A New Supplementary Study Programme for IGP and MBP Master’s Students
With the new supplementary study programme Music as a Primary School Teaching Subject, the mdw is launching a specialised offering for educators looking to focus their artistic and pedagogical expertise on work with primary school-age children. This programme combines artistic practice and scholarly grounding with everyday school reality in response to an existing need for highly qualified primary-level music educators.
Of particular note is the inter-institutional cooperative relationship that’s at work here: the programme curriculum is being implemented together with the University College of Teacher Education Lower Austria (PH Niederösterreich) and the private teachers college PH Burgenland. This three-way cooperation makes it possible to combine university-level artistic and pedagogical training with the school-relevant practical expertise offered by dedicated teacher education institutions in a targeted way. The mdw contributes its artistic and music education specialisations while the two cooperating institutions ensure the integration of real-life school practice, education theory fundamentals, and the Austrian education system’s current requirements into the overall programme. This entails a special degree of additional value for students, enabling them to benefit from differing institutional perspectives, expand their professional networks, and experience education as an interlaced, interdisciplinary process. At the same time, the transfer between theory and practice is set to be reinforced in a lasting way.
This supplementary study programme is aimed at graduates of and current students in the mdw master’s degree programmes Music Education – Voice and Instruments (IGP) and Music and Movement Education/Rhythmics (MBP). Central here is the opportunity to specialise in musical development and experience music with primary school-age children. To this end, a special focus has been placed on combining well-considered practice with theory-driven engagement. The aim is to enable educators to organise processes of musical learning independently and in an age-appropriate and sustainable manner. This will go hand in hand with the expansion of their existing artistic and pedagogical competencies with an eye to heterogeneous groups of learners, inclusive settings, and the specific requirements of classroom teaching.
This programme consists of altogether 60 ECTS credits of coursework distributed across eight curricular areas. These curricular areas cover artistic and practical content as well as subject matter relating to didactics and education theory. A central component is training in specifically primary-level music education and music didactics. Students acquire an ability to plan, conduct, and reflect upon skills-oriented primary-level teaching complemented by experience in various areas of artistic practice, among which the area “Vocal Music-Making“—a 13 ECTS specialisation—is worthy of particular note. The focus here is on the special instrument of the child voice as well as on choral singing and vocal training fundamentals.
Further important curricular areas include:
- Music and Movement Education: the linkage of musical learning with movement, body awareness, and expression
- Elemental Music Education: creative music-making, improvisation, and child-appropriate ways of conveying content
- Instrumental Music-Making: practice-oriented ensemble work and arranging for heterogeneous groups
- Education Sciences: theoretical grounding in education, psychology, sociology, and inclusion
A key feature of this programme is its strongly practical orientation. The course type “Practical Pedagogical Study” (PPS) directly links theory content with concrete teaching situations. Students gather experience leading groups, reflect upon their own efforts, and continuously develop their teaching personalities. This gives rise to an integrative understanding of music teaching that combines artistic, didactic, and socially relevant perspectives.
Students conclude the programme by submitting a “Process Portfolio” that documents their professional development. Beyond serving as a basis for their performance assessments, this portfolio also facilitates students’ self-reflection, makes visible individual learning processes, and combines theoretical knowledge with experience from the programme’s practical phases.
In order to be admitted, applicants must document their graduation from or current enrolment in a thematically relevant master’s degree programme and pass an entrance examination. This examination includes an artistic component (singing) as well as a component focussed on music education as such where one’s ability to guide and reflect upon group processes is assessed. Alongside musical and didactic capabilities, the main admission criteria include communication skills, social sensitivity, and reflective ability.
With this supplementary study programme, the mdw is making a significant contribution to efforts to enhance the quality of music teaching at the primary level. Graduates will be in a position to plan and independently provide musical instruction while doing justice to the reality of modern schools. Amidst the numerous demands being made by present-day society and in light of the importance of primary-level music education in children’s overall development, this programme has been conceived to produce primary school music teachers who are eminently equipped to meet the moment.
The supplementary study programme “Music as a Primary School Teaching Subject” is a practice-oriented qualification offering that combines artistic excellence with pedagogical professionalism. With an eye to the growing demand for solidly trained primary school music teachers, it gives educators the opportunity to accompany and have a lasting positive impact on children in their musical and personal development. In doing so, close cooperation between the mdw and the participating university colleges of teacher education embodies a key quality factor that enables this programme to be practically relevant, compatible with other studies, and future-oriented to a special degree.
