PRESENTATIONS
SAMPLE WORKSHOPS
1. INSPIRE ME! - Ideas for teaching composition in the 21st century classroom
How do I teach composition? I never had composition instruction at college! I don’t compose! This session will provide a way forward through hands-on activities, ideas, inspiration, and a “how to” guide for introducing or expanding composition in the classroom. Twentieth Century techniques, technology, graphic notation, soundscapes, triad-melody technique, Aleatoric music, Video Fun, and more will be explored.
In this session participants will be able to:
Participate in composing
Identify the reasons/need for developing creativity in students
Identify various stages of compositional activity
Explain and explore various examples of music composition
Develop questioning strategies to facilitate teaching composition
Participate in creating individual and group compositions
Explain the nature of open-ended learning: when students are engaged in a learning process where the next step is not provided
Identify resources for developing creativity through composition in teaching and learning
Identify methods for starting creativity infusion in your teaching
Participants will leave this session with:
A model that provides a common language for implementing composition in the music lesson
Objectives for developing a creative mindset
Specific, experiential, research-based strategies for implementing these objectives
Sample lesson ideas and cross-discipline ideas
2. COMPOSITION and CREATIVITY - CONNECTING THE DOTS
The need for creativity in music classes is supported by developmental science, education research, and socio-economic policy. Creativity involves innovation, tenacity, critical thinking and agility in applying cognitive, affective, and psychomotor modalities to solve open-ended challenges. Developing creativity is a long-term process - but what cognitive skills, experiences and instructional practices should we use? How can we change how we teach to develop creativity across various age groups? Using composition as a framework for creativity in the music class answers these questions.
In this session participants will be able to:
Identify the reasons/need for developing creativity in students
Identify various stages of compositional activity
Explain and explore various examples of music composition
Develop questioning strategies to facilitate teaching the composition process
Participate in creating individual and group compositions
Explain the nature of open-ended learning, including the role of the unknown in learning and how cognitive mapping functions when students are engaged in a learning process where the next step is not provided
Identify resources for developing creativity in teaching and learning
Identify methods for starting creativity infusion in your teaching
Participants will leave this session with:
A comprehensive, research-based model that provides a common language for implementing composition in the music lesson
Objectives for developing a creative mindset
Specific, experiential, research-based strategies for implementing these objectives
Sample lesson ideas and cross-discipline ideas
3. MUSIC TELLS MY STORY - INTEGRATING MUSIC COMPOSITION AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS SKILLS
This session is for the creative teacher who wishes to either introduce or expand composition in the music class. Lessons are integrated with English Language Arts making connections between language and communication skills and how this finds a parallel in music composition. Assignments demonstrated will range from the simplest of tasks to more advanced work including triads, multi-part writing and twentieth-century techniques. Extended lesson ideas that provide background, an explorative set to inspire and inform the young composer, procedures, a how-to guide, and directions for composing. Teachers should engage students through an anticipatory explorative set t the start of composition activities with suitable listening, visual, kinesthetic and explorative activities. Exploration engages the imagination and inspires critical thinking, speculation and the creative process. Listening suggestions include well-known works easily accessible in the media. Demonstrated lessons may be presented over multiple lessons and expanded or adapted to suit the particular class. Lesson ideas are linked to the “self” allowing teens the opportunity to express themselves, share facets of their lives, and the opportunity to communicate through the arts. How to create multimedia and multi-arts works are included.
Common Core
As most of the 50 states in the United States of America have adopted the Common Core as their educational standards, this presentation includes connections, in this case particularly to English Language Arts and the application of the Cognitive Strategies required for integrated Music and English Language Arts lessons:
1. Analyze how and why artists, artistic styles and ideas develop and interact.
2. Create, integrate, and evaluate content presented in diverse artistic genres and media, including visually, aurally and kinesthetically, as well as in words.
3. Comprehend complex meaning and conceptual principles in visual, aural and kinesthetic artistic products, including those based on written texts.
4.Develop and strengthen creativity by planning, revising, editing, revising, or trying a new approach.
The English Language Arts concepts and skill sets tapped into in this presentation include:
story telling, poetry, narratives, imagery and symbolism, figures of speech e.g. metaphor, similes, alliterations, hyperbole, anadiplosis, aposiopesis, parts of speech, sentence structure, key words, quotations, punctuation, reading and exploring fiction and non-fiction texts, and the connection all of the above has to music.
