-: All right, good morning, everybody.
I am so glad that you were able to be here
for this very quick session.
As you can see from the title,
I'm gonna share my screen with you in just a second,
that shift happens and I hope you were able to pick up
on that little point right there
because we definitely had to do a lot of shifting
as we moved into figuring out how to and who we needed
to be as we were teaching online this semester.
Now, for me in particular, my area is choral music
but I think that there are a lot of things that I was able
to implement and work through with my students
that are transferable across many different disciplines.
And if you have some questions about that,
please put those in the chat and I'll try to leave
a little bit of time at the short 25 minutes minutes
to be able to address a few of those things.
But what we learned this year is that
social emotional learning was very important and key
to us being able to deliver some of the core content
in our particular areas.
And mine is online performance and experience-based courses.
And so figuring out how to tap into what the students
needed to be able to experience in your classrooms
in order to feel like they could be present
and not necessarily focusing full time
on the very real experience of trying to be in a pandemic
and do all the things that we need to do
to just live our regular lives with the recognition
that in my area, we were not going to be back
to a pre-pandemic type of situation
in my classroom for a while.
And these tools that I've implemented have not necessarily
been focused on the music that we sang,
but it was just focused on, again, building and cultivating
a community within the ensemble and within the classroom,
so the students know that they could look to each other
and that they actually were not alone in this time
where we all experienced a lot of isolation.
So I'm gonna take you through three different ways
that I incorporated some ideas, some different technologies
that would work in an online situation
but they would actually work offline as well.
So if you decided that these are some of the things
you wanted to incorporate as we move back
into in-person classroom settings,
they would be excellent for you.
I will tell you that I have been in person with my classes
since we started in August.
So these things have been tested and tested and tested
and I've gotten a lot of great feedback from the students
about how these supplemental or enrichment experiences
were just as important as the core content of the class.
So the very first thing that I used
is not a new strategy at all.
The jigsaw learning strategy
has been around for a long time.
And one of the ways that I used it in this classroom
was to build community and foster collaborative learning.
So if you've ever done group work,
you know that there are problems that congregate group work
because not everybody contributes in the same way
and that can be frustrating for your classroom.
And so I put some links here.
If any of you want this slide when I get done,
you can find a little more in-depth explanation
of what the jigsaw learning strategy is.
But basically it's a group work focused activity
that allows for contributions, but also is focused
on the group whole learning within that small group,
and then you're able to break those groups out
into other learning groups so that people
can share information and collaborate.
And the way that we used
it was we were doing virtual chores.
You may have seen some of those online
where people in the little Brady bunch box is singing.
And, but my choir wasn't into that.
Not everybody's into that
and that takes a lot, a lot of work.
You may not be able to see that when you are watching
those things, but it takes hours and hours
to put those together.
So I had to figure out a different way to engage
my students in doing this.
And what we did was we created video program notes.
So it was a different kind of on-ramp
into this virtual learning,
the virtual learning tools we had to use
but it also helped in this case,
build some of those musical skills that the students
will need to be able to communicate to their audiences.
It also allowed me to kind of flip the classroom
a little bit because usually I write all the program notes
or I have my graduate student write the program notes
but I involve the students in their process
which gives a little bit more buy-in
and the way that I was able to break it up
each individual student had a small section
that they would bring back to their group.
So I would assign a piece of music
and then when they had done all of the particular things
they needed to do with their music, those categories,
they would fan out and they would regroup
and everybody was responsible for teaching the new groups
about the particular piece of music that they were assigned
in their content or piece-specific music.
And so I'll show you an example of what that looks like.
And then I had a grading rubric that went along with it.
We also, there was a two-part assignment
where then the students had to come together and translate
that information or synthesize
that highly high-level musical information
into something that an audience goer who knows nothing
about music would be able to come to a concert
and learn something about the piece in order to be engaged
while the concert was happening,
or while they watched all of our concerts.
So that's engaging students on a variety of levels
of Bloom's taxonomy which sometimes comes
with, you kind of cringe a little bit but it encourages them
to take that high level music thinking that we're doing
in the classroom, funneling it down into the basics
so that they can explain what they're singing to people
who weren't in the classroom as we were learning.
