The Woods Hole Conference was held at

Woods Hole, Massachusetts Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 ...

as a response to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

's launch of the Sputnik series of satellites, in 1959 to identify the problems of science education and to recommend solutions. Woods Hole was held because American educators feared that the Soviet Union was surpassing the United States in educational emphasis on science, math, and foreign languages. The conference marked the beginning of a new trend in educational planning: the unified efforts of distinguished people in varied fields addressing themselves to the general improvement of education. The result was discipline-based education and conceptual learning.

Impact on music education

Music was categorized as aesthetic education. In a 1959 article in ''The Music Educators Journal'', Alberta Lowe and Harold S. Pryor argued that the Soviet Union was also placing considerable emphasis on music education. As a result of Woods Hole, music educators resolved to teach music as an entire discipline that includes concepts, skills, and repertoire.

Impact on mathematics and science education

New math was also a result as well as the spiral curriculum—-learning about and using basic concepts that would be revisited at subsequent levels.

Jerome Bruner Jerome Seymour Bruner (October 1, 1915 – June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to human cognitive psychology and cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. Bruner was a senior research fellow at ...

is an educational psychologist associated with this conference and with the spiral curriculum. The textbook revolution was another result of Woods Hole.{{Citation needed, date=June 2022

References

*Lowe, A. and Pryor, H.S. (1959). Music education in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. ''The Music Educators Journal, 45(6),'' 28–32. *Mark, M.L. and Gary, C.L. (1999). ''A History of American Music Education.'' Reston: The National Association for Music Education. *Bruner, Jerome (1960) ''The Process of Education''. New York: Vintage Books. 1959 conferences 1959 in the United States 1959 in Massachusetts Falmouth, Massachusetts History of Barnstable County, Massachusetts