Skip to content

Blog: Catalysts & Connections

Planning for music classes & ensembles & never feel behind.

Have you ever felt behind in your plans? We dedicate a lot of our time as music educators to planning. How we plan our music classes and ensembles and what a lesson plan from our program looks like says a lot about how we think about curriculum and pedagogy. I’ve never really thought in terms of creating a “lesson plan” even when I was required to write my “lesson plans” out in a green-covered paper planning notebook to be turned… Read More »Planning for music classes & ensembles & never feel behind.

How can we support all students in our learning community?

In the following video I describe some of the following themes, ideas, and issues that we are addressing during a Music Learning and Teaching course at Arizona State University for designing and facilitating secondary music programs: What we should know about students in order to support them Reality pedagogy (Emdin, 2016) Thinking about the relationship between planning and being flexible in the moment Learning goals and objectives (and who creates these goals and objectives) Self-reflection in relationship to what we… Read More »How can we support all students in our learning community?

Who am I and what does that have to do with teaching music?

In the following video I describe some of the following themes, ideas, and issues that we are addressing during a Music Learning and Teaching course at Arizona State University for designing and facilitating secondary music programs: Approaches to think through our own backgrounds and how our life experiences, musical experiences, and cultures might relate to how we approach music teaching. Aspects of culture in relation to learning and teaching Working to recognize and avoid ableism Our main theme was to… Read More »Who am I and what does that have to do with teaching music?

How can we be a supportive learning community?

This is the first recap and synthesis video of a Music Learning and Teaching course for designing and facilitating secondary music programs at Arizona State University. In the video I give an overview of some key themes and ideas we addressed during the class. Our main theme was to collaborate on an agreement of how we can be a supportive learning community throughout the semester (and how this relates to supporting secondary music programs). You can learn more about our… Read More »How can we be a supportive learning community?

Participatory Culture, Music Education, and The Choir Baton

It was a pleasure to join Beth Philemon on the Choir Baton to chat through aspects of technology, participatory culture, and music education. As with many conversations, there are several moments that I would love to go back in time and rethink or rephrase. Our conversation focused primarily on aspects of change, possibilities, and what choir or music education could be. Here are some resources and links related to things we discussed on the Choir Baton podcast: On Technology and… Read More »Participatory Culture, Music Education, and The Choir Baton