Co-Teaching with High School Students for Music Teaching

Abstract

This article presents a didactic proposal for teaching musical notation and solfège sight-singing through co-teaching with secondary school students. The goal was to explore the advantages and limitations of using a form of peer learning where students play the role of co-teachers alongside the teacher. We wanted to find out whether this proposal would lead to significant improvements among both co-teachers and tutees, identifying the actions responsible for this progress, and paying particular attention to how students learn in the role of co-teachers. This study was based on a mixed-method explanatory sequential design, where the quantitative data were analyzed first and then the qualitative data. The quantitative results showed statistically significant improvements when comparing the pre-test and post-test results of all the students participating in the didactic proposal. These improvements can be attributed to the personalized support provided by the co-teachers, the opportunities for peer assessment that enabled progress to be monitored and provided feedback, and the possibilities of learning by teaching. In conclusion, the results of this study endorse the viability of student co-teaching in secondary school music education.