Flexible training pathways for freelance music educators the rise of MOOCs as training providers Dr Luke Gilmour

Abstract
Freelance musicians who conduct ensembles of school children are an essential and vibrant part of the music education landscape in NSW schools. Freelance school conductors can be found working in every type of school environment in NSW public, private, primary and secondary. The kinds of ensembles that they direct are predominantly concert bands, jazz ensembles, orchestras and choirs. However, the lack of organisation in their training and career development is an ongoing source of frustration for the sector. This paper aims to explore the background of freelance school conductor training by presenting findings from the researchers DMA survey data (N=50) and case-study interviews (N=3). There is a recognised need for ongoing professional development of peripatetic music educators who fall outside the structured pathways and accreditation frameworks provided by the National Teacher Standards and the associated state-based accrediting bodies. For freelance music educators in NSW schools, who arent recognised or perhaps trained as classroom music educators, there is both a perceived lack of effectiveness and a lack of financial incentive to undertake ongoing professional development. In a study of freelance school conductors in NSW and in a review of literature it became apparent that freelance school conductors and, by extension, many peripatetic music tutors are required to function as music performers, educators and business owners. However, most music educators generally have tertiary training in one or two of these three areas. Of those freelance conductors surveyed, participants provided a range of qualitative responses to the motivation that engages or disengages them in ongoing professional development. Responses centred around three main areas financial motivation, qualification enhancement and networking. In my current role as Vice President of ABODA NSW, I am currently investigating ways to structure professional development for freelance school conductors. One such recent addition to the online learning space is the rapid rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This presentation will conclude with a brief review of my own experience in taking a MOOC delivered by Coursera. Keywords professional development, freelance, conductors, training, online, MOOC

Introduction
As a freelance school conductor (FSC), this study has personal significance for me as a researcher. My background and how I became engaged as a FSC is a fragmented journey, like many of my colleagues. Upon graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music (Performance) with Classical Saxophone as my major, I quickly discovered that the only form of full-time, salaried performance work was with the Australian Defence Force bands. I proceeded to join the Royal Australian Navy Band and stayed with them for five years. Then with the desire to start a family came an aversion to spending extended time away from home. I was also getting restless with being employed and sought the autonomy or at least perceived autonomy of being my own boss rather than answering to

a rank structure. I had a desire to be a school conductor having been inspired by a couple of dynamic visiting conductors when growing up in country New South Wales, Australia, and also wanted to pursue a professional orchestral conducting career. Thus, I left the relative security of a full-time performing position as a government employee, with all its benefits, to embark on a career as a freelance conductor, deriving the majority of my income from working in schools. Ironically, at the conclusion of my doctoral studies, I was no longer freelance but found myself employed full-time as a school conductor. This paper is an overview of part of the research undertaken as part of my doctoral dissertation investigating the lives of freelance school conductors in New South Wales (Gilmour, 2012). Specifically, I will explore the following: 1. An overview of the study and participants 2. Responses from the survey and case-studies in relation to pre-service training and ongoing professional development 3. An introduction to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Project overview There are many ways to describe the people that direct large ensembles in NSW schools. However, most people fall into two categories salaried classroom teachers employed by the NSW Department of Education or a Private School to primarily teach classroom music, and those that are engaged in a freelance, casual or part-time basis, specifically to conduct a school ensemble. In Hardys (2006) study on factors that influence the success of large music ensembles in NSW public schools, 80% of the respondent Directors were classified in the first category of being salaried classroom teachers. This study is focussed on the other directors or conductors and is not limited to public secondary schools. For the purposes of this study, someone who is regarded as a school conductor is one who has leadership responsibility for direction of an ensemble musical rehearsal. That is, private tutors who teach on a one-on-one (or small group) the fundamentals of learning an instrument fall outside the scope of this study. The concept of freelance is somewhat harder to define due to the disparate nature of how conductors are engaged to work in a school. In this study, I have further defined freelance school conductors as: primarily engaged in the state of New South Wales conductors working with school age children in a school and/or community environment; having some or all of their regular income derived from contract, casual or part-time work as a freelance school conductor; not employed exclusively as full-time salaried classroom teachers.

Freelance school conductors can be found working in every type of school environment in NSW public, private, primary and secondary. The kinds of ensembles that they direct are predominantly concert bands, jazz ensembles, orchestras and choirs.

