For more than forty years, Joan Eckroth-Riley has been sharing her passion for music education. She currently serves at Murray State University in Kentucky as associate professor and coordinator of music education. She is the author of Everyday Improvisation: Interactive Lessons for the Music Classroom and Everyday Composition: Interactive Lessons for the Music Classroom, and a contributing author to Kaleidoscope, which contains lessons on the new core music standards. Eckroth-Riley is a certified recorder and movement instructor for Orff Schulwerk teacher training courses, frequent workshop presenter on standards and assessments for elementary music, and musical clinician around the country. She holds a master’s degree in music education with an emphasis in Orff Schulwerk from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was honored to be named the North Dakota Music Educator of the Year in 2016.
If you have been overwhelmed with how much there is to teach in an elementary curriculum, you are not alone! Discover in these sessions how to scaffold a teaching sequence using processes inherent in the Orff Schulwerk and Kodály approaches. The sessions will focus on doing more with less by integrating the Orff processes of imitating, exploring, and creating, while introducing structured learning through preparing, presenting, and practicing curriculum concepts. Each session will focus on creating joyful experiences while sequencing and structuring a school year.
Rebecca Pogue Fields serves as head of elementary school programs at the Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where she facilitates the design, administration, and delivery of arts integrated, in-school residency programs in more than three hundred classrooms each year. She also facilitates theatre education programs and teacher training utilizing the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education model. STEAM learning integrates the arts into the traditional STEM curriculum to enhance creativity and critical thinking skills. Fields enjoys training educators at various levels to introduce best practices in arts integration, transform teacher practices, and establish strategic partnerships. She graduated from the University of Georgia with a fine arts degree in dance and received a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky. Fields has previously worked with Young Audiences Arts for Learning and the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.
Have you ever wanted to explore habitats through statues and tableau, become a character from history, or facilitate a town hall to debate which shape is best? This workshop will introduce teachers to best practices in arts integration and identify how that would look in their classrooms. Participants will explore new teaching strategies for any content area, learn ways to involve students’ creativity, and have fun while learning. Whether exploring this work for the first time or mastering specific strategies, teachers who participate will gain experience and confidence in authentic arts integration.
Sara Simons is an associate professor of instruction at University of Texas at Austin, where she is the head of the bachelor of fine arts theatre education program. Her teaching interests include theatre for social change, process drama, multicultural education, and curriculum design. She teaches classes for pre-service theatre educators, which include designs for instruction and creative drama I and II. Simons received a grant to develop a signature course called Art and the Epidemic, where students examine art created in response to both the AIDS crisis and COVID-19. The University of Texas honored her with the 2020-21 College of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award. Simons has a degree in theatre and women’s studies from Wellesley College, a master’s in theatre education from Emerson College, and a PhD in educational theatre from New York University. Her research has been published in Youth Theatre Journal, TYA Today, The Journal of Applied Arts & Health, and Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
This hands-on workshop will explore strategies for creative drama in the classroom including games, story dramas, and teacher-in-role. Participants will learn how to use structured activities to help students develop their imagination and creativity.
Paige Medlock teaches visual art and art education courses, and supervises student teachers at Middle Tennessee State University. She serves on the board of the Tennessee Art Education Association (TAEA) as president-elect and was awarded the TAEA 2024 Art Educator of the Year award for Middle Tennessee. Medlock holds degree in art education from Asbury University in Kentucky, a degree in visual culture from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and a practice-based doctorate in visual culture from the University of Stirling, Scotland. Medlock is a practicing artist with large-scale commissioned stained glass installations in three countries. She presents at regional, state, national, and international conferences on ways that visual art education can navigate trauma and provide pathways to well-being. Her research and artwork focus on visual art as a place where an inner shift can occur that transforms the way people act and interact.
Using mixed media, participants will explore a variety of projects that help children navigate difficulties, challenges, trauma, and changes. Through art making mixed-media projects, as well as presentation and discussion, the potential of interdisciplinary work to facilitate holistic health will be explored. Although the sessions will primarily utilize visual art practice and theory, no prior artistic experience is necessary.
Jann Knighten received degrees in music education from East Carolina University, then attended the University of Texas at Austin. She began her career as a teacher of middle school band in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and completed thirty years of public school teaching in 2009. Knighten represented North Carolina as an educational ambassador for the U.S.-Japan Foundation’s Global Schools Initiative at Hiroshima University and Mihara Junior High School. She is currently the coordinator of the graduate certificate in music education for students with differences and disabilities, and a candidate for a doctorate in curriculum and instruction in special education at the University of Arkansas. Knighten has presented at national and international conferences and professional development sessions in many states. She is the president of the Arkansas Music Educators Association and the president-elect for the Council of Exceptional Children’s Division of Visual and Performing Arts.
Music educators are expected to maintain a high-quality performance standard in ensembles, but the demographics of student personnel have changed and caused challenges over the years. These sessions will provide the knowledge necessary to incorporate research-based strategies for delivering instruction, plus adaptations for providing access to instruction for all students. Based on the latest research in education, and the writings of such notable researchers and lecturers as Dr. Alice Hammel, participants will leave the academy understanding the differences in the way that students learn and have strategies to successfully teach all students.
Raymond McAnally, a native of Franklin, Tennessee, is an award-winning actor, producer writer, and lecturer. Some of his television credits include Black Mirror: San Junipero, which won an Emmy in 2017. He has had guest starring roles on Better Call Saul, Modern Family, Chicago Fire, and 30 Rock, and his feature film credits include Paradise Highway, The Revival, and Compliance. Theatre credits of note include God's Ear; Casa Valentina; One Man, Two Guvnors; Mrs. Mannerly, and The Foreigner, among many others. McAnally’s solo show, Size Matters, received its world premiere at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, was filmed before a live audience at the Franklin Theatre, and now streams on Amazon Prime. His full-length play, The Cruelty of Children, was a semi-finalist at the O’Neill Center in 2019. McAnally has been a lecturer for Rutgers Arts Online since 2013 and guest lectured at colleges and conservatories since 2009. He holds a degree in acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts and a degree from Sewanee.
Through exercises and instruction, the instructor will define the "sense of play" that is foundational to building characters, whether for in-class work or part of a production. The participants will learn to help students creatively explore different physicality and vocal variations to make strong character choices. Participants will learn what it feels like to have their physical and vocal choices solidify into a character so that they can guide students to the same outcomes.
Paige Medlock teaches visual art and art education courses, and supervises student teachers at Middle Tennessee State University. She serves on the board of the Tennessee Art Education Association (TAEA) as president-elect and was awarded the TAEA 2024 Art Educator of the Year award for Middle Tennessee. Medlock holds degree in art education from Asbury University in Kentucky, a degree in visual culture from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and a practice-based doctorate in visual culture from the University of Stirling, Scotland. Medlock is a practicing artist with large-scale commissioned stained glass installations in three countries. She presents at regional, state, national, and international conferences on ways that visual art education can navigate trauma and provide pathways to well-being. Her research and artwork focus on visual art as a place where an inner shift can occur that transforms the way people act and interact.
Using glass as a medium, participants will explore theory and practice to discover ways that materiality and mentality are connected. Through art-making, glass-based projects, as well as presentation and discussion, the potential of interdisciplinary work to facilitate holistic health will be explored. Although the sessions will primarily utilize visual art practice and theory, no prior artistic experience is necessary.
