Community Contribution #6 Personalization

I am a third year music performance student studying bassoon at the University of Victoria. I have experienced personalization in music learning in three different contexts: in my private lessons with my teacher, in my individual practice, and online in communities of practice for music learning.

For another example of personalization in music learning I spoke about in class how that had applied to my bassoon lessons, but that ended up being only half the story of my learning bassoon. Personalization of my learning would also include taking responsibility for my own goals, choosing repertoire to practice, etc. My learning to play bassoon expresses the Three Basic Psychological Needs which are outlined by Self-Determination Theory: Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness.

Autonomy is necessary for motivation to practice for reasons that one chooses, set goals that are meaningful to one, and measure progress along the route. Competence refers to having opportunities to receive appropriate feedback, tackle tasks that are optimally challenging, and thereby perceive progress over errors. Relatedness refers to supportive, encouraging teacher(s) and other musician(s) and recognizes that musical development is not a solo activity.

Just because people have lots of choices online in music learning and classical music communities like the ones I participate in on Discord for classical music communities, like a server for people who play classical instruments, does not mean that they are learning personally. Just because they can have discussions about topics that are of interest to them and ask for advice on, say learning a particular piece, and have other people recommend other pieces that they can practice and so on, does not mean that they are learning personally.

From this experience I can further facilitate personalization in learning and support the learner in taking an active role in his/her learning to achieve his/her goals by making choices in learning that are supported by structure, feedback and connection to others in the learning environment.