1. INSPIRE ME! - Ideas for teaching composition in the 21st century classroom
How do I teach composition? I never had composition instruction at college! I don’t compose! This session will provide a way forward through hands-on activities, ideas, inspiration, and a “how to” guide for introducing or expanding composition in the classroom. Twentieth Century techniques, technology, graphic notation, soundscapes, triad-melody technique, Aleatoric music, Video Fun, and more will be explored.
In this session participants will be able to:
Participate in composing
Identify the reasons/need for developing creativity in students
Identify various stages of compositional activity
Explain and explore various examples of music composition
Develop questioning strategies to facilitate teaching composition
Participate in creating individual and group compositions
Explain the nature of open-ended learning: when students are engaged in a learning process where the next step is not provided
Identify resources for developing creativity through composition in teaching and learning
Identify methods for starting creativity infusion in your teaching
Participants will leave this session with:
A model that provides a common language for implementing composition in the music lesson
Objectives for developing a creative mindset
Specific, experiential, research-based strategies for implementing these objectives
Sample lesson ideas and cross-discipline ideas
2. COMPOSITION and CREATIVITY - CONNECTING THE DOTS
The need for creativity in music classes is supported by developmental science, education research, and socio-economic policy. Creativity involves innovation, tenacity, critical thinking and agility in applying cognitive, affective, and psychomotor modalities to solve open-ended challenges. Developing creativity is a long-term process - but what cognitive skills, experiences and instructional practices should we use? How can we change how we teach to develop creativity across various age groups? Using composition as a framework for creativity in the music class answers these questions.
In this session participants will be able to:
Identify the reasons/need for developing creativity in students
Identify various stages of compositional activity
Explain and explore various examples of music composition
Develop questioning strategies to facilitate teaching the composition process
Participate in creating individual and group compositions
Explain the nature of open-ended learning, including the role of the unknown in learning and how cognitive mapping functions when students are engaged in a learning process where the next step is not provided
Identify resources for developing creativity in teaching and learning
Identify methods for starting creativity infusion in your teaching
Participants will leave this session with:
A comprehensive, research-based model that provides a common language for implementing composition in the music lesson
Objectives for developing a creative mindset
Specific, experiential, research-based strategies for implementing these objectives
Sample lesson ideas and cross-discipline ideas
3. MUSIC TELLS MY STORY - INTEGRATING MUSIC COMPOSITION AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS SKILLS
This session is for the creative teacher who wishes to either introduce or expand composition in the music class. Lessons are integrated with English Language Arts making connections between language and communication skills and how this finds a parallel in music composition. Assignments demonstrated will range from the simplest of tasks to more advanced work including triads, multi-part writing and twentieth-century techniques. Extended lesson ideas that provide background, an explorative set to inspire and inform the young composer, procedures, a how-to guide, and directions for composing. Teachers should engage students through an anticipatory explorative set t the start of composition activities with suitable listening, visual, kinesthetic and explorative activities. Exploration engages the imagination and inspires critical thinking, speculation and the creative process. Listening suggestions include well-known works easily accessible in the media. Demonstrated lessons may be presented over multiple lessons and expanded or adapted to suit the particular class. Lesson ideas are linked to the “self” allowing teens the opportunity to express themselves, share facets of their lives, and the opportunity to communicate through the arts. How to create multimedia and multi-arts works are included.
Common Core
As most of the 50 states in the United States of America have adopted the Common Core as their educational standards, this presentation includes connections, in this case particularly to English Language Arts and the application of the Cognitive Strategies required for integrated Music and English Language Arts lessons:
1. Analyze how and why artists, artistic styles and ideas develop and interact.
2. Create, integrate, and evaluate content presented in diverse artistic genres and media, including visually, aurally and kinesthetically, as well as in words.
3. Comprehend complex meaning and conceptual principles in visual, aural and kinesthetic artistic products, including those based on written texts.
4.Develop and strengthen creativity by planning, revising, editing, revising, or trying a new approach.
The English Language Arts concepts and skill sets tapped into in this presentation include:
story telling, poetry, narratives, imagery and symbolism, figures of speech e.g. metaphor, similes, alliterations, hyperbole, anadiplosis, aposiopesis, parts of speech, sentence structure, key words, quotations, punctuation, reading and exploring fiction and non-fiction texts, and the connection all of the above has to music.