AOSA National Conference

This past week I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the American Orff Schulwerk Association National Conference in Atlantic City, NJ.  Read more about the Orff Schulwerk aproach here.  With over 800 people in attendance, I had the opportunity to visit with old friends, meet other like-minded educators from across the country and sit among some of the nation's most well respected clinicians and music educators.

The theme of the conference was "Sailing the Seven C's", a play on words that referenced the ocean locale and 21st Century Skill's 4 C's (read about it here).  In addition to the 4 C's of 21st Century skills (Communication, Creativity, Collaboration and Critical Thinking), the conference added Community, Culture and Connections to round out the seven.

Over the next several posts I will be sharing some highlights from my trip.  In a nut shell, here is how my trip was impacted by the "Seven C's":

Communication:

 One of my favorite sessions was on a topic called "Responsive Classroom," a classroom management technique that has been around for several decades, but is starting to build steam in the educational world.  Matthew Stensrud, presenter and book collaborator, demonstrated the power of non-verbal communication in a responsive classroom setting through interactive modeling.

Creativity:

Another favorite session of mine was on the topic of Dalcroze-Eurythmics.  In this session we split into groups and used creative movement to tell a story.  It was neat to see the similarities and differences in how each group told the same story through movement.

Collaboration:

In a session on musical modes, we split into groups to create a musical arrangement and movement for different songs.  The songs were then performed during different parts of a story.  Our group had to work together by first deciding who would be singers, xylophone and recorder players and dancers and then creating our arrangement and movement piece.  

Critical Thinking:

 One key aspect of teaching from the Orff Schulwerk approach is something we often call "processing."  In other words, scaffolding a lesson to make it more meaningful and easier to achieve high levels of musicality in a short amount of time.  Many sessions demonstrated techniques and ways of thinking through the process to make our music more accessible to the students.  When music is accessible, students are more likely to make their own connections and start thinking more critically about how to make their performance of a higher quality.

Culture:

 Music is a wonderful way to make cultural connections.  Sessions from Scandinavian Dances to African drumming were offered throughout the week.  In particular, World Drumming sessions highlighted how cultural music can begin to change the "culture" of a school or classroom by teaching respect and team building.

Connections:

The connections I made during this conference were invaluable!  Not only did I get to renew some connections from my Orff levels courses, I was able to sit among music educators that influence my teaching on a daily basis.  

I danced with Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, whose folk dancing and singing game books are used across our district. I'm Growing Up is a new favorite of mine and budget item from this past year.

I interacted with Dr. Wendy Valerio and Dr. Butch Marshal, both former students of Edwin Gordon (read about him here), who shared more ideas from the book Music Play, which I use in many of my preschool and kindergarten lessons.

Roger Sams and Beth Ann Hepburn, authors of the Purposeful Pathways series, presented several sessions demonstrating expert processing and differentiation techniques.  (I won this book and several percussion instruments in a silent auction and can't wait to start using it!)

Community:

 One of my favorite moments of the conference was on our final day when the Vienna Jammers, a percussion ensemble from Vienna, VA comprised of students ages 8-15 years old, performed in the lobby area of the conference center.  People lined the four floors of the conference center balcony areas to watch this awesome group as their music echoed through the building.  It was touching to see some of our nation's greatest educators standing in awe and being inspired by these young children.

Thank you to PMEA and the Margaret S. Bauer Grant for providing funding for me to attend, learn and grow!

Musical Pen Pals

The 2nd and 3rd grade students at Mill Road and Bainbridge were very excited to get their first video from our Musical Pen Pals at Donegal Primary School (DPS).  The first graders at DPS shared the song "Bingo" with Boomwhackers®.  My students enjoyed seeing students from another school and learning a new way to perform a familiar song.  The video also gave us a chance to discuss what makes a successful performance.

This week Mrs. Nein's 2nd Grade class at Mill Road finished their first pen pal video.  2nd Graders recently added the half note to their rhythmic knowledge.  The song "Deedle Deedle Dumpling" (Lois Choksy's Kodaly Method 1, pg. 204) was a great song to highlight this rhythm.  

  After learning the song, the students learned two different ostinati with body percussion.  They then transferred the harmonies to rhythm sticks and orff instruments.  After practicing the three parts, the students recorded their performance and discussed ways to improve their singing and instrument playing.  Below is the video we sent to our Musical Pen Pals at DPS.

Beginning of the year Orff experiences for 3rd grade

In 3rd grade, the students first learned body percussion and the words to a song.  We then learned how to play it on the Orff instruments.  

