The Benefits of Music Education

Our Friends at the Royal Conservatory of Music have published a new brochure outlining the benefits of Music Education.  You can find a pdf version on their website here.

Is Music the engine behind language acquisition?

Contrary to the prevailing theories that music and language are  cognitively separate or that music is a byproduct of language, theorists at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) advocate that music underlies the ability to acquire language.

“Spoken language is a special type of music,” said Anthony Brandt, co-author of a theory paper published online this month in the journal Frontiers in Cognitive Auditory Neuroscience. “Language is typically viewed as fundamental to human intelligence, and music is often treated as being dependent on or derived from language. But from a developmental perspective, we argue that music comes first and language arises from music.”

Brandt, associate professor of composition and theory at the Shepherd School, co-authored the paper with Shepherd School graduate student Molly Gebrian and L. Robert Slevc, UMCP assistant professor of psychology and director of the Language and Music Cognition Lab.

“Infants listen first to sounds of language and only later to its meaning,” Brandt said. He noted that newborns’ extensive abilities in different aspects of speech perception depend on the discrimination of the sounds of language – “the most musical aspects of speech.”

The paper cites various studies that show what the newborn brain is capable of, such as the ability to distinguish the phonemes, or basic distinctive units of speech sound, and such attributes as pitch, rhythm and timbre.

Read more »

Musicians Hear Better into Old Age

Canadian researchers find playing a musical instrument delays the onset of age-related hearing decline

.Musicians retain the ability to distinguish speech in noisy conditions far longer than non-musicians. That’s the key finding of a just-published study by two Canadian researchers, who report playing music seems to delay the decay in an aging brain’s central auditory processing system.

“This finding suggests that continued practice throughout life may alleviate some of the age-related decline in speech perception often experienced by older adults,” Benjamin Rich Zendel and Claude Alain of the Rotman Research Centre and University of Toronto report in the journal Psychology and Aging.

Zendel and Alain conducted a study of 74 musicians ranging in age from 19 to 91, and 89 non-musicians ranging in age from 18 to 86. The musicians had started training no later than age 16, had at least six years of formal music lessons, and were still practicing regularly. Non-musicians had no more than two years of musical training of any kind, and did not play an instrument.

Wearing earphones, the participants completed four auditory tests which measured different hearing-related skills. One assessed pure tone thresholds, the ability to detect sounds that grow increasingly quieter; another measured the ability to detect a short gap in an otherwise continuous sound; a third measured the ability to detect the relationship between different sound frequencies.

The fourth and final test measured the ability to hear speech in a noisy environment. Participants heard — or attempted to hear — a series of six sentences against varying levels of background noise. Those who identified more of the sentences’ key words were given higher scores.
Read more »

New learning tool on the horizon, teaching hand position through electronic stimulus

This one sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is not.

WANT to learn a musical instrument, but can't find the time to practise? A device now under development can take control of your hand and teach you how to play a tune. No spirits of dead musicians are involved.

PossessedHand, being developed jointly by the University of Tokyo, Japan, and Sony Computer Science Laboratories, also in Tokyo, electrically stimulates the muscles in the forearm that move your fingers. A belt worn around that part of the subject's arm contains 28 electrode pads, which flex the joints between the three bones of each finger and the two bones of the thumb, and provide two wrist movements. Users were able to sense the movement of their hands that this produced, even with their eyes closed. "The user's fingers are controlled without the user's mind," explains Emi Tamaki of the University of Tokyo, who led the research.

Devices that stimulate people's fingers have been made before, but they used electrodes embedded in the skin, which are invasive, or glove-like devices that make it hard to manipulate an object. Tamaki claims that her device is far more comfortable. "The electric stimulations are similar to low-frequency massage stimulations that are commonly used," she says.

Having successfully hijacked a hand, the researchers tried to teach it how to play the koto, a traditional Japanese stringed instrument. Koto players wear different picks on three fingers, but pluck the strings with all five fingertips, so each finger produces a distinctive sound. A koto score tells players which fingers should be moved and when, and from this Tamaki and her team were able to generate instructions telling their device how and when to stimulate the wearer's muscles.

PossessedHand does not generate enough force to pluck the koto strings, but it could help novice players by teaching them the correct finger movements. Tamaki and her team found that two beginner players made a total of four timing errors when using PossessedHand, compared with 13 when playing unassisted. After prompting from the device, the players also made one less mistake about which finger to use.

