Mikey Mayer

SPIT Paper #1 MUS 3400

1/23/2020

Groffman, J., & Wolfe, Z. M. (2019). Using Visual Mapping to Promote Higher-Level Thinking

in Music-Making. Music Educators Journal, 106(2), 58–65.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0027432119877926

In the article, “Using visual mapping to promote higher-level thinking in music-making,”

it brings up an important issue in music education, and that is rote learning. The authors explain

that with the constructivism stance of education as it is now, the use of mapping can be very

important to active listening and critical thinking. Visual mapping helps critical thinking because

it allows the student to be “metacognitive about their knowledge, it can be part of a constructivist

stance to music teaching, in which learners are active, engaged participants” (59). Mapping is a

lot like brainstorming different topics that the child would have some familiarity with and map

out other parts of the subject with subtopics. This method is taken from other fields of education,

but makes the student think for themselves and eliminates the element of rote teaching. This

mapping idea is very student-centered at the basis, because its focus is to make sure each child

understands the concepts that are being thrown at them during rehearsal. The authors say that

often students know the difference between two terms but cannot differentiate them from each

other, like saying the tempo is slower when they mean the rhythm. The use of these maps is to

clear any confusions and promote higher-level thinking on musical elements. This sort of

teaching allows for students to work together and pool ideas from one another to find a common

knowledge base. The authors stated that these concept maps are best utilized in a formative
assessment, where there is little to no pressure or stress from the students, so they are not afraid

to be wrong. Nice summary. Makes me curious to read your article.

I do not use visual learning that often, but I understand where this concept is coming, but

it is not the best way for every student to learn the material. True. I am a very visual learner, but

not everyone is. I thought the article was very informative, talking about how it is in a lot of

other disciplines. I never did this in music classes, but I have done similar projects in history and

other social study classes, where students would break into groups and share ideas of what is

right and what is wrong. I feel like if I had something like this happen when I was in high school,

I would have learned a lot more then, rather then learning a lot of material for the first time in

college. The times that I used it in those other classes, it helped my understanding a lot about the

subject, but I feel with music, unused terms may be difficult to piece together if there is not a

basis in theory from the teacher.

When I become a teacher, I think I will definitely use this method of teaching in order to

make the students more confident in their knowledge of music and have a nice change of pace so

the students do not get into a routine of rote learning. In order to keep the students critically

thinking, they cannot be just told things, but they need to explore the content in order to get the

most out of everyone. Definitely true. This will be a good teaching tool for visual learners, but by

talking through problems and having a social interaction, it can have effects on the auditory

learners as well. Also true. The authors did a great job explaining why this helps with real world

examples and even relate it to the National Standards of the Arts, which shows their credibility.

My only disagreement with this type of learning tool is the fact they never spoke about the other

types of learning, but primarily focused the mapping to the visual learners. This method would

have helped me substantially in terms of music theory and higher level thinking if it was used in
my education. I never really had formative assignments in class where we do these, so they just

may be uncommon in the music classroom, but it seems to have a lot of benefits.

This was very nicely written, Mikey. Thorough and clear. Thanks.