And that kind of transference is essential
in making sure that the students are actually learning
the information that they can take it from something complex
and break it down to kindergarten level.
Then you know that they've learned that content.
So I wanna show you an example
of what one of these look like.
We won't watch much of it but just a little snippet.
-: This piece was arranged by Robert T. Gibson
who was composer, conductor and educator
from Houston, Texas with a passion for combining
his experiences with gospel and classical music.
-: Gibson composed this arrangement while living in Missouri.
He was inspired by its Gospel music roots,
having been a member of gospel choir for most of his life.
It was published by Walton Music in 2018.
-: Gibson had in mind.
-: And so the students went through and they created
these via Zoom and then it was followed up
by their piece of music and by them singing
and performing the piece of music.
(calm music)
So the students knew more about what they're singing.
And in my content area, if you are able
to explain the particular concept, you engage more with it,
and there's also a physical reaction that translates
into the musicianship that's being poured
into the performance, or in some of your cases,
if it's not necessarily a performance,
it could be in the essay after reading about, you know,
reading some kind of book
or whatever the area of study may be.
So I think this idea of the jigsaw learning strategy
is very applicable to areas outside of my own.
The other thing that I implemented more
this semester was Flipgrid.
And it was very helpful in engaging in asynchronous learning
and engaged students in peer feedback.
I've given a little link here if you have,
that's for the, that's not supposed to say jigsaw, sorry,
that's a little bit more about Flipgrid.
But what I did to help on two levels,
there was an intercollegiate level connecting students
to a larger cohort outside of what we have here at UNO
for the purposes of building their professional contacts.
And then there was a way that we use it within the context
of our classrooms to be able to just build, again,
building that community and getting feedback
from their peers in order to learn how to have conversations
with each other and talk to each other, because it requires
a lot of vulnerability sometimes from some people
in our classrooms to be able to engage
with their counterparts.
And Zoom only made it harder
because we're not in the same space,
even though we're occupying all the boxes
on the same screen at the same time.
So I created this inter-collegiate choral
conducting collaborative with my colleagues
at the University of Kansas
and the University of Eastern Michigan.
I think I got that right, Eastern Michigan University.
And what we did was because each of us
have graduate programs that are small,
I decided to put those students together
for collaborative projects using Flipgrid
so that they not only could learn and get peer feedback,
but they also build them their professional networks.
So when they leave here at UNO, they've already connected
with six other people from different parts of the country
which gives them access to different lived experiences
that they can tap into when they begin
their professional careers
outside of the graduate degree.
Because we know that building relationships is beneficial
when you're trying to make progress
and move through our professions.
So I wanna give you a little example of what one of those
looked like so that you can see what,
what does inter-collegiate conducting collaborative was.
So the students were given the task to conduct.
And they had to do this on Flipgrid
and then everybody gave responses.
And what we found was lots of encouragement.
We also found that students,
sometimes students respond to the shiny bang
after they've been with you for a while.
So sometimes their peers would say things
that I would have said to them
but it clicked a little bit more and there's nothing okay
because I don't feel like I have to be the bearer
of all the capitol teachers in the classroom.
It's an experience of learning and trying to meet
each student individually where they are.
So I wanna show you
kinda what it looked like using Flipgrid.
And this was all done asynchronously.
-: My altos, my basses, and the my tenors.
So here we go.
(piano music)
-: And so on the other side, the people watching the video
are singing their part, responding to how to his gesture
and giving him feedback about how his conducting
manifested itself in their performances.
And if you don't know anything about being a conductor,
this is huge information, significantly huge information.
So I'm gonna zoom down here with a quick list
so you can hear some of the students' feedback.
Again, asynchronously, but very, very helpful
(woman singing)
So she sings her part.
And this is one of the students
from Eastern Michigan State University.
(woman singing)
-: Or if you wanted
any other like, anything other than like
eventually crescendoing.
-: So the students found that very helpful
because it was almost real-time feedback,
quote unquote, real-time feedback because they heard someone
responding to their gesture and then they get verbal
specific places in the music that we've studied.
And that was, I found that to be very helpful
as we came back and worked one-on-one
in our one-on-one lessons with each other.
