Aims and quality of my teaching
Richard Parncutt, 2009-2012

This page is primarily for the interest of students of music psychology or systematic musicology at the University of Graz, Austria.

Each of my courses has its own specific aims, which are set out in UGO and explained during the first session of the course in the usual way. But I do not always have time or opportunity to explain the more general aims of my teaching. Hence this short text.

I have invested a lot of time and energy into preparing and executing my teaching in recent years and I am also in regular personal contact with most international researcher-teachers in my discipline(s). As a result my courses have gradually evolved and I now believe that they can compete with the best course in the world of similar content, level and specific aims. Of course any such evaluation would depend on arbitrary criteria such as:
•	Students gain significant relevant skills and knowledge during a given total learning time.
•	The quality of both content and presentation improves each year by combining complementary methods of evaluation, such as:
o	peer review of my research (including presentation at peer-review conferences and publication in peer-review journals and books),
o	review of course content by my student assistants,
o	student evaluation at the end of each course, and
o	expert evaluation of my teaching methods (Uni Graz will offer didactic coaching from October 2009).
•	For each course (including lectures), comprehensive materials and documentation are made available in the internet.
•	In all examination procedures at all levels, students have the opportunity to evaluate and creatively go beyond course materials, that is, to apply what they have learned in new contexts; and they are rewarded for doing so. Going beyond the normal limits often means the difference between "good" and "very good". In this way, I aim in my tests and examinations to promote intrinsic motivation, independence and academic risk-taking.
•	All students are treated equally, objectively and fairly in all aspects of all courses.

In making these points I am assuming that the primary aim of my students is to acquire the knowledge and skills that the course offers, and that my students have chosen the course from many other possibilities because they are fascinated by the content and are strongly intrinsically motivated to improve their knowledge and skills in that area. Of course it is also important to get good grades and, in the end, to get a university degree. There is nothing wrong with working toward a qualification, but when so much work is involved over such a long period, intrinsic motivation, genuine curiosity, and perhaps even a moderate degree of obsession are necessary to succeed or at least achieve personally satisfying results.

I do not aspire to the following:
•	Easy entertainment, comparable to watching TV 
•	Promoting myself, either as a personality or a researcher (only my international colleagues are in a position to evaluate my research)
•	High grades for mediocre achievement (and by the way, my grade distributions are  typical by comparison to other lecturers - my mean is around 2.5, midway between "good" and "satisfactory").

Students can help me achieve these goals by:
•	Constructive suggestions - both during and after the course, and in the UGO evaluation
•	Enthusiasm and hard work (the latter is unfortunately difficult to avoid - but should not be exaggerated, either!)
•	Supporting each other, e.g. by talking about course content outside of the course or by studying together in pairs or groups.