Read the article at New Sceintist
Hand-hacking lets you pluck strings like a musical pro - tech - 23 June 2011 - New Scientist

Does Addictive Internet use alter the Brain?

Kids spend an increasing fraction of their formative years online, and it is a habit they dutifully carry into adulthood. Under the right circumstances, however, a love affair with the Internet may spiral out of control and even become an addiction.

Whereas descriptions of online addiction are controversial at best among researchers, a new study cuts through much of the debate and hints that excessive time online can physically rewire a brain.

The work, published June 3 in PLoS ONE, suggests self-assessed Internet addiction, primarily through online multiplayer games, rewires structures deep in the brain. What's more, surface-level brain matter appears to shrink in step with the duration of online addiction.

"I'd be surprised if playing online games for 10 to 12 hours a day didn't change the brain," says neuroscientist Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who wasn't involved in the study. "The reason why Internet addiction isn't a widely recognized disorder is a lack of scientific evidence. Studies like this are exactly what is needed to recognize and sette on its diagnostic criteria," if it is a disorder at all, she says.*

Defining an addiction
Loosely defined, addiction is a disease of the brain that compels someone to obsess over, obtain and abuse something, despite unpleasant health or social effects. And "internet addiction" definitions run the gamut, but most researchers similarly describe it as excessive (even obsessive) Internet use that interferes with the rhythm of daily life.

Yet unlike addictions to substances such as narcotics or nicotine, behavioral addictions to the Internet, food, shopping and even sex are touchy among medical and brain researchers. Only gambling seems destined to make it into the next iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the internationally recognized bible of things that can go awry with the brain.

Nevertheless, Asian nations are not waiting around for a universal definition of Internet addiction disorder, or IAD.

Read the article at Scientifc American

Do Musicians have Better Brains?

A new study here summary here) argues that musicians have more highly developed brains than the rest of us. The research relates the concept of high mind development to the potential to become really good at something:

New research shows that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.

Using EEG‘s to measure brain activity, researchers concluded the following about the brains of musicians:

They have well-coordinated frontal lobes. Our frontal lobes are what we use for higher brain functions, such as planning and logical thinking. Another characteristic is that activity at a certain frequency, so-called alpha waves, dominates. Alpha waves occur when the brain puts together details into wholes. Yet another EEG measure shows that individuals with high mind brain development use their brain resources economically. They are alert and ready for action when it is functional to be so, but they are relaxed and adopt a wait-and-see attitude when that is functional.

 Read the article at freakonomics.com

Sensory Deprivation Boosts Musicians’ Skill Level

Canadian researchers report floating in an isolation tank increased the technical skill level of young jazz players.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Everybody knows the standard answer. But newly published research suggests that, after you’ve labored all day in the practice room, you might want to spend an hour in a flotation tank.

Oshin Vartanian of the University of Toronto and Peter Suedfeld of the University of British Columbia report floating in an Epsom salt solution one hour per week for four weeks boosted the technical ability of a group of college music students. This suggests such periods of minimal sensory stimulation can improve performers’ perceptual-motor coordination.

Don’t start filling up the bathtub, however: This experiment, described in the journal Music and Medicine, featured a level of sensory deprivation achievable only in a specially designed tank. The device was invented in the 1950s by neuroscientist John Lilly; in the years since, its use has been linked to improved sports performance and heightened levels of creativity.

But would it work for budding be-boppers? To answer that question, the researchers conducted an experiment using 13 students enrolled in an intermediate-level jazz improvisation course at Vancouver Community College.
Read more »

Bribing the Kids, Research shows Stickers Work!

Ah! All of you piano teachers out there who give away "stickers" to your young students to positively enforce the development of good practice habits and good technique, well you now have some scientific evidence to back you up! Check out this recent article from the Boston Globe,
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CONSIDER THIS column a Mother’s Day gift. Fathers will want to read on, too. The subject: How to bribe your child.

Scientists have worked out a set of guiding principles for using rewards to shape behavior. I’ve tested them in my own home — they are shockingly effective. And I’ve become convinced that, more widely applied, they could make the world a happier, healthier place.

That’s a big claim, but let’s start with carrots. British scientist Jane Wardle and her colleagues recently tackled the age-old question of how to encourage kids to eat their vegetables. She recruited hundreds of 4- to 6-year-olds, and asked each to taste six vegetables, including carrots, celery, and cabbage. She had the children rank them, and selected each kid’s “target’’ veggie from the bottom half of their list.

