I just returned from NJMEA 2023 and it was an excellent conference held in Atlantic City, NJ. The elementary sessions were superb. There were the featured Elementary Academy presenters of Dr. Missy Strong, the 2023 NJMEA Master Music Teacher Award recipient, who showed how to successfully use modern music with your folk dance repertoire. And, Franklin J. Willis, whose resources, videos, and books have gained a lot of popularity due to how well they incorporate singing, movement, rhythm stick playing, beat reinforcement, hip hop music, and so much more, in the elementary general music classroom.

Here are some highlights, pictures, and videos from some elementary sessions at NJMEA. There was so much more at this conference from amazing keynote speakers (Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser and Dr. T. Andre Feagin) to phenomenal ensembles and concerts (All State and Naturally 7 to name a few), to wonderful PD sessions that included band, orchestra, chorus, music technology, general music, and DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging). I wish I could highlight everything because the NJMEA conference had so much to offer. If you missed this conference, please consider coming in 2024.

Elementary Music Academy

What I adore about NJMEA is that on the first day of the conference (the Thursday of the 3-day conference), they offer academies for elementary, music technology, strings, band, and choral. Many years ago, when Sally Albrecht was presenting her choral music, she complimented NJMEA for having academies that focused on these subjects. That was the first time I really thought about how special it is to have a day where you can focus on one topic. However, you can also float in-and-out because many of us wear multiple hats and like to pick and choose the sessions on that day.

NJMEA’s Elementary Music Academy featured two amazing music educators: Dr. Missy Strong and Franklin J. Willis. Many NJ music educators know Missy and have followed her for years either taking courses she has taught, listening to her Music Ed Amplified podcast, and subscribing to her Buy Me a Coffee or her Teachers Pay Teachers, which fund honorariums for her podcast’s BIPOC and disabled guests. These sites also have a wealth of wonderful lessons, materials, resources, and activities for music educators to use in their classrooms.

Franklin J. Willis of F. Willis Music has been an educator, author, and leader in music education for over a decade. A three-time CMA Foundation Music Teacher of Excellence (’16, ’18, ’19), Franklin is a trailblazer and catalyst for change in the music education space. A former Elementary Music Coach for Metro Nashville Public Schools, he assisted educators with instructional support and resources to enhance their classrooms. This includes shepherding colleagues and teachers through the reality students are faced with around equity, inclusion, and racism. Through his work, he has helped music educators develop a passion that helps them see the best in each child. Willis believes that music education is a vital tool to teach students about other cultures, create community, and inspire a love for learning. He uses his network to provide opportunities for students to utilize their passion for music for all to see. This includes producing music videos and stadium performances at CMA Fest, a four-day music festival in Nashville TN.

Willis has authored numerous teaching materials from his interactive ebooks and paperback books published by F-flat books. He contributed to Party on the Playground Bundle, Lift Every Voice and Sing, and wrote Edward’s Rhythm Sticks, Edward’s Rhythm Sticks Teaching Guide, and his most recent, More Than A Music Teacher, all available from F-flat books (https://fflat-books.com/). He also is a part of Prince Rhythm Company (https://princerhythmcompany.com/), which sells apparel with a message for music advocates, and has a Teachers Pay Teachers store (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/F-Willis-Music).

Their combination of four sessions had many music educators leaving with new activities and inspired to teach music with a new focus. I heard from numerous elementary music teachers that they were happy, rejuvenated, and enthusiastic about attending Missy and Franklin’s sessions.

More Elementary Sessions!

On Friday, The Peck School’s Lower School Music Teacher and NJSMA Elementary Chair, Lisa Wichman, returned to give sessions on favorite activities for Preschool through Grade 2 and using props effectively in the elementary music classroom. Watching Lisa work her magic always motivates me. I leave her sessions feeling good about what I do in my music classroom as well as a few new nuggets to immediately use on Monday. I can tell from the turnout and smiles on the participants’ faces that they leave feeling the same way.

Did you catch any of Ashley Cuthbertson’s sessions on culturally responsive music education and diversity in song selections? I took so much from just one of her three sessions, that I wished I had time to attend more of her sessions. Two quotes that I am thinking of often now are:

“Simply diversifying your repertoire is NOT culturally responsive.” To me, this is about “checking the boxes” and I do not want to be a teacher who chooses music so that I can check a box. I want to be a teacher who chooses music that connects to my students and makes them feel that they are a part of the choice of the music that they learn in our class.

And her definition of culturally responsive music education:

“Utilizing the prior knowledge, experiences, and interests of our young musicians to engage them in relevant musical tasks that help them to construct understandings about themselves, others, and the world through the medium of music.” - Ashley Cuthbertson (www.AshleyCuthbertson.com

If you get the chance, check her out and attend one of her webinars.

Elementary Music Technology

It would not be a complete blog post if I did not highlight some music technology sessions. And there were so many good ones because Shawna Longo, NJMEA’s K-12 Ed Tech & Innovation Chair made sure that many of the gurus of music technology were at NJMEA presenting. This included Richard McCready from the Maryland MEA Board, Steven Giddings, and Bob Habersat, to name a few. I was able to catch Richard’s session on how to use Novation’s Launchpad in the classroom. He has even written a free curriculum to use with Launchpad that is based on our national standards.

Shawna gave many excellent presentations. One was about Hal Leonard’s Essential Elements Music Class. This is a curriculum based on six essential musical elements (rhythm, meter, pitch, timbre, form, and expressive elements), that also includes lessons, manipulatives, resources, and music that has Disney songs, pop music, and other fabulous arrangements.

Another presentation she gave was about how to create badges in your classroom so that the students could earn them as they master a musical element. These badges range from ones you could hand out to them or ones that they could glue onto a progress chart or ones that could be placed on their digital learning journals like Seesaw. What I thought was wonderful was that the badges were not any emoji or random symbols, but were based on music symbols. Then, when the parent or caregiver asked about it, the student can tell them and they can see how the musical symbol relates to what the child is telling them.

Shawna and I also presented how to effectively use free tech resources in the general music class. This ranged from using Chrome Music Lab for music creation, Dr. Musik’s website for note name recognition, creation of music, and virtual instruments, Bite-sized Beats to create a musical ostinato and some teacher tech tools like vocal remover to separate tracks and remove the vocal tracks from songs. You can check out some of the resources used in this session here, which includes resources from some of my other recent sessions.

And Jennifer Jenkins did a fabulous job showing Flat.io EDU version. She gave me the best golden nugget which is using the Toolseet when you create an assignment so that the students have guidelines as to how many measures can be used, what note values can be used, etc. I was so thrilled and kicking myself for not discovering this earlier! Thank you Jen!

Please feel free to leave a comment. Check back soon as we are going to hold an online Zoom meeting for NJMEA elementary music teachers to reflect and share items we found as “gold nuggets” for our classrooms!