All about my life

I am so fortunate to have a friend and colleague that I work so well with. Sean Fitzmaurice and I have been working together for years now, exploring ideas, composing music, and discussing big dreams for the future.  Over the last two years, Sean and I have presented workshops together locally, and nationally. We are now officially SOUNDSCAPE MUSIC! We will be presenting at the Carl Orff Canada conference, "Bridges" at the end of April. We will also be presenting at the American Orff Schulwerk Conference this fall in Atlantic City! We are so excited!  I will be moving my blog to the Soundscape Music Blog on our website www.soundscapemusic.net Be sure to follow us over there and maybe even book us as presenters for your chapter or school division! Thank you so much for your support and for following my blog over the last three years!

Setting goals and self-reflection are very important pieces to student learning in all subject areas. I am constantly trying to find ways to do this in meaningful ways with my students, while keeping in mind that I don't have very much time with my little munchkins!  Many teachers in my school use targets as a way of setting goals and doing self-assessment with their students. I wanted to implement this as a regular, every day thing in music. Check out the magnetic target that I created using a pizza pan, construction paper, Mactac, and dollar store magnets! This has been super easy to use in class as a "check-in" with students. It is a great visual for students to see and indicate where they think they are in their learning. For example, if we are working on our singing voices we will discuss the criteria of a good singing voice and assess where we think we are as a class on the target.  How do you encourage/incorporate self-reflection and metacognitive learning in your ...