Over the course of two weeks, Wardle compared doing nothing with three different strategies. One was simply asking the kids to try the vegetable. In another, the kids were lavishly praised (“Brilliant, you’re a great taster!’’) And in the third, the kids were offered a small reward (a sticker) for their efforts.

The rewards, according to a recent write-up in Psychological Science, enticed kids to try the vegetable more. But the big surprise is that, three months later, the sticker kids were still eating substantially more of it. (The praised kids also ate more, though not as much.) This is a key insight into human behavior: Temporary rewards can bring permanent change.

Wardle’s second finding has implications that might not be immediately apparent: the kids came to truly like their vegetable. This runs counter to decades of influential research in psychology and economics suggesting material rewards can backfire, undermining a person’s “intrinsic motivation.’’ But Wardle’s result did not surprise University of Alberta professor David Pierce, who has analyzed nearly 150 studies on motivation and concluded that the backlash is easily avoided.

Based on what is now known, Pierce and others suggest a set of guiding principles.

Choose a specific, positive behavior. “Have at least three bites of a vegetable every dinner for a week.’’ (Good.) “Don’t annoy me.’’ (Not good.)

Choose smart rewards. Work with your kid to choose the prize, investing them and ensuring it’s one they truly desire. A few selections from the LEGO catalogue were all it took me to solve an Olympian parenting problem: thumb sucking. But a reward need not be large.

Stay positive. In our house, we call them “challenges.’’ It is not about “fixing’’ a negative. Don’t nag. Let it be their choice. Pile on the praise.

Small steps first. Faced with an overwhelming task, start with easy goals, and small rewards, and slowly build. So, you might start with “avoid thumb one day between breakfast and nap.’’ Consider a detailed progress chart.

We are not robots. The research warns that material rewards can sap creativity, or backfire if someone is already quite interested in a task, or motivated by idealism. Hopefully you can inspire your young scholar with the thrill of learning, rather than paying for grades.

Read the article here

The Rising costs of rehearsal space for musicians

This post is a little off topic, but certainly many urban areas in BC are experiencing perhaps similar problems. The costs for musicians for good rehearsal or studio space in our bigger cities has risen dramatically in recent years, to the point where many artists can no longer afford to pay for studio space in the big urban centres. Many of our community music schools are also in situations where they do not own their own studios for teaching, some have community support with reduced rents, while some are paying all the bills on their own.

Would you pay $600 a month to rent a closet? The Rising Cost of Rehearsal Space in Toronto.  I wonder if any similiar studies have been undertaken for Vancouver?

Canadian students do well in International Survey

It seems our students in Canada are fairing much better than our friends to the south in the US.

Recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) show Chinese students, taking the PISA exam for the first time, placed first in all three categories of math, science and reading, while US students were around or below average.PISA is an international analysis conducted every three years that measures performance of 15 year-olds in reading, math and science. It began in 2000, coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an organization of 34 member countries. In 2009, 60 countries and 5 other educational systems, including Shanghai-China, participated in the PISA program.
Surprises for some were the overall results of the program. In combined reading literacy, US 15 year-olds scored an average of 500, slightly above the OECD overall average of 493. The combined reading scale includes reflect and evaluate, access and retrieve, and integrate and interpret.

In reading literacy, 18 percent of US students scored below level 2, described by OECD as “a baseline level of proficiency, at which students begin to demonstrate the reading literacy competencies that will enable them to participate effectively and productively in life.”
Among OECD countries, the top five performers in combined reading literacy scale were the Republic of Korea (539), Finland (536), Canada (524), New Zealand (521), and Japan (520).
The top performing non-OECD countries or educational systems in combined reading literacy were Shanghai-China (556), Hong Kong-China (533) and Singapore (526).

In mathematics literacy, the US average score of 487 fell below the OECD average score of 496. Of the other 33 OECD member countries, 17 countries scored higher averages than the US. Of the 64 other OECD countries participating in PISA, 23 had higher average scores than the US.
Top five performing OECD countries in math were the Republic of Korea (546), Finland (541), Switzerland (534), Japan (529), and Canada (527).

The top non-OECD countries participating in the PISA math literacy exam were Shanghai-China (600), Singapore (562), Hong Kong-China (555), Chinese Taipei (543) and Liechtenstein (536).

