Music Education in the Open University of Brazil: informal learning practices

Green's (2008) informal music learning practices have been successfully implemented in many schools in the UK and in other countries, including Brazil. Her model has also raised questions about a Offerent role ascribed to teachers: after setting a task, they stand back and observe their pupils so that they can diagnose their pupils' needs and make appropriate interventions. This allows pupils to be more independent from teachers' instructions, valuing pupils' ideas, peer learning and the development of autonomy. Subscribing to these values but realizing that I have not always been able to implement them in my practice, I decided to adapt Green's model into an e-learning module and research my own practices as a supervisor of that module. Following a self-study action research design, I offered the module three times, each time implementing changes supported by the learning and the knowledge gained from previous experience. The choice of an e-learning setting for this research is due to my previous role as the coordinator of an Initial Music Teacher Education course offered within the Open University of Brazil system, which offers undergraduate courses using a mix of both online and face-to-face interactions. In this sense, I felt the need to investigate this new context of music teacher education and analyse if my practices and my values were attuned to the context of the Open University of Brazil.