and immediately relevant to people?" And so I pitched that to Routledge and I don't think they knew what to make of that idea at first, but somehow I managed to convince them to go along with this crazy idea.

0:04:00.0 LV: And I sent an email out, some people I targeted specifically, I also sent emails to the SMT mailing list and things like that and just said, "Send me your best lesson plan. Send me the lesson plan that you look forward to teaching every year that works every time you do it." And people responded. And I wasn't sure what the response was gonna be. I thought maybe I'll get 40 and maybe I can choose 30 of them or something. I got over 220.

0:04:41.1 GR: Oh my gosh.

0:04:41.4 LV: Yeah. [laughter] And so I kept having to go back to Routledge and going, "Okay, so what are the limitations of the print again? What... How many... [laughter] How many pages am I allowed to have?" And there were just so many amazing, amazing lessons and it was so exciting to go through all of them and figure out what to include and it was just... The contributors were amazing, that they were willing to share their best lessons and let people see what they do and then allow people to replicate it also. So it was just... It was an amazingly big project, but it was also really, really rewarding and in a very nerdy way, a lot of fun.

0:05:33.5 GR: And also there are the wonderful companion materials that so many of these lessons have as well, can you talk a bit about that? 

0:05:42.8 LV: Yeah. So I think that was another innovation for the book is that, authors, when they talk about assignments that they might give or scores or analyses or whatever, they provided the materials and I created a website where all of these materials are on the website and you can go and say, "Oh, here's the assignment that this person uses after making that... After doing that lesson." And so there's links to recordings and there's all of this material that people can use to make these lessons happen. And that was really the goal was I wanted to make it as easy as possible for someone to read the chapter and implement the lesson in the way that the person was recommending. And there's... I also wanted it to be accessible to specialists in music theory, but there's a lot of non-specialists who are teaching music theory.

0:06:45.3 LV: There's a lot of schools these days that are hiring the bassoon/theory or trumpet/aural skills instructor and having them have these resources and materials was really important for me and having them be able to use them easily and right away. So that was the goal behind the supplemental materials was just making everything available as much as possible for everyone.

0:07:14.5 GR: That's great. We've been saying on the past few episodes, we are just in love with this book, I have to tell you. I'm [laughter] decidedly a fan and really have just been thrilled to, I mean, as you say, to have this window into these really excellent teachers' best lesson plans. It's just delightful.

0:07:35.8 LV: Yeah. Yeah. It's... I'm incredibly proud of the volume and I'm also incredibly grateful that I was allowed to come up with this crazy idea and see it through to completion and even more grateful that it's being recognized because that's just... That means a lot to me.

0:07:56.3 DN: So I have loved talking with you and Betsy Marvin about your work in music cognition. And your chapter in this on music theory and working memory opens by talking about the connection between success in math and music and how math pedagogy research can inform our teaching of music theory. Can you talk about that a bit? 

0:08:17.9 LV: Sure. So I wrote an article in, I guess, it was published in 2012 in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy about what music theory pedagogy can learn from mathematics pedagogy. And I have a really good friend who is a excellent mathematics teacher at the university level and he and I would have conversations about how people learn math and I... And he was also a musician. And so we started seeing relationships between these things. And so I just took it and ran with it. What happens is that the best predictor for how someone is going to do in a freshman level music theory class turns out not to be how good of a performer they are or how good of an ear they have, whether they have absolute pitch or anything like that, it's their score on the math portion of the SAT or ACT, depending on which exam they take.

0:09:21.9 GR: Wow.

0:09:23.0 DN: Wow.

0:09:25.5 LV: Yeah. And there's... I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done on why,