Curriculum, learning and teaching
Bringing music and mathematics alive through interdisciplinary learning Francesco Banchini and Lynda Thompson describe a collaborative approach Our schools have a responsibility to prepare young people for their futures. However, in a rapidly changing climate for technology and social change, this is becoming increasingly challenging. Educationally our response has been to focus on the acquisition of skills which can be applied in a range of contexts, with one way to concentrate this focus being through interdisciplinary learning. The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme (MYP) highlights the importance of applying learning through different subject disciplines: ‘Interdisciplinary instruction enlists students’ multiple capabilities (aesthetic, social, analytical) and prepares them to solve problems, create products or ask questions in ways that go beyond single disciplinary perspectives’ (IBO, 2010). The interdisciplinary unit (IDU) we will describe here was born out of a desire to understand if there is a ‘reason’ behind our reaction to music and if mathematics can prove Winter
Summer |
| 2018
useful in explaining that reason. And so, as teachers of music (Francesco) and mathematics (Lynda) we sought to work with our students to understand why certain music makes us sad, while other music makes us want to party. Within our own backgrounds also existed the social anthropological interest to explore how different cultures have created music which provokes different emotional reactions. We built an MYP IDU centred upon exploring to what extent our emotions can be described as mathematical. This focused on pattern and repetition, used in a variety of ways in both disciplines. Our aim as educators was to give the students an experience of using their understanding and skills from two very different subject areas in a truly integrated and purposeful manner, drawing upon the heritage, both in terms of mathematics and music, of a variety of different cultures. When exploring the Ancient Greeks, students made their own mono-chord instruments and used these to explore
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