Our Special Representatives have put together an outstanding slate of virtual clinics covering a wide range of topics that address challenges music educators are facing. Topics and areas of focus for this resource series include Technology, General Music, Multicultural Music, Band, Choir, Orchestra, Jazz, and Higher Learning.
An Interview with NEA Jazz Master, Jamey Aebersold
A Conversation with Dr. Timoty Yontz, Director of Bands, Florida Gulf Coast University
Without live performance, what makes students want to come to class each day? We explore how to create a classroom culture that fosters connection, collaboration and creativity during distance learning. Dr. Myra Rhoden is the Director of Bands at Fayette County High School in Fayetteville, GA. In 2018, Dr. Rhoden was named the National Band Director of the Year. Her full biography can be found here.
How do you produce a virtual recording with your ensembles? Whether for a performance or as part of the rehearsal process, recordings are more important than ever during distance learning. Learn a step-by-step process to efficiently and effectively create collaborative recordings with your students. Topics include: Software Demos (Soundtrap and Upbeat), Small and Large Ensemble application, Audio Tips, and LMS integration. Jonathan Pwu is the band director at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose, CA.
It seems there are endless barriers in the way of student success in distance learning, leaving students and teachers feeling frustrated, exhausted, and disengaged. In this session, Scot Hanna-Weir leads a discussion about the challenges facing choral music students and teachers in distance learning and shares ideas for ways we can remove barriers, create community, and engage our students in virtual instruction and music making.
What is true music literacy? Why is it important? How can we teach it effectively? Dr. Carol Krueger has dedicated much of her professional work to providing music educators with answers to these questions and sharing her teaching methods based on years of research and practice. In this session, Dr. Krueger defines the essential components of comprehensive music literacy for students of all levels and provides examples of literacy exercises that are part of a sequential literacy curriculum and can be used in both in-person and virtual instruction.
How does the idea of “owning it” apply to music educators? We, who teach music to children. We, who struggle to juggle scheduling and priority issues with our professions, our friends and our families. We, who get up every morning and charge off to our jobs sometimes, excited, sometimes, not so much so. We, who might wonder if this is what we placed on this planet to do, especially when our chosen subject matter is often maligned as superfluous or even expendable by others around us. Come, join John Jacobson…..and let’s review! Oh yes, we’ll do a little dance as well. 🙂
Many music teachers would like to create their own great-looking teaching resources like sing-along or play-along visuals with notation, instructional posters, bright colourful guitar or ukulele chord charts, games, worksheets and other resources. In this session we’ll look at how you can use software they already know (Powerpoint, Keynote, Google Slides or Canva) to create teaching materials that can include images, notation, chord diagrams, text, links and audio. Examples will be shown that can be adapted for multiple teaching scenarios and we’ll look at the step-by-step process for creating from scratch. You’ll learn the 6 essential basic tech skills that can be used to create almost anything. We’ll also look at some of the little-known “ninja” tips within the software that are guaranteed to speed up your creation of digital teaching materials and the best places to find free notation images, chord diagrams, photos, clipart icons and fonts.
Adolescents encounter a great deal of social and emotional challenges affecting their lives personally, academically, and for musicians, musically. These students, seeking support for these challenges, approach music educators regularly. Music educators and their music programs are in a primed position to provide students this support through a socially rich and emotionally sound environment. However, music educators are rarely prepared to offer this support. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a framework intended to help students become socially and emotionally competent. The purpose of this session is to introduce the framework of SEL and to highlight explicit connections to music education.
The struggle is real! It is a challenge to get students to turn on their camera and engage actively in the remote teaching world. However, Learning Environments expert, Dr. Lara Kassab, will take you on a journey to reveal best practices of music teachers that have successfully created an online learning community. We hope you will be able to use these practices to grow support and interactions with your students.
A focus on inclusion, highlighting the need to consider racial, cultural and gender diversity in repertoire selection, acknowledging the often untold stories of artistic contributions by women and people of color, and equalizing the non-western and western approaches to theory and performance practice.
This session will summarize the lives and careers of Emma Barrett, Mary Lou Williams and Hazel Scott with solo piano performance examples of their works or signature compositions.
Following the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement, interest in social justice music teaching, (or as Juliet Hess calls it, anti-oppressive music teaching) has grown. The Decolonizing the Music Room Facebook group rapidly grown to 8000 members, a number that is equivalent to a quarter of the members of the long established Band Directors Group. Articles on the topic started appearing in the university academic journals around 2000 and articles aimed at classroom music teachers started appearing regularly in NAfME publications around 2015. Next year the Music Educators Journal will publish a Juliet Hess piece about white supremacy, something that would have been inconceivable just a year ago. This presentation starts out with an introduction to the topic from Ted Allen. Following the overview, Ted will discuss terminology, the difference between multicultural and social justice music education, and applications of social justice teaching interviews with Chris Mena, a Seattle middle school teacher and PhD candidate at the University of Washington, and Juliet Hess, an assistant professor at Michigan State University and author of Music Education for Social Change, Constructing an Activist Music Education.
Innovation and Learning Representative will sit down (virtually) with Major Ryan Nowlin, Assistant Director and Education Officer of “The President’s Own” Marine Band, in a Q&A format. Major Nowlin will present some ideas of how “The President’s Own” have adapted to performing during the pandemic, share some ideas and best practices for developing virtual performances, provide resources the Marine Band has available to music educators and students, and share some of his favorite memories while serving in the Marine Corps.Â
Virtual ensemble projects have become a staple of music-making during the COVID pandemic. An organized workflow and the application of sound teaching practices can turn a seemingly daunting undertaking into a positive educational and musical experience for all. This presentation aims to provide educators with an overview of practical and pedagogical approaches to virtual ensemble projects, from logistical considerations to teaching strategies and student project ideas.
School orchestra programs of today look quite different than programs of yesteryear. Our students and their families come from all walks of life and programs are thriving in diverse communities all over the country. Students enter our classrooms with unique contributions and challenges. It is imperative that we be willing to find common ground when cultivating relationships as a vehicle for learning. Beyond Repertoire: Social Justice and Equity in the Orchestra Classroom aims to empower orchestra teachers to think outside of the box when designing program goals to reach all promising young musicians.
Ensemble. This is the term that is often used to describe they very nature of what we do in an orchestra, band, or choir classroom. To it’s core, human connection is an absolutely necessity to make an ensemble work. What happens when the fundamental presentation of how you teach what you teach is changed, and you are tasked with reimagining your job in a virtual environment? How might you overcome where there are new and numerous barriers to truly achieving your the mission of your ensemble class? Is it even possible? In this presentation, director Jonathan Glawe will be discussing the journey of this transition for the Pioneer High School Orchestras in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and will share some of the unique strategies and tools that he has found helpful along the way.
