music education

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Five Teaching & Learning Myths to Debunk This Year

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Five Teaching & Learning Myths to Debunk This Year

You know those things you’ve heard that seem true? I mean, they sound plausible. Plus, if enough people say it, it must be true, right?

Before long, we find ourselves buying into the hype, retelling the story, believing something we’ve heard without stopping to ask questions.

This is how myths begin.

Sometimes, there’s simply a lack of information—nothing to disprove this theory or that idea. Other times, they sound good on paper but are only surface-level with no substance to back them up.

Whatever the case may be, we’ve all encountered myths (big and small) in various parts of our lives.

But have you ever stopped to think about myths related to teaching and learning? What stories are being told out there that affect our work and how we approach things? What’s being shared as fact when there isn’t research to back it up?

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Do We Really Teach How We Were Taught? Three Things You Should Know

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Do We Really Teach How We Were Taught? Three Things You Should Know

Do you ever think back to the teachers you had growing up?

Maybe a private music teacher or a choir director or your high school English teacher or a professor you had in college.

What do you remember about them? What was your learning experience like? What approaches did you observe? What do you find yourself incorporating into your own teaching?

There’s an age-old adage that says we teach how we were taught.

This isn’t the full story, of course: we all have unique backgrounds and a variety of experiences that inform the people we are today and the teachers we are becoming.

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38 Ways to Sing it Again: Silly Ideas for Your Children's Choir

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38 Ways to Sing it Again: Silly Ideas for Your Children's Choir

“Good! Now, sing it again.”

How many times do you hear yourself saying these words in rehearsal? We all know the importance of repetition. This is how we learn - by trying, experiencing, and doing it again and again.

The problem is, often, this becomes something we do mindlessly. When we hear someone say, “Good! Now, sing it again,”we go into auto-pilot mode and repeat whatever we just did without really thinking about it.

Did you catch that last part?

The Value of Teaching Vowels to Your Children's Choir

The Value of Teaching Vowels to Your Children's Choir

For most choir directors, singing with pure, rounded vowels is one of the primary things you teach to your choirs. It's especially important to teach this to children's choirs and instill good vowel-singing in your singers from a young age.

There are numerous benefits to focusing on this with your children's choirs throughout the year; here are a few worth noting:

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A Fun Way to Incorporate Composing and Musical Creativity Into Your Teaching

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A Fun Way to Incorporate Composing and Musical Creativity Into Your Teaching

Raise your hand if you tend to leave composing to those required college classes and the professionals who do it for a living.

Why is this? I think the biggest reason may be our own insecurity. I mean, how many of us grew up writing our own musical compositions? How many of us include this as a musical activity in our lives and work today?

If you had classical music training growing up, you probably didn’t spend much time composing or creating. Instead, the focus was likely on learning how to read and interpret what’s on the page (speaking from my own experience here).

6 Strategies for Helping a Child Discover Their Singing Voice

6 Strategies for Helping a Child Discover Their Singing Voice

Everyone is born with some level of music aptitude, or potential to succeed in music (source).

According to music researcher Edwin Gordon, this aptitude can increase or decrease between birth and age 7, based on musical exposure and experience.

"The vocal range is remarkably wide from birth,” music education professor Lili Levinowitz wrote. "Infants can imitate and experiment with their vocal instruments: and even match pitch as early as three to four months of age. Purposeful singing can begin at around twelve months. At this time, adults can recognize snippets of songs to which youngsters have been exposed. Through continued exposure to spoken chant, songs, and vocal play, young children can develop the use of their singing voices during the remaining early childhood years.” (source)

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How to Continue Developing Your Teaching Skills This Year

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How to Continue Developing Your Teaching Skills This Year

As teachers, we’re never really done learning (and that’s a good thing!). 

John Dewey once said, “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”

So true, right? The world is constantly changing and evolving and we need to be constantly changing, adapting, learning, and evolving along with it to be the best teachers we can be.

What do you want to learn this year? What kind of teacher do you want to become? 

I shared my answers to these questions on Facebook Live a few weeks ago. Watch the replay here, in case you missed it!

10 Ways to Develop Musicianship in Children's Choir

10 Ways to Develop Musicianship in Children's Choir

I believe church music programs are a wonderful way to teach children about God and their faith and music and singing.

I believe we can do both. And being intentional about planning specific ways to develop musicianship little by little throughout the year is a great place to start.

This post is geared toward children’s choir directors looking for inspiration, ideas, and practical suggestions for teaching children about music and developing musicianship week by week. 

I’ll talk about what musicianship is and 10 practical ways to develop it little by little in your rehearsals each week.

Sing & Play: How to Use Instruments with Your Children's Choir

Sing & Play: How to Use Instruments with Your Children's Choir

Do you use instruments with your children's choir?

Playing an instrument - even if it's just a few jingle bells on a pipe cleaner - is a great way to foster musical development in your young singers.

Here are a few of the primary benefits:

1. It helps children be actively involved in the music-making process.

Children learn by doing, by moving, by experimenting. Music is a form of play, for young children, especially, and interacting with it through playing instruments and singing only deepens their experience.

How to Write Your Own Children's Choir Curriculum

How to Write Your Own Children's Choir Curriculum

For some people, the word “curriculum” may denote academic rigor, standardized tests, detailed lesson plans, and lack of freedom and flexibility. Do we really need this level of planning and detail in our church choirs?

To a certain extent, yes. Here’s why: 

Curriculum can be defined a few different ways. My favorite definition is that curriculum is “the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process” (Kelly, 2009). 

Think of curriculum like a guide: a plan to help you do your best teaching and help promote meaningful learning experiences. Like I tell my students in Directing a Church Children's Choir 101, a curriculum is your basic framework for all the teaching and learning you hope will take place in your choir this year.

Follow along with my creative work and daily adventures: @ashleydanyew

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