In science literacy, the US had an average score of 502, not far off the OECD average of 501. Still, among OECD countries, 12 had higher averages than the US. Among non-OECD countries, 18 scored higher than the US.
Top five OECD countries in science were Finland (554), Japan (539), Republic of Korea (538), New Zealand (532), and Canada (529).
The top non-OECD countries in science were Shanghai-China (575), Hong Kong-China (549), Singapore (542), Chinese Taipei (520), and Liechtenstein (520).

Overall, only 2 percent of US students performed at the highest proficiency level. That compares to Korea at 8 percent and Finland at 5 percent.
A new report on global educational systems, What the U.S. Can Learn From the Worlds Most Successful Education Reform Efforts (pdf), published by the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation, noted that while the US was the first nation to offer free public education opportunities for its young people which resulted in the best-educated workforce by 1945, the 21st century of a globally connected high-tech economy has allowed countries such as China, Canada, Korea, Japan and Finland to lead the way as best-performing PISA countries.

The report comes at a time when political leaders in Wisconsin are attempting to reduce teachers’ bargaining rights and reducing their pensions.
In Texas, as many as 100,000 teachers face possible layoffs if the state is unable to find a solution for its $27 billion budget shortfall, an issue being avoided as its governor, Rick Perry, fast-tracks controversial abortion and state voter ID measures.
The OECD report suggests several measures for bringing the US up to a competitive level on the international scale, including improving the status of the teaching profession to that of the world’s best performing economies, establishing and applying high standards to all students,
improving per capita spending patterns on its students, and controlling socio-economic differences to help level the playing field for economically disadvantaged students.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/304761#ixzz1GyobOZgU

Music produces a natural high, McGill study finds

Music triggers the same pleasure-reward system in the brain as food, sex and illicit drugs, according to McGill University researchers who have been peering into minds of music lovers.

They've discovered the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine is released when people listen to their favourite music, be it rock, jazz or classical.

The finding by the team at McGill, reported yesterday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, helps explain why music is so pleasurable and popular.

It also hints at why music has been so valued and important throughout human history and across cultures, says neuroscientist Robert Zatorre, who leads the McGill team at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

"Music has such deep roots in the brain that it engages this biologically ancient system," says Zatorre, explaining how dopamine generates the sensation of pleasure in the striatum, a primitive region deep in the brain.

It's long been known dopamine is produced and generates pleasure when we eat or have sex, reinforcing activities that are key to survival. The Montreal study provides the first evidence that dopamine is also responsible for musical highs.

"For reasons that we don't entirely understand, somehow music was able to kick in with the same system," Zatorre says. "And that gives it power that it might not otherwise have."

While music may not be key to survival, he says it has been "very" useful.

"Because it gives us pleasure, we can use it to our advantage to modulate our state of mind."




Read more: 
Music produces a natural high, McGill study finds

Coalition for Music Education - new web site

Here in Canada, the Coalition for Music Education has a new site - branded "Music Makes Us"
Check out the site for information about music advocacy for school music programs, national events such as Canadian Music Week and Music Monday.

The site also links to research in Music Education showing the benefits of arts training, the state of the art of music education in Canadian Public schools, and more; definitely a web site to be aware of.

Music Makes us - Coalition for Music Education

Spending on the arts in Canada - musical instrument purchases down 16%

Looking at this report from Hill Research over my morning coffee, I am struck by a couple of items that kind of leap off the page at me that seem to be of great importance, especially those of us in the business of music education.

Between 1997 and 2008, consumer spending on art works and events grew by 59%, more than any other category of cultural spending. Some individual cultural items saw a substantial increase in spending between 1997 and 2008 (all figures adjusted for inflation):

• Televisions, DVD players, digital video recorders, and other TV or video components: 124% increase.

• Works of art, carvings and other decorative ware: 107% increase.

• Live performing arts: 50% increase.

•  Books (excluding school books): 24% increase.

• Admissions to museums and heritage-related activities: 21% increase.

• Movie theatre admissions: 21% increase.

Spending on newspapers, magazines and periodicals decreased between 1997 and 2008, after adjusting for inflation: newspapers saw a 26% decrease, while magazines and periodicals saw a 28% decline.

Ok, so they are including TV, DVD and other electronic toys in this study, and no surprise that tech spending has seen an increase of 124%.

Live performing arts: 50% increase (Yes!!), and theatre admissions are up.
Print media is in serious decline, but I don't think that is a big surprise to anyone .

