Three Great Sessions
General Session
Creating a Developmentally Appropriate Music Learning Environment:
Principles that Should Underpin Our Practice
Children learn better when their instructional environments correspond with their developmental needs. This session will highlight the guiding principles of developmentally appropriate early childhood music learning environments and will give early childhood music educators gateposts to use when making instructional decisions. The session specifically will address the types of activities that should be included in an early childhood music environment and how these activities should flow within the context of a class environment. It also will address how children’s musical,social,and cognitive development should play a role in making instructional decisions.
Objectives:
1. Participants should know the components of a developmentally appropriate music learning environment.
2. Participants should become more aware of the developmental needs of their students.
Breakout 1
Encouraging Music Play:Ideas for Teaching Very Young Children
Ideas for working with young children in a musically rich environment. Participants will engage in activities that can be used to elicit musical responses from young children and encourage them to playfully participate in music. This session will demonstrate the concepts introduced in the General Session in action and will focus on teaching techniques that enrich any early childhood music classroom.
Objectives:
1. Identify the concepts of a developmentally appropriate early childhood music environment as they are modeled in activities.
2. Use modeled activities as stepping stones for developing activities of the participants’own.
Breakout 2
Early Childhood Music and Movement Developmental Appropriateness Guidelines
A workshop session in which portions of ECMMA’s emerging guidelines documents are introduced and discussed. Participants will be encouraged to interact with the presenters as they discuss content within the various guideline categories,including developmentally appropriate:
Music
Movement –Both for Musical and Physical Outcomes
Inclusiveness with Special Needs
Classroom Environment
Use of Manipulatives
Adult Classroom Support
…and other important considerations in the ECMM setting.
Bio:
Cynthia Crump Taggart is Professor and Chair of Music Education at Michigan State University,where she directs and teaches in the Early Childhood Music Program of the Community Music School of Michigan State University’s College of Music. As an MSU faculty member,she received the prestigious Teacher-Scholar award. Prior to teaching at MSU,she taught at Case Western Reserve University,where she won the Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She has extensive elementary and preschool teaching experience in Wisconsin,Michigan,and Pennsylvania. She also has served as President of the College Music Society.
Dr. Taggart’s publications include co-authorship of Music Play,Jump Right In:The Music Curriculum,and Best Music for Young Band,as well as co-editorship of Learning from Young Children,The Development and Practical Applications of Music Learning Theory,and Readings in Music Learning Theory. In addition,she has written extensively for professional journals. Her research interests are early childhood music,elementary general music,measurement,psychology of music,music learning theory,and music aptitude.