2022 Colorado Music Educators Association Conference
Thursday, January 27, 2022
CMEA Opening Session, Keynote, and Honor Awards Ceremony
CMEA President Kevin Beaber and CMEA President-elect Cynthia Eversole welcome all to the 2022 conference and annual meeting of the membership. Enjoy a keynote address presented by Omar Thomas, and celebrate the accomplishments of our CMEA Honor Award Recipients from 2021 and 2022.
The ABC’s of Songwriting Activism: Art + Blues + Compassion = Change
Do you want to create more opportunities for the intersection of activism and active music-making in your classroom? Songwriting can be tricky, but provides rewarding musical experiences and a platform for student agency and activism. Come learn how the blues genre and visual art combine to provide a perfect initial journey for student activist songwriting that is accessible and successful. Participants will leave our session ready to build a blues unit where students own the entire songwriting process. Not only will they write and sing the lyrics, but they will also play recorder, ukulele, and barred instruments, while exploring important music concepts like form, theory, harmony, and music history. We will also discuss songwriting tips and tricks, plus quality resources for introducing a blues unit to your students. Bring a recorder and ukulele to join in our songwriting!
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Building an Equity Bridge Through Student-Led Chamber Ensembles
El Sistema Colorado's mission is to harness the joy of music and ignite the potential in our future leaders through an immersive youth music education program that transcends socioeconomic barriers. We see our equity focus coming to life in two distinct areas: Dismantling white supremacy within the arts environment and facilitating socio-emotional learning with a social justice focus. How does a music program make this shift? Through student-led chamber ensembles designed to give students both voice and choice in their music making experience. We think these small ensembles may be the most efficient and effective way to shift music education to being more student-centered, equitable, and culturally responsive.
Join El Sistema Colorado and Quartet Maravilla as we demonstrate how chamber music can build an equity bridge while preparing students for lives as professional musicians.
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Inherently Political: A Conversation Around Activism and Artivism in Concert Music
In this session, I will discuss the activism that is at the core of a number of my works, and considerations that should be taken when composing and commissioning such music.
Native American Music into the General and Choral Music Classrooms
This presentation will include an introduction to Native American music, culture, differentiation, and history from tribes in the United States, as well as lesson plan ideas, songs, and resources for implementing Indigenous music into the general or choral music space. The audience will also receive critical insight into the lives of First Nations students, and how teachers can make these students feel validated in their classrooms in any age group.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Women Conductors - Creating Community and Support
This session will look at the numbers of women in the band conducting field in high schools in the state of Colorado and higher education wind conductors in the United States. Information will be shared about results from my research entitled: Prominent Women Wind Conductors in Higher Education: Trials, Triumphs, and Recommendations for Improving Gender Equity in the Field.
Friday, January 28, 2022
Start with Hello - Working with Administrators to Create Vibrant School Music Programs
Are you happy with your school music program? Is it moving toward your vision of success? None of us creates great programs alone. This clinic will give you strategies to communicate and involve your school administration, techniques help grow your program, and pathways to improve school culture in your building.
Teaching Music to Students with Trauma
We all have trauma-- but as education grows and develops, we are finding better ways of helping students to heal from trauma through the classroom interactions we have every day. In this session you will learn what a young brain does when it has experienced trauma, how Adverse Childhood Experiences can be at the root of a lot of frustrating behavior, and the best ways to help students whom you may not have had any clue what to do with before. We will also discuss how a music educator's personal healing from trauma is crucial to helping your students heal from theirs.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Social Justice Music Education
As the country reckons with injustice, educators, especially arts educators, possess one of the greatest tools to help young people understand and take action towards social justice. Based on two years of pedagogical research on the intersection of social justice and arts education, join Creative Generation for a hands-on session to integrate the National Core Arts Standards for music with the Teaching for Justice’s social justice education standards. The workshop will culminate with music educators crafting their own conception of an integrated music education/social justice lesson plan.
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Additional Resources
There's an APP for That!
Claire Hudkins
Western Oregon University, Director of Vocal Studies & NTT Assistant Professor of MusicOver the past year, whether we have wanted to or not, we have all become far more aware of different apps that we can use with our students for enhancing music learning inside and outside of the classroom. There are literally apps for everything. While there are thousands of apps available, it is easy to get into the weeds looking for apps that are pedagogically sound, useful, cost efficient, and accessible for students from pre-K through college. This session will explore many of the APPs available to music educators using both traditional computers, tablets/iPads, Chromebooks, and smartphones. Many of the APPs are free, readily available, and can inspire your students both in and outside of the classroom!