But let's look at spending on Arts education, and musical instruments and lessons: (bold and italic markings are mine)

• Spending on reading material declined by 1%. Spending on reading material was at its lowest level in 2008 ($4.8 billion). Spending on reading material was highest in 2002, 2004 and 2005 ($5.1 billion in each of these years) but subsequently decreased to reach $4.8 billion in 2008.

• Spending on art supplies and musical instruments decreased by 1%. Spending on art supplies and musical instruments decreased in the late 1990s and experienced its lowest spending level in 1999 ($980 million). Spending increased slightly in subsequent years to peak at $1.3 billion in 2004, and spending reached this level again in 2006. Spending on art supplies and musical instruments subsequently declined, reaching $1.1 billion in 2008.

• Spending on photographic equipment and services decreased by 2%. Spending on photographic equipment and services peaked at $2.4 billion in 2004 but subsequently decreased to reach $1.8 billion in 2008.

If we look further in the report  we see:

Many cultural categories saw a decrease in consumer spending between 2006 and 2008, possibly due to consumers reining in discretionary spending during the recent recession in Canada. Consumer spending on culture decreased by 4% between 2006 and 2008, while overall consumer spending increased by 4%. Among the cultural categories:

• Consumer spending on home entertainment increased by 1%.

•  Spending on reading material decreased by 5%.

• Consumer spending on movie theatre admissions decreased by 6%.

• Spending on art works and events decreased by 8%.

• Consumer spending on art supplies and musical instruments decreased by 16%.

• Spending on photographic equipment and services decreased by 23%.

A 16% decline in musical instrument purchase needless to say is huge.  So am I correct to perceive that money once being spent on the arts on things like books, art supplies, musical instruments - items necessary for artistic creation;  are now being spent on consumer products, mainly electronic gadgets, flat screen TV's and video consoles?

Is "Guitar Hero" replacing purchasing and  learning the real instrument?

Thoughts and comments?

 Report from Hill Institute for the Arts

British Columbians spend nearly $4 billion on cultural goods and services, over 4 times higher than government spending on culture in the province

Consumer Spending on Culture in Canada, the Provinces and 12 Metropolitan Areas in 2008, the 32nd report in the Statistical Insights on the Arts series from Hill Strategies Research, shows that BC residents spent $3.8 billion on cultural goods and services in 2008, or 2.9% of total consumer spending in the province. The $3.8 billion in consumer spending on culture is more than four times larger than the $920 million spent on culture in British Columbia by all levels of government in 2007/08.

At $869 per resident, British Columbia consumers’ cultural spending is the fourth highest of all provinces. Cultural spending per capita is highest in Alberta ($963) and Saskatchewan ($905). Per capita consumer spending on culture is highest in the five western-most provinces, led by Alberta ($963), Saskatchewan ($905) and Ontario ($880).

Across the country, Canadian consumers spent $27.4 billion on cultural goods and services in 2008, or $841 per capita. Consumer spending on culture is three times larger than the $9.2 billion spent on culture by all levels of government in 2007/08.

The report examines spending on cultural goods and services, including art supplies and musical instruments, art works and events, home entertainment, movie theatre admissions, photographic equipment and services, and reading material. The data is drawn from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending, a yearly questionnaire on Canadians’ spending habits.

British Columbians spend twice as much on live performing arts as on live sports 

British Columbians spent twice as much on live performing arts ($200 million) than on live sports events ($100 million) in 2008. In addition, more than twice as many BC households spent at least some money on live performing arts (41% of households) as on live sports events (19%).

British Columbia is also highly ranked in other per capita rankings

The report also provides comparisons of consumer spending on four key arts-related items in 2008: live performing arts; admissions to museums and heritage-related activities; works of art, carvings and other decorative ware; and books. British Columbia is highly ranked on all four of these arts-related items. For per capita spending on admissions to museums and heritage-related activities, Alberta ranks first ($21), followed by Ontario ($17) and British Columbia ($16). Per capita spending on works of art, carvings and other decorative ware is highest in Alberta ($43), followed by British Columbia ($38) and Ontario ($33). Regarding per capita spending on books, Alberta ranks first ($52), followed by British Columbia ($47) and Manitoba ($42). Per capita spending on live performing arts is second in B.C. ($47), behind Saskatchewan ($51) and tied with Manitoba and Ontario (also $47).

