Description
Teaching and assessing music virtually can be a challenge if necessary preparations, resources, and methodologies are not well put in place. Although some virtual teaching had been going on at Kabarak University, School of Music and Performing Arts (SMPA), from 2018, with the emergence of covid – 19 in March 2020, it became more necessary that the mode of teaching had to change significantly in order to address the demands of the virtual teaching of music. Among strategies put in place was relooking at the course contents and re-aligning them to specific learning outcomes in such a way that they synchronise with higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of assessment. This paper documents the music teaching and learning challenges that the students and academic staff at SMPA went through during the early and later stages of COVID – 19. It further highlights how the challenges were somehow surmounted. Using a narrative design, lecturers’ and students’ opinions were sought and analysed qualitatively. A review of relevant literature was also carried out before arriving at findings and conclusions of this article. Apart from making recommendations regarding virtual teaching and assessing music in institutions of higher learning, this paper suggests areas of further research.