Training pathways and participant responses

The study was a mixed-methods project with phase one consisting of a largely quantitative survey (N=50) followed by a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews (N=3). Participants in the survey and case studies came from a variety of backgrounds and training pathways. The vast majority of freelance school conductors in the survey sample (82%) had

tertiary training in Music. This high level of tertiary training is reflective of the arts sector (65%) as a whole having a higher level of education compared with the general workforce (25%) (Throsby & Zednik, 2010). In addition, the level of tertiary training is indicative of current trends where most schools require their peripatetic staff to have tertiary qualifications whereas in an earlier era, this was not the case (Thompson, 1990). Despite this high level of tertiary training, there seemed to be general dissatisfaction with specific training designed to equip school conductors to operate in the education sector. Inadequate pre-service training and professional development in the area of business skills and financial management is a recurring theme in this project. The three interviewees all referred to it and the survey also highlighted the deficiency in this area, which in turn led to stress for our FSCs. One survey participant commented that there is no training for what I do! while another commented that they learned through doing it on the job. Aside from business skills, lack of training in student pedagogy provided a degree of stress, particularly for those FSCs without an education degree. Like many music performance majors, these FSCs have found themselves in a situation by necessity or design where they are educating young musicians either in a private lesson or ensemble setting or both (Watson, 2010). Extending from this situation is the stress caused by having to deal with the parents of these students and the associated school communities as a whole. There are no pre-service training programs designed to train someone as a freelance school conductor. This perhaps points to the broader issue of training musicians to be able to operate in the music industry more broadly. That is to develop skills that are not only discipline specific but cover a range of career management processes which lead to success in artistic industries (Bennett, 2008; Bridgstock, 2011a, 2011b; Evans & Bodrova, 2011; Hearn & Bridgstock, 2010; Hong, Essig, & Bridgstock, 2012).
Undergraduate music performance degree was woefully inadequate in preparing me for work as a teacher (2 semesters of bad-fit pedagogy), conductor (4 semesters of conducting 101), or as a business owner (none). Postgrad Education training was quite helpful in pedagogy and student management, but not directly. Survey response Then ideally you'd come out of an undergrad degree that somehow professionally accredited you to be a conductor working with school kids and they would have told you this is the way to do it, this is why. Daniel, Case Study

In relation to ongoing professional development (PD), nearly all of the participants indicated their agreement that ongoing PD is important. However, there was not a positive response to participants perceptions of postgraduate conductor training in Australia with a mean response indicating dissatisfaction with choral, orchestral, band and jazz conducting training.

Table 1. FSC perceptions of tertiary postgraduate training

Australian universities provide excellent postgraduate training in: N Choral conducting in schools 39 Orchestral conducting in schools 39 Concert Band conducting in schools 39 Jazz Ensemble conducting in schools 39

M 2.2 2.1 2.0 1.9

SD 1.1 1.1 1.0 0.9

Note. Responses could be selected from a range of 15, with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree.

Motivation for professional development

The freelance conductors in the survey and case studies provided a range of qualitative responses to the motivation that engages or disengages them in ongoing professional development. Responses centred around three main areas financial motivation, qualification enhancement and networking. Financial motivation One participant commented on the capacity for greater earning power through completing professional development. However, there were several who complained about the cost of undertaking courses, with one saying that they were absolutely devastated and appalled at the costs of a Masters in Conducting. Aside from the costs of completing a formal qualification, many freelancers struggle with setting aside the time for even a short program, let alone a two-year postgraduate course. Any study that is to be undertaken takes away from a FSCs available number of billable hours and it must be paid for out of their earnings. This is in contrast to salaried teachers who are often given the time to do short courses on full pay as well as having the course paid for, or at least subsidised, by their employer. Teachers also have an incentive for ongoing professional development associated with their NSW Institute of Teachers accreditation1. Qualification enhancement There was a strong sense that FSCs do recognise the value in ongoing development with some indicating that many FSC jobs now require or desire a formal education and/or conducting qualification. It also provides a point of focus for FSCs. One participant commented that even though they did not enjoy their undergraduate degree they are still considering a postgraduate music education degree over the long term,
I feel that observing classroom teachers and learning teaching strategies could be helpful in my current job, but also in case I would prefer to be a classroom teacher later on. (Female 1824, 7 hours per week in 6 schools, 150200 students per week, $0 $20,000 bracket per year, representing 025% of her annual income.)

It is this last part of the quotation that alludes to the number of FSCs who undertake postgraduate education studies in order to qualify them as a classroom teacheralmost as a back-door option if their current situation does not work out.
1

Classroom teachers in NSW must complete one hundred hours of professional development over a five-year period to maintain their accreditation.