The other way that we used this
was with our, we started choir families.
And this was a way for students to be able
to be in touch with each other and to,
contact each other and learn more about each other
outside of just learning music,
because that's important as well.
We benefit a lot from those times before and after class
where students get to interact, but the students
couldn't interact that way this year
because there were guidelines about how far apart
they needed to be, or how long rehearsals could be.
And there was just a lot going
on where we weren't able to connect.
So I was able to use this medium
to create those experiences.
And so I'll show you a little example
of what that looked like as well using Flipgrid.
-: Hello everyone, my name is Hannah,
I'm a senior vocal performance major.
My favorite food are macarons
and a goal that I hope to achieve is-
-: So they had a favorite food and a goal.
What I found out and I didn't know
this is that my choir likes potatoes.
They love to eat potatoes in any form potatoes come.
And then the students were given the opportunity to react.
-: Hi Hannah, I love that you said that your favorite food
are macarons because that's such a niche,
like fun little like dessert that I like can never find.
They're like in my little local pastry places
but I forgot about those.
-: And so we're still able to have those conversations
that are small and quick.
But as they build upon each other, those conversations
create chains that build friendships
and that build trust that we then tap
into when I'm teaching and where we're having moments
where we need to be really open about things
that are occurring in the music.
One of the things that we just did
before the pandemic was seven last words of the unarmed.
And it was about the killing of Black men
and sometimes at the hands of policemen.
And that's a topic that's very at the forefront
of our lives right now.
And to be able to have those conversations,
we still needed to be able to build that trust
within that ensemble, and this was one of the ways
that we were able to do that.
The final thing is just focusing
on social emotional learning overall.
And part of that began was for me to have the students
take the opportunity to just slow down and look
at some of the beautiful things that we often pass by
in our world because we're constantly going so fast.
So this was an outward facing project,
a community engagement project.
And we also had some service learning
involved in it as well.
And so I had the students create a video playlist
for our retirement homes.
I told you earlier that we are not a group of people,
our students were not interested at all in creating
those virtual choir videos that you probably have seen
all over the news and on YouTube,
they just weren't interested in it.
So what I had them do was we collected
the song requests from local retirement homes.
And I had a created a cues list
and the students chose a song that they connected
with and made a video performance of it
so that we could then send it back to the retirement homes
and they could enjoy that for whatever they needed to.
This was wonderful
because it helped our students develop empathy.
We know that our senior community
was one of the communities that was heavily hit by COVID.
So it allowed us to be outward facing and not necessarily
focusing on our own experience right now
because sometimes that can get you a little bogged down
when you think about trying to go back to pre COVID.
But here's where we are now, and here's some ways
that we can take that energy and focus it.
And what was great because I got the students to sing
a lot to different genres,
not just classical choral music, but they sang
genres was that I didn't know some of them could sing.
And then some of them told me that it allowed them
to engage with their parents.
So some of the videos,
we created five one hour and 20 minute videos
and some of the people got their families involved in it.
And so it was amazing.
The other thing that we did was I asked the students
to create appreciation videos.
And we did that for educators specifically,
again, music educators, and then we did a medical education,
a medical worker appreciation video.
And through that, we come to find out
that some of the students in our choir actually work
in hospitals and are working towards being nurses.
So again, we learned a component of their lives
that we didn't know and we probably wouldn't have known
if we kept going in that pre COVID manner that allowed us
to build some more conversations and some more trust
that benefited me as the professor in the classroom
because I could tap into that energy
to lead some really high level conversations,
and the result of that was a great music making.
And so I'm just gonna share a little bit
of some of these with you
before I have to, before my time is up.
Here is,
one of the retirement home videos.
(student singing)
This is a student who was actually in the army reserve.
So she combined a couple couple of her interests.
(student singing)
(man singing)
(student singing)
This group of students is really is great
because they are a medical choir.
These are current medical students or doctors
that work in UNMC and they have a group called Doc'Apella.
And so this also got us to engage with other aspects
of the end-use system, not only just UNO, but UNMC as well.
(students singing)
-: Hi there, my name is Abby, I'm a senior.
-: So one of the, we'll just do a small clips
of the appreciation videos.