 Here is Mrs. Burkett's 3rd grade class from Mill Road performing the body percussion and singing "Let's Sing a Song" (Music For Children Vol. I, Canon #1 on pg. 91 modified for 2 at an instrument, lyrics by Nichole Witman). 

Here is Mrs. Tuell's 3rd grade class performing "Let's Sing a Song" on the Orff instruments.

Check out my other blog posts for videos from other grades!

Beginning of the year Orff experiences for 2nd grade

In 2nd grade we read the book Up, Down, and Around by Kathrine Ayres.  2nd grade also practiced upward and downward contour on the Orff instruments like the 1st graders, but these students focused on scale patterns and alternating their sticking.  Here is Miss Antrim's class with part of their book performance:

Check out other blog posts for more videos of the students from other grades playing the Orff instruments.

Beginning of the year Orff experiences for 1st grade

This past week all of my students started learning how to use our Orff instruments. In 1st grade the Orff Instruments were turned into trees (Thanks for the idea Sarah Patek Farrell!) and the students made their mallets go up and down the tree to the song "Let Us Chase the Squirrel". 

Here is Ms. Jenakovich's 1st Grade class playing "Let us Chase the Squirrel":

Check out other blog posts for videos of the other grades!

The wonderful world of Orff!

This past summer I completed a goal that I have had since starting teaching.  I finished my Orff Levels and am now a certified Orff teacher!  It was great to be back in the classroom this summer as a student instead of a teacher!  Last year I posted about several different music teaching methods and Orff Schulwerk is another well known approach in the world of music education.

As I mentioned in an early post, my main approach for teaching is through the Kodaly Method, which is absolutely wonderful for teaching music literacy.  However, I have been noticing that while my students are very knowledgeable, they were having a hard time applying what they know in a musical way and struggle to be independent creators.  By integrating Orff Schulwerk with the Kodaly method, I am able to help my students become musically literate and also perform and create musically.

Orff Schulwerk was developed by Carl Orff, a German composer most known for his cantata "Carmina Burana", and Gunild Keetman, a German educator.  This method promotes musicality through the use of music, movement, speech and drama.

The American Orff Schulwerk Association (AOSA) website describes Orff Schulwerk as "A Teaching Model For Optimal Learning," explaining that "Imitation, experimentation and personal expression occur naturally as the students become confident, life-long musicians and creative problem solvers."  For those of you who read my last post, that's 21st century skills at it's finest!

AOSA website

I am very excited to be integrating more Orff based ideas and activities into my teaching.  In November I will be attending the AOSA National Conference in Atlantic City to learn and grow more in the Orff approach.

 Check out my next post with lots of videos showing how we used our Orff instruments during the 2nd week of school.

 

21st Century Skills: The 4 C's

21st century skills have become the hot topic in the world of education.  The Elizabethtown Area School District, in particular, has put a much bigger emphasis this school year on the importance of 21st century skills to the future of our students.  When most people hear "21st century skills" their immediate thought goes to technology, however, they are much more than that!  As an educator, my main task is to prepare students to become productive members of the community.  With technology and information changing at such a fast pace, how can I ready students for jobs that may not even exist yet?  21st century skills are identified as essential skills for any job, even those that we can't imagine!

In my classroom, I focus on what is known as the "4 C's": Communication, Collaboration, Creativity and Critical Thinking.  As a music educator, these skills show up in many of the activities that we do on a daily basis in music class.  

Take, for example, an activity that we did during 3rd grade music class last week.  It was the first time I had seen the kids this school year, so I planned to do a few team building games to get to know them.  One activity focused on learning each others' names and using two of the 4 C's: Creativity and Critical Thinking (problem solving).  I had the students say their name as they went around the circle, but they were challenged to come up with a unique way to say their name (i.e. high vs. low, fast vs. slow, etc...).  This activity also reviewed the idea of question/answer form.  I was the question asking "What's your name?" and the students gave their name as the answer.   

After they shared their unique sounding names, they were then challenged to create movement or body percussion that matched their name.  I gave them few instructions and allowed the students to time to experiment.  After we performed our name and motion we talked about how some names matched better because you could hear or see the syllables in the motions or because they followed the contour of their voice.  

Student were encouraged to "edit" their responses if they wanted to and we performed our names one final time.  This time, we only performed the movement portion of our name.  Without the ability to use our voice, the students honed their communication and listening skills as they waited for their turn. 

Here is Mrs. Stough's class from Bainbridge Elementary performing their version of "What's your Name?":

Thanks to Susan Riley, Founder of Educationcloset.com for the great name game idea! This was a quick activity, but there were so many lessons that we could learn from it!