This essay collection provides a variety of ideas and techniques for teaching music classes using elements of popular culture, such as popular songs and genres, mixes and remixes, video games, music videos, television shows, and internet resources. Each chapter offers a pedagogical model for incorporating these powerful tools to encourage student interaction in courses on musicianship, music theory, analysis, criticism, music history, and related classes.

Media competes with public schools in terms of student engagement and time. However, the two needn't be mutually exclusive. The Pedagogy of Pop: Theoretical and Practical Strategies for Success discusses a variety of strategies and approaches for using social and mass media as tools through which teachers might improve schooling. While there is a vast body of literature in this field, editors Edward A. Janak and Denise Blum have created a text which differs in two substantive ways: scope and sequence. In terms of scope, this work is unique in two facets: first, it presents both theory and practice in one volume, bridging the two worlds; and second, it includes lessons from secondary and postsecondary classrooms, allowing teachers on all levels to learn from each other. In terms of sequence, The Pedagogy of Pop draws on lessons from both historical and contemporary practice. The introductory section of Janak and Blum's collection presents a pair of papers that use somewhat different approaches to examine the historical roots of contemporary critique. Part I presents a series of chapters designed to provide guidelines and theories through which educators on all levels can think about their practice, focusing more on the "why" of their approach than the "how." Part II presents a more "hands-on" approach by sharing a variety of specific strategies for incorporating pop culture in all its forms (technology, music, television, video games, etc.) in both secondary and postsecondary classrooms. The conclusion shows the praxis of teaching with popular culture, presenting a counterpoint to current thinking as well as a case study of the best of what can happen when popular culture is applied effectively.

Teachers the world over are discovering the importance and benefits of incorporating popular culture into the music classroom. The cultural prevalence and the students' familiarity with recorded music, videos, games, and other increasingly accessible multimedia materials help enliven course content and foster interactive learning and participation. Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube provides ideas and techniques for teaching music classes using elements of popular culture that resonate with students' everyday lives. From popular songs and genres to covers, mixes, and mashups; from video games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero to television shows like American Idol, this exciting collection offers pedagogical models for incorporating pop culture and its associated technologies into a wide variety of music courses. Biamonte has collected well-rounded essays that consider a variety of applications. After an introduction, the essays are organized in 3 sections. The first addresses general tools and technology that can be incorporated into almost any music class: sound-mixing techniques and the benefits of using iPods and YouTube. The middle section uses popular songs, video games, or other aspects of pop culture to demonstrate music-theory topics or to develop ear-training and rhythmic skills. The final section examines the musical, lyrical, or visual content in popular songs, genres, or videos as a point of departure for addressing broader issues and contexts. Each chapter contains notes and a bibliography, and two comprehensive appendixes list popular song examples for teaching harmony, melody, and rhythm. Two indexes cross-reference the material by title and by general subject. While written with college and secondary-school teachers in mind, the methods and materials presented here can be adapted to any educational level.

Examines the importance of devloping within children and adolescents a critical awareness of the social, political and economic messages arising from the different forms of popular culture.

This book offers compelling new perspectives on the revolutionary potential of improvisation pedagogy. Bringing together contributions from leading musicians, scholars, and teachers from around the world, the volume articulates how improvisation can breathe new life into old curricula; how it can help teachers and students to communicate more effectively; how it can break down damaging ideological boundaries between classrooms and communities; and how it can help students become more thoughtful, engaged, and activist global citizens. In the last two decades, a growing number of music educators, music education researchers, musicologists, cultural theorists, creative practitioners, and ethnomusicologists have suggested that a greater emphasis on improvisation in music performance, history, and theory classes offers enormous potential for pedagogical enrichment. This book will help educators realize that potential by exploring improvisation along a variety of trajectories. Essays offer readers both theoretical explorations of improvisation and music education from a wide array of vantage points, and practical explanations of how the theory can be implemented in real situations in communities and classrooms. It will therefore be of interest to teachers and students in numerous modes of pedagogy and fields of study, as well as students and faculty in the academic fields of music education, jazz studies, ethnomusicology, musicology, cultural studies, and popular culture studies.

Interest in Japanese popular culture is high among students at all levels, driving enrollment in Japanese Studies programs. However, there has been little reflection on the pedagogy of teaching Japanese popular culture. Now is the time for critical reflection on teaching practices related to teaching about and with Japanese popular culture. This volume encompasses theoretical engagement with pedagogy of popular culture as well as practical considerations of curriculum design, lesson planning, assessment, and student outcomes. While the main focus is undergraduate teaching, there is also discussion of K-12 teaching, with authors discussing their experiences teaching Japanese popular culture not only in North America, but also in Australia, Germany, Singapore, and Japan, both in Japanese-language and English-language institutions.

"Grounded in the field of adult education, this international compilation offers a range of critical perspectives on popular culture as a form of pedagogy. Its fundamental premise is that adults learn in multiple ways, including through their consumption of fiction. As scholars have asserted for decades, people are not passive consumers of media; rather, we (re)make our own meanings as we accept, resist, and challenge cultural representations. At a time when attention often turns to new media, the contributors to this collection continue to find “old” forms of popular culture important and worthy of study. Television and movies – the emphases in this book – reflect aspects of consumers’ lives, and can be powerful vehicles for helping adults see, experience, and inhabit the world in new and different ways. This volume moves beyond conceptually oriented scholarship, taking a decidedly research-oriented focus. It offers examples of textual and discursive analyses of television shows and films that portray varied contexts of adult learning, and suggests how participants can be brought into adult education research in this area. In so doing, it provides compelling evidence about the complexity, politics, and multidimensionality of adult teaching and learning. Using a range of television shows and movies as exemplars, chapters relate popular culture to globalization, identity, health and health care, and education. The book will be of great use to instructors, students, and researchers located in adult education, cultural studies, women’s and gender studies, cultural sociology, and other fields who are looking for innovative ways to explore social life as experienced and imagined."