21% growth in cultural spending between 1997 and 2008

After adjusting for inflation, BC residents’ spending on cultural goods and services grew by 21% between 1997 and 2008, which is lower than the 35% rise in spending on all goods and services during the same period. The highest increase among the cultural categories was art works and events, which rose by 54% between 1997 and 2008. In the country as a whole, cultural spending increased by 28% between 1997 and 2008 after adjusting for inflation.

Vancouver 11th among 12 metropolitan areas
On a per capita basis, Vancouverites’ cultural spending ($795 per person) ranks 11th among 12 metropolitan areas in Canada. Total cultural spending was $1.8 billion in Vancouver in 2008, representing 49% of the provincial total.

From Hill Strategies Research

Consumer spending on culture: 3 times larger than government spending on culture

 Consumer Spending on Culture in Canada, the Provinces and 12 Metropolitan Areas in 2008,the 32^nd report in the Statistical Insights on the Arts series from Hill Strategies Research, shows that Canadian consumers spent over $27 billion on cultural goods and services in 2008. Some key findings of the report include:

 

• The $27.4 billion in consumer spending on culture in Canada represents $841 for every Canadian resident.
• Consumer spending on culture is three times larger than the $9.2 billion spent on culture by all levels of government in 2007/08.
• Consumer spending on culture is three times larger than consumer spending on hotels, motels and other travel accommodations ($9.2 billion).
• Canadians’ spending on live performing arts ($1.4 billion) is more than double their spending on live sports events ($650 million).
• After adjusting for inflation, cultural spending increased by 28% between 1997 and 2008, double the growth in the Canadian population.
• The 28% increase in cultural spending is lower than the 37% increase in spending on all goods and services between 1997 and 2008.
• Between 1997 and 2008, consumer spending on art works and events grew by 59%, more than any other category of cultural spending.
• Cultural spending per capita varies significantly between the provinces and is highest in Alberta ($963) and Saskatchewan ($905). The five western-most provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario) have per capita levels of cultural spending that are above the Canadian average ($841).
• Among the provinces, Alberta had the highest growth in consumer spending between 1997 and 2008, both on cultural goods and services (40%) and on all goods and services (69%), after adjusting for inflation.
• Among 12 metropolitan areas, Calgary and Saskatoon have the highest per capita consumer spending on cultural goods and services.

The report examines the spending of Canadians on cultural goods and services, including art supplies and musical instruments, art works and events, home entertainment, movie theatre admissions, photographic equipment and services, and reading material. The data is drawn from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending, a yearly questionnaire on Canadians’ spending habits.

 

From Hill Strategies Research

 

Do Podcasts Help Students Learn?

Before George Washington University renewed its iTunes U contract, the administration wanted to know how the podcasts impacted student learning and engagement.

In fall 2009, the university's Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning studied a world history class of 262 students to find the answer.

But the answer isn't yes or no — the answer depends on the student's learning style, gender and motivation.

“If your goal is to find a magic bullet that makes all students better, this isn’t it," said Hugh Agnew, a professor from the Elliott School of International Affairs who taught the course. "But If your goal is to reach some students better that maybe you aren’t reaching so terribly well, then I think this is worth trying.”

6 interesting results

He created 10-minute podcasts with graphics and audio, as well as a text transcript of the podcasts with visuals to supplement his lecture class. In the first research run, half of the class used the podcasts, and the other half used the text. In the second run, they switched.

Overall, the study found no statistical difference between the performance of students who used the text and the ones who used the podcasts. But in subgroups, the podcasts did make a difference, said Yianna Vovides, director of instructional design at the center who conducted the research.

Three results that Vovides found interesting include the following:

1. Podcasts grab attention and maintain it.
2. Students conceptually understood the content, not just remembered it, and the scale of understanding seemed to tip toward the podcasts.
3. The students who said they weren't that motivated at the beginning of the class scored higher on the test when they listened to the podcasts.

And Agnew found these three results fascinating:

1. Guys improved their results from the pre-test to the post-test more with the podcasts. But the women's results showed no difference.
2. From the beginning of the research to the end, the number of students who preferred podcasts nearly tripled, jumping from 21 to 62.
3. In general, no one saw a dramatic uptick in results with the text or the podcasts. If they did the work, they did better on the test, he said.


Do Podcasts Help Students Learn?

Ontarians value the arts more than ever, survey shows

I wonder if the same thing could be said about British Columbians?

