Teaching Computer Music to academically Engage At-risk Students

Music and technologies forge direct links between self and world, self-expression can become more fluent especially when a pupil learns by experience; music helps interpret individual skills and makes the connection between self-discipline and performance in life. A pilot project conducted as a LLP (2009) serves in this paper as case study in order to propose an advanced method to address the widespread problem of dropout from school. Creating a different atmosphere, stimulating the senses, creating new and personal “tunes” helped not only to break the routine but also to develop own “intelligences” (Bornstein and Gardner 1986) in order to create a personal representation of knowledge (Bryson and Hand 2007). The project involved didactic theories from the computer music and the positive outcomes associated with the use of ICTs in order to help students to fall back into learning. Even though the final qualitative and quantitative result of the project in terms of general engagement and key-competence achievement and cross curriculum competences was clear, the paper states further improvements in the method critisising and proposing a renewed approach. In a multicultural context where the main necessity is providing a curriculum that could work for different Countries, the adaptation of a holistic methodology - where the environment is more important that the actual content - could work to achieve the major aim of academic engagement especially when caused by different factors related to different cultures.