Strategies of Online Music Teaching: The Story of Eight Cases during the COVID–19 Lockdown in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In the subject areas of performing and visual arts, most teaching and learning take place in the traditional classroom, with face-to-face instruction methods but as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic the University of Visual and Performing Arts (UVPA) promptly moved the delivery of all of its undergraduate courses to an online format. During the COVID-19 period, the UVPA, like other Sri Lankan universities, began to use emerging technologies and tools such as Zoom and a Learning Management System (LMS) for pedagogical intent. The goal of this study is to find out what teaching strategies can be applied to improve music teaching and learning in an online environment and how faculty staff experienced teaching music online. This research is designed as a Multiple Case Study. Depending on the purpose of the research, structured interviews were conducted to collect feedback from randomly selected faculty members. The participants were eight faculty members from the Faculty of Music engaged in teaching during the 2018/2019 academic year. Previously, the Faculty of Music has underutilized e-learning and the use of an LMS. However, the recent COVID-19 outbreak has forced them to rely on e-learning/online learning in order to ensure the continuity of educating the students enrolled in the degree programmes offered by the faculty. The results revealed that most of the teaching staff were new to teaching music online; however, they learned how to teach online given the circumstances which had left them with no other feasible solution. According to this study, the online music teaching activities utilized have improved teaching performance and technological skills and abilities, saved time, allowed participants to complete tasks more quickly, enhanced productivity of work, and increased educational values.