Abstract:

Equality and inclusion are concepts that feature prominently in higher education policy discourse. Educational technologies allow institutions to address these concepts with rich and inclusive learning environments, and by providing means by which to reach communities beyond the traditional campus. Some disciplines, however, have been slow to adopt relevant technologies and continue to offer a traditional educational experience that can create barriers to learning. Conservatoire training, for instance, traditionally focuses its provision on a limited number of musical genres, and these continue to remain separated within the curricula.

In order to realise its mission statement of enriching the cultural, social and economic life of diverse communities, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance partnered with the Open University to develop the first Higher Education distance-learning course in practical musicianship in the United Kingdom: the Certificate in the Practice of Music Making (CPMM). The course, delivered by Trinity Laban Conservatoire, can be taken as a one-year part-time programme, but it also forms an integral part of the Open University’s distance-learning Bachelor’s Degree in Music. As a result, its cohorts span a wide range of musical genres, ages, socio-economic statuses, and educational backgrounds. This has necessitated careful and considerate development of a curriculum that meets the learning needs of a diverse student demographic.

This virtual presentation will demonstrate, by means of a comparative study of the learning trajectories of two CPMM cohorts, how educational technologies and curriculum design have successfully integrated a diverse student demographic into a vibrant learning community through a rich blend of study materials developed by Trinity Laban Conservatoire and the Open University. The presentation will further highlight the challenges that have been identified, and which current technologies have failed to address adequately, with proposed solutions for implementation in the next academic year.

Keywords:

Music education, conservatoire, distance learning, diversity, joint degree programmes.