2020-2021 Workshops

August 29, 2020: Jennifer Donovan

Active Music Making In the COVID-19 Era

Participants will engage in discussion, creation, and reflection exploring avenues to provide elementary music classroom instruction which is focused on active music making. Using the Orff Schulwerk media, we will discover approaches to modify our instruction to maintain proper social distance guidelines.

Workshop will be held from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST on Zoom

September 19, 2020: Kate Bright

Nurturing the Unexpected

Unprecedented times require unprecedented processes. Explore different ways to synchronously and asynchronously make music with students through songs, stories, and (Google) Slides. Kate will share techniques on how to create digital resources for use in a socially distant classroom or that students can use from the safety of their homes.

Workshop will be held from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST on Zoom

October 17, 2020: Eric Young

Zoom or Room: Music Activities for Your Classroom

Participants will explore various activities that will work in a distance learning setting or at school.

Workshop will be held from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. EST on Zoom

February 13, 2021: Sarah Richardson

Elemental Drama: Theatre in the Orff Classroom

In an Orff classroom, we play with elements of music and movement to enable children to create their own work. We can also isolate elements of drama and play with them so that children can create their own theatre. Carl Orff was, after all, a theatre artist. By providing a clearly defined framework in which to “improvise toward composition”, students can create theatre in tandem with music and movement.

Theatre games and exercises are fun in a classroom, but can also be integrated in a meaningful way to help your students create performance. In this workshop, we will explore theatre games and how to integrate them into lessons, and look at lessons that utilize drama as a means to create music.

March 13, 2021: LeslieAnne Bird

Planning in a Void; Adapting and Adjusting in the time of Covid

In this workshop we will work out how to plan for the immediate and uncertain future while maintaining our sanity and having fun with our musicians. Then we will peek into the future and look at strategies to modify long range plans for next year. We will look at a lesson that LeslieAnne usually teaches in person and how it was adapted for rapidly changing Covid protocols to serve as a model for adapting our own lessons for whatever the future may hold.

Virtual Workshop Information

As we dive into the uncharted territory of Virtual Workshops, know that we at GCCAOSA are working hard to ensure that you are able to experience some amazing professional development from the comfort of your home!

Our registration will close at Noon on the Thursday prior to the workshop. This allows us to get a final headcount and process payments for workshop fees. Your workshops fees can still be paid by check, please email our treasurer at opus1162@gmail.com.

We will be utilizing Zoom for our workshops. This email link will be sent by Friday afternoon on the day prior to the workshop. If you do not receive a link, please email us at gccaosa@gmail.com. Our workshops will be monitored and moderated by our board so that we can engage collaboratively with the clinician and each other.

These new virtual workshops would be a great time to invite a friend to take part using our FREE guest pass. If they have been on the fence, now is their chance!

We hope that you will join us for these unique learning opportunities! Please email us if you have any questions or concerns at gccaosa@gmail.com.

Find out more about our 2020-2021 Presenters