(calm music)
-: Thank you so much teachers for everything
you've been doing over the last several months
and even before then, when this whole thing started up.
It's been a very hard challenge for you, I'm sure.
-: And then here's the last one that I'll show you
before I open up for any questions or comments
you might have.
-: And we are so grateful that you continued to work
through all the discouragement.
-: To all of the medical professionals out there,
thank you so much
for everything that you've been doing for us.
Your sacrifice, your love and your care
to keep all of that.
-: Now, what was most wonderful about that project
is that it allowed, the feedback that we got
from all of those different communities
was very uplifting to the students.
And again, we created a product that was not necessarily
rooted in the content-specific but it created a community
that allowed us to still feel together
and students were engaged.
And that way all the screens were on as I was having class
so I never had a class where any of my Zoom screens
were turned off.
And that has made the experience of teaching
during a pandemic as fulfilling as it can be.
Thank you, that's my time, almost my time.
I have a couple of minutes.
I just wanna offer the last two minutes
for anyone that may have any questions or comments.
If you want access to this slide just as a review,
these slides, let me know,
I'll be happy to share those with you.
There was this last slide for feedback
for the overall NU's Amplify 2021.
If you have time, make sure you complete that for us
but if there are no questions or comments,
thank you very very much for taking
part of your morning to be here with me.
I appreciate you.
-: Thank you so much, Derek.
And yeah, that was wonderful.
I love seeing all of those clips too
and how interactive you made that for us as an audience.
We have just about six minutes for questions.
And I'm seeing a few are coming in here in the chat box.
-: Yeah, so the course was actually hybrid.
I had students in class and I had students online.
So I was doing it all, I told the students
it was like driving a stick shift,
driving a stick shift and trying to do surgery
at the same time because there was always something
intricate, working with technology
and microphones and, you know, comments.
And so that's how the course was met.
My conducting students, we meet one-on-one once a week
and that is in person in a very large room.
But when we needed to, sometimes we would meet online.
Trying to see some of the questions here.
I didn't do Zoom asynchronously.
I use Flipgrid for all the asynchronous assignments.
Great, I'll be sure.
Amy, is there an efficient way
that I can get everyone the slide?
I'll put my email address in here as well,
just in case I don't have access to this transcript
to be able to get you everything,
but it's just, oh,
I think I just sent that to you, Amy, sorry.
It's Dafox, D-A-F-O-X
@unomaha.edu, I think that's the coolest
email ever, Dafox.
There you go.
-: I had a question about the, when they were singing
as a chorus, I've tried to do that on Zoom
or have something synchronous but there's a lag time.
Was that with Flipgrid as well or whatever?
-: No, what I did with that, when I did
the virtual choir video,
I gave them very specific instructions
and they each created their video on their own.
And then they sent those videos to me.
I put them into iMovie and created the thing
that one might see in the boxes.
So it takes a little bit of time, but once you get familiar
with the technology, it's easier
but your first time out, you might, you know,
you might need about 20 hours.
But once you, I know, right,
but once you get comfortable with it,
it gets shorter and shorter and shorter.
If you give them very specific instructions,
it will help them be more successful.
I'm trying to see more questions here, let's see.
Yes, the slides.
Amy, is there a way that I can get the transcript?
I see people have put their email addresses
in the transcript and I can send those out.
-: Yeah, yeah, I can try to do that later.
I think that after I've saved this recording
it might pull out some of that.
But I can attempt to grab you the participant list
so you can email everybody,
but we'll have to communicate offline about that afterwards.
So, yeah, yeah, otherwise I feel like it might be safer
for if folks can just grab Derek's email
and email him directly if you would like
a copy of the slides.
Maybe that would be the safest strategy.
So we're making sure we're getting those to folks
who want them.
-: Okay, all right, that sounds good.
I'll make sure you all get a link
and I'll make sure that the links are in there as well.
So thank you so much.
If there are no more questions, I think that's it.
Good luck to everybody else as you, hopefully
you're done with your semester.
But I appreciate the opportunity to share with you.
I am really proud of our students.
We have a concert coming up on Thursday, a virtual concert.
So we'll get to share that with the community as well.
So thank you very much and have a great rest of your day.