Teaching and Engagement
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One of the highlights of my Beginning Methods class was the opportunity to facilitate a JMUke event. This was admittedly the first time I had ever attended a JMUke event, but it was extremely rewarding for me. JMUke events invite everyone from the JMU community, the Harrisonburg community, and beyond to jam informally on ukeleles. All people are invited, even those that have no musical experience. The event that I facilitated was on Halloween, so most of the pieces in our jam were oriented around Halloween, like Monster Mash, The Addams Family, and more! Not many participants showed up for this event, which is expected during a pandemic, but the few people that we had made the event so much fun. With an informal experience like this, there was no pressure for me to play the right chords all of the time or sing well. I also learned more about technologies that can aid rehearsals should social distancing last a few more years. We set up this event in the model of David Newman's choir rehearsals, where everyone participating used a microphone that transmitted the sound through a speaker and through their car radios. This was really cool for me to see in action, and we had similar participation issues as our Zoom class meetings, but instead of people leaving their cameras off, the participants in their cars turned off their microphones. This meant that the only sounds being transmitted were the facilitators, but we were all still having a lot of fun.
Another engagement opportunity that I had this semester was developing materials for in service teachers to use in asynchronous lessons. This was a really interesting experience as I knew one of the teachers, but I never met any of the students that I was making materials for. I also never got to see these materials in use, so I have no idea how the students interacted with it. This was a very different experience from anything I was used to as I have always been able to see directly how students and teachers respond to my work. Despite this, I really liked the experience as it gave me the opportunity to engage with music in a way that was different from my usual experiences. This experience also gave me many ideas on how to interact with topics in improvisation, a topic that I have little experience with since my primary instrument is not a typical jazz instrument. |
Lexie Rowland
Here I will share examples of my community connections and experiences. Archives
March 2021
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