Sarah Labrie PDA Hours Fall 2013

This semester was a period of growth in a big way for me. As it was my first semester at Westminster as a transfer student, there was a lot to take in, but in these few months, I can already see so much improvement. I feel that Ive gained a vast wealth of knowledge that will benefit me greatly in the future. For my first PDA hour, I went to Dr. Morrows master class on teaching elementary age. I really got a lot out of it and feel like Ive gotten off on the right foot with the type of materials that will be successful in starting children in the right direction for being life-long musicians. She taught us several singing games that could be used in the adolescent classroom, as well as the things that will work and will not work with each of them. For the second hour, I attended the Kodaly party on Halloween where we focused on la-based minor, and learned a few easy Halloween themed pieces that would work well in a grade school/middle school classroom. We also did a body percussion exercise where we listened to a piece and went around the room imitating each others For hours three and four I observed some of WCCs choirs. One hour was used to observe the Master Singers, and I even was allowed to participate in the rehearsal. Dr. Bjella was working with the second year choral conducting majors on their conducting techniques and how to rehearse a choir effectively, making sure that with each repetition of the piece there would be improvement. The other hour of the choral observations at

WCC was with the Schola Cantorum choir. This was also a day when Dr. Bjella was working with the choir. Being able to observe the way that he worked with a choir so extravagantly and with such enthusiasm was really inspiring as a future educator/ conductor. For hours five through nine, Id like to talk about my experience with the small groups in Ed Lab. My group was called Ladys Choice and was based around all female a cappella music with a barbershop flair. The idea for these small groups was to get teaching experience amongst our peers in a freeform classroom. It was designed for us to create our own teaching/learning atmosphere. Personally, I enjoyed having the opportunity to teach, but having a group of music ed majors who all have strong opinions about teaching made working together cohesively a little difficult. For the remainder of my PDA hours (about 10 hours), I observed the Hampshire Regional High School Choirs and Bands (middle and high school.) It was really nice to be back around instrumentalists and to get some teaching advice from the instrumental perspective rather than just a choral perspective. In all the groups, it was evident that they were really enjoying what they were working on musically. I felt that both the band and choral directors were very in touch with the level of musicality in their students and how to harness those abilities to make a classroom that fostered their learning.