Developing fully online pre-service music and arts education courses

Charles Darwin University (CDU) offers education courses for students who want to teach in Australian schools. The university is unique due to its geographic location, proximity to Asia and its high Indigenous population compared to the rest of the country. Many courses are offered fully online including music education for pre-service teachers. This shift has presented both opportunities and challenges. The study is an investigation of reviewing music and arts education courses to be delivered fully online using Participatory Action Research as the methodology. The four steps for the research are as follows: planning a change, acting and observing the processes and consequences of change, reflecting on the processes and consequences, and replanning to start the cycle again. The reflection and replanning stage of the course are especially important because courses need to be updated regularly to keep up with policy developments. It is anticipated that by the end of the year, the aspects of the course which have been successful and the ones which will require extensive reviewing will have been addressed. Through this process of rewriting, reviewing and reflecting, a fully online music education course will be able to be delivered successfully to music education students around Australia.