Ontarians believe more passionately in the importance of the arts than they did 16 years ago, a survey suggests.
The poll, conducted by Environics Research Group on behalf of the Ontario Arts Council, documents the attitudes of the province’s residents toward the arts as an issue of the quality of life, both for individuals and communities.
The survey, which was released on Wednesday, is partly composed of six duplicate questions from the last similar survey, conducted in 1994, and the responses to five showed stronger sentiment in favour of the arts. About 73 per cent of respondents said they would miss the arts if they were not available in their community, up six percentage points from 1994, while 81 per cent said the arts are important to their own quality of life, up seven points.
Of the six repeated questions, the only decline was in those who felt the success of Canadian artists gave them a sense of pride in Canadian achievement, to 95 per cent from 96. Many of the gains came from those who strongly backed the arts.
The survey also shows agreement across all regions of the province and all demographics, although women, those with higher education and those living in larger communities are typically the most ardent arts supporters.

Read the article at the Globe and Mail

Students decide about higher education earlier than thought, study shows

Many young teenagers set their sights on university or college earlier than once believed – before they arrive in Grade 9 – raising questions about whether governments and educators are focusing on the right years of schooling.

New research shows that almost half of low-income students make their decision about postsecondary education before they even set foot in high school, regardless of the financial burden. This presents a unique challenge for governments, in that early attitudes about higher education are just as important as access.

For governments looking to strengthen Canada’s work force, it will mean redirecting some of their efforts from making education affordable to reaching out earlier than previously realized was necessary to those at risk of not advancing.

Read the article at the Globe and Mail

Playing Music During Exercise

For a study published last year, British researchers asked 12 healthy male college students to ride stationary bicycles while listening to music that, as the researchers primly wrote, “reflected current popular taste among the undergraduate population.” Each of the six songs chosen differed somewhat in tempo from the others.


The volunteers were told to ride the bicycles at a pace that they comfortably could maintain for 30 minutes. Then each rode in three separate trials, wearing headphones tuned to their preferred volume. Each had his heart rate, power output, pedal cadence, enjoyment of the music and feelings of how hard the riding felt monitored throughout each session. During one of the rides, the six songs ran at their normal tempos. During the other rides, the tempo of the tracks was slowed by 10 percent or increased by 10 percent. The riders were not informed about the tempo manipulations.

But their riding changed significantly in response. When the tempo slowed, so did their pedaling and their entire affect. Their heart rates fell. Their mileage dropped. They reported that they didn’t like the music much. On the other hand, when the tempo of the songs was upped 10 percent, the men covered more miles in the same period of time, produced more power with each pedal stroke and increased their pedal cadences. Their heart rates rose. They reported enjoying the music — the same music — about 36 percent more than when it was slowed. But, paradoxically, they did not find the workout easier. Their sense of how hard they were working rose 2.4 percent. The up-tempo music didn’t mask the discomfort of the exercise. But it seemed to motivate them to push themselves. As the researchers wrote, when “the music was played faster, the participants chose to accept, and even prefer, a greater degree of effort.

Read more »

How Arts Training Improves Attention and Cognition

Does education in the arts transfer to seemingly unrelated cognitive abilities? Researchers are finding evidence that it does. Michael Posner argues that when children find an art form that sustains their interest, the subsequent strengthening of their brains’ attention networks can improve cognition more broadly.

If there were a surefire way to improve your brain, would you try it? Judging by the abundance of products, programs and pills that claim to offer “cognitive enhancement,” many people are lining up for just such quick brain fixes. Recent research offers a possibility with much better, science-based support: that focused training in any of the arts—such as music, dance or theater—strengthens the brain’s attention system, which in turn can improve cognition more generally. Furthermore, this strengthening likely helps explain the effects of arts training on the brain and cognitive performance that have been reported in several scientific studies, such as those presented in May 2009 at a neuroeducation summit at Johns Hopkins University (co-sponsored by the Dana Foundation).

We know that the brain has a system of neural pathways dedicated to attention. We know that training these attention networks improves general measures of intelligence. And we can be fairly sure that focusing our attention on learning and performing an art—if we practice frequently and are truly engaged—activates these same attention networks. We therefore would expect focused training in the arts to improve cognition generally.

Some may construe this argument as a bold associative leap, but it’s grounded in solid science. The linchpin in this equation is the attention system. Attention plays a crucial role in learning and memory, and its importance in cognitive performance is undisputed. If you really want to learn something, pay attention! We all know this intuitively, and plenty of strong scientific data back it up.

Read the article from the Dana Foundation