Discovery Teacher Workshop 2023

This session will provide strategies to actively engage students in the listening process. Participants will experience sample lessons focusing on form, rhythm, phrasing, and expressive elements found in William Grant Still’s Symphony No.1 (Movement 3) and Stravinsky’s “Infernal Dance” from the Firebird Suite. These lessons will focus, specifically, on using movement, reading, and creativity as vehicles to engage deeply with these selected pieces.

Join this session to explore form and movement with the Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5. A listening map PowerPoint will be provided as well as movement ideas for both stationary individual movement and a double circle mixer! We will also explore unpitched percussion instruments and the fugue form with the rhythm from Bach’s “Little Fugue” - an original percussion piece will be provided to be used for students to experience Bach’s rhythm and the staggered entrances of a fugue. We will go over body percussion activities using the PowerPoint listening map which will be provided.

In our wellness session, we will cover what mindfulness is and how to use it in our lives as teachers. This will include exercises for personal use, such as the informal S.T.O.P. protocol, 4-7-8 breaths, and self-compassion breaks, along with more formal exercises like breath awareness and body scan meditations. Participants will walk away with mindful exercises to support student learning in the classroom and the principles for incorporating mindfulness into your established activities.