Being a Culturally Responsive Educator: Starting with a Personal Approach
The call for culturally responsive educators has risen in the last few years. Educators such as Zaretta Hammond (2014) and music educators such as Vicki Lind and Constance McKoy (2016) have championed this call. What does it mean to be a culturally responsive educator? Where can teachers start to understand the aspects of being culturally responsive? The core of being a culturally responsive educator begins with the teacher in the classroom understanding themselves. In this session, we will discuss four personal areas that educators can attend to in order to better understand themselves and how they approach teaching. These areas are privilege, intersectionality, implicit bias, and fragility. Using these areas, we will discuss ways to understand ourselves and how we can best approach teaching from a culturally responsive lens.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
The Great Unknown: General Music for Middle School
For Middle School, General Music can truly feel like the Great Unknown. With so much to choose from and not knowing where to start, it’s no wonder some educators feel turned around. This session will talk about how you can transform a “music appreciation class” into one that encourages students to create and build their own world of music. You will walk away with some simple ideas that will help your students (and you) get excited to learn.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Fun and Free Technology Platforms and Improv in the Secondary Choral Classroom
Do you want to learn how to engage students with technology in your choral classroom and still make it fun? How about making it fun and teaching them improvisation skills at the same time? If so, then this session will be filled with fun and engaging technology platforms, games and ideas for your secondary choral students. We will use Gimkit, Kahoot, Hookpad and Soundtrap so bring your computer, iPad or phone and be ready to learn how to teach theory skills, form, harmonic chord progressions and improvisation while making it fun!
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Saturday, January 29, 2022
How Long Has it Been? – Ins and Outs of Drum Head Replacement
This hour showcase will discuss the dos and don'ts of replacing drumheads, knowing when it’s time to replace them, and strategies on how to pay for the upkeep.
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I Have To Teach What? - Popular Music Courses at the Secondary Level
Whether a push from administrators, the community, or as a necessary class to fill out FTE, many secondary music educators are being handed popular music courses as part of their teaching loads. Often educators are assigned these courses with little to no curriculum support or training. This session will look at taking these classes and turning them into a robust program of study in popular music in a way that honors why students take these classes, acknowledges their limits as electives, and respects the time and energy of a secondary music educator that is already spread thin. Topics will include courses (guitar, history, and recording and songwriting), curriculum development, assessment, and recruitment and scheduling.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
FTE Challenge: Creative Solutions to Stay Full Time
In this clinic I will demonstrate techniques and strategies to help you teach classes you may not be an expert in. I will show you a basic foundation to get you started. If you are a band director being asked to teach choir, or vice versa this is for you. I will also explore other types of music classes, such as beginning guitar, music theory and independent study to help you stay full time!
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Honest Conversations About Mental Health
It can be challenging to talk about how we feel and what we think, especially in our very public roles as music teachers. Our session is a friendly environment to start conversations about improving our mental health in a relatable way as musicians, teachers, and people.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Percussion For the Small School Director
Are you a small school band director? Do you have limited resources at your disposal? Are you in need of some percussion help? Then this is the clinic for you. We will discuss everything from basic percussion playing techniques to repair on those many instruments. This crash course will give you tons of ideas on how to utilize your percussion equipment in ways you never thought plus bring life back to that broken cymbal stand hiding in the corner.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
5 S.M.A.R.T. Steps to RETAINING Our Beginners
Would you be surprised to learn that within one short year, 60% of beginning students are no longer playing? You've worked hard to recruit—and even re-recruit—beginners into your instrumental music program so this year, more than ever before, it’s all about RETAINING them! Actionable steps that can be taken by parents, administrators, and the students themselves will make all the difference whether in an urban, suburban or rural setting. In this on-target session, directors of all experience and expertise levels will learn about the role they can play in these 5 S.M.A.R.T. Steps to RETAINING Our Beginners.
Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:
Make it Work: Flexible/Adaptable Music Beyond the Pandemic
Many instrumental music programs turned to flexible/adaptable compositions as a tool to maintain programs while facing the many challenged of the past year associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, many composers responded to the needs of music organizations by composing works for flexible or adaptable instrumentation. While this music is well suited to meet the challenges of the past year’s hardships, there are many opportunities in flexible/adaptable music beyond the circumstances of the pandemic. This session will focus on how instrumental programs can use these works in a wide variety of teaching and performing situations. Dr.’s Townsend and Winter will offer an overview of the history and recent development in flexible music, a variety of applications, misconceptions about the genre, practical applications, and the genre as a tool to bridge gaps of access and equity.
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