When looking specifically at FSCs perceptions of possible development pathways in the Tertiary sector, there was a high level of disagreement or negative perceptions of programs offered (See Table 1). This is perhaps due to the fact that there are no postgraduate tertiary programs in Australia established to cater solely for the school conductor. Networking The value of networking is a theme that recurs throughout the qualitative data from the surveys and case studies with one participant commenting that,
I have already taken many opportunities for further study and find them very affirming and useful. Also, as a conductor, we are not often among colleagues, so it is always nice to meet others and talk about conducting. (Female 3554, 12 hours per week in 5 schools, 150200 students per week, $40 $60,000 per year, representing 75100% of her annual income.)

With FSCs often operating in an itinerant manner and not feeling as though they have colleagues within the school, opportunities to network are invaluable (Bennett, 2008; Greller, 2006; Krueger, 2000; Scheib, 2006). However, there are no comparable Australian based opportunities for FSCs similar to the scale of a Midwest Clinic or even a vibrant FSC association. ABODA is the only organisation that seeks to replicate some of the success of the American model. Through ABODA there are various state-based conductor clinics and the Australian National Band and Orchestra Conference (ANBOC).

The rise of MOOCs

Distance education via correspondence or online is not a new phenomenon2. Likewise, the role of online education is not a trend that will disappear anytime soon. MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses and are usually tertiary-level subjects presented in a prerecorded video format with assessment via integrated quizzes or peer-assessment. These MOOCs are available for free and have large (massive) enrolments. There is generally no further lecturer involvement once the lecturer has recorded the content this is one of the leading criticisms aimed at MOOCs. The disruptive model of making tertiary education available freely to thousands across the globe has generated controversy and called into question the business model and validity of both traditional institutions and the young education start-ups called MOOCs (Covach, 2013). The role of this paper is not to argue for or against MOOCs based on ideological foundations but rather alert music educators to them as potential resources. These resources are in most cases not designed to replace tertiary study, but, rather something like a very organised series of public lectures based on the structure of a college course. (Covach, 2013). A lecturers perspective John Covach currently presents the Coursera subject, History of Rock a course I am currently undertaking in its second session. The subject is presented from the University of Rochester and Covach (2013) describes the first instance of the course as follows:
History of Rock Parts 1 and 2 were offered over the summer of 2013 with a combined enrolment of over 70,000. Of those enrolled, approximately 44,000 (63%) participated actively. Video views surpassed one million and downloads topped 600,000. Most

The Chronicle of Higher Education has regular articles on MOOCs www.chronicle.com

students seem to have watched the videos without taking the exams, or maybe only watched the videos that interested them. Less than 10% of the students participated in the discussion forums, though even that level of engagement created a tremendous amount of traffic on the hundreds of threads. At the conclusion of Part 1 we awarded 4747 Statements of Accomplishment, 1460 of those with distinction; for Part 2 we awarded 3545 Statements, 2978 with distinction.

Covach (2013) also describes in the article the amount of time taken to prepare the initial content and course delivery as approximately 300 hours for a thirteen week course. However, he does note that subsequent delivery of the course would take significantly less time. Despite this initial outlay of time, Covach describes it as, one of the most gratifying experiences in my teaching career (Covach, 2013). My perspective As a committee member of ABODA, I am actively looking for ways we can provide affordable and relevant training to freelance school conductors in NSW. As such I have signed up for several music MOOCs through Coursera including one titled Fundamentals of Music Ensemble Rehearsing (yet to start). Like many, I am yet to complete a MOOC, though am hopeful of getting through the History of Rock course! As an emerging education medium, further research is needed into the outcomes, delivery methods and completion rates of MOOCs. Having so many students with minimal commitment or buy-in and no consequences for lack of completion may cheapen the model if considered parallel to the university courses many MOOCs are endeavouring to replicate. If, however, MOOCs can be used to present targeted information and training to freelance music educators at no cost, then this will already be a step forward for many.

Conclusion
There is an identified lack of relevant training for freelance school conductors and by extension freelance music educators in NSW. Many conductors from my study realise that ongoing training is important with networking, qualification enhancement and financial motivation being key drivers. The advent of MOOCs could provide one flexible pathway for freelance educators to develop their skills. However, this approach still needs to be integrated with more traditional teaching models and into a more comprehensive accreditation structure (Kay, Reimann, Diebold, & Kummerfeld, 2013). In addition it may engage those in the profession who struggle to either find the finance, time or motivation to place them on the path of professional development. With music ensembles forming a significant role in many NSW schools, it is in every stakeholders interest to ensure that those leading these ensembles have the skills to provide quality music education for the students. This presentation (non peer-reviewed) was delivered on Sunday, 29 September 2013 at the XIX Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) National Conference. References Bennett, D. (2008). Understanding the classical music profession : the past, the present and strategies for the future. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. Bridgstock, R. (2011a). Making it creatively: Building sustainable careers in the arts and creative industries. Australian Career Practitioner Magazine, 22(2), 11-13.

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