Music students who must take a remedial class to sharpen their ear-training skills soon will be able to complete that course online before beginning their freshman year, putting them on track with their peers.

Currently, some students who have a successful audition and otherwise qualify to major or minor in music are tested and found to need extra work to prepare them for classes in music theory and harmony. They are required to take a course in ear training--which teaches how to hear a note or chord and translate that sound to a notation on paper--before taking other music courses.

"That presents a problem because taking the remedial class during the first semester of the freshman year puts a student behind other music students in scheduling courses," says Michael Arenson, professor of music, who taught about 32 students in the most recent remedial class. "Those students have to squeeze a course into Winter Session to put them back on schedule with everyone else."

In addition, Arenson says, students probably can learn ear training more efficiently on an individualized schedule and in a nonlecture format that allows for a lot of drill and practice. Many would not have to spend a full semester to develop the skills they need, he adds.

As a result, Arenson is working with a group that has developed an online version of the remedial course. He says the program will be tested on a small group of students during the 2003–04 school year and then refined, with the hope that it will replace the current remedial class for next year's incoming freshmen.

"The plan is that students will be able to complete this work during the summer before their freshman year, and that way, they'll be on track with other music students immediately in the fall," he says. Ideally, he says, the program eventually will be used in high schools, so prospective music majors will be up to speed even before they enroll at UD.

Arenson is working on the project with former University staff members Michael Morgan and Steven Bertsche, who now work at Tatnall School in Wilmington, Del., where students will try out the online program. The three began work some time ago on an interactive, web-based course on jazz theory, when they realized that some students needed a more basic class to learn the fundamentals first. Their work on the jazz project is continuing as well, Arenson says.

Funding for the ear-training program has come through grants from the University's Center for Teaching Effectiveness and from The PRESENT, part of UD's Information Technologies. Eric Rangel, an independent software developer, also is working on the project.