Dr. Rob Martinelle Leads Faculty Workshop at Winchester Community Music School
Dr. Rob Martinelle, lecturer in BU Wheelock’s Curriculum and Teaching program, recently led a workshop on reflective teaching at the Winchester Community Music School’s bi-annual faculty meeting. The workshop centered on “reflective processes,” which are aimed at improving education and the student experience through educator self-reflection and evaluation. With this technique educators can discover ways to more efficiently and effectively serve their students.
30 faculty members were in attendance for the 90-minute talk. Laurie Russell, Executive Director of the Winchester Community Music School, reached out to Dr. Martinelle upon reading about the workshop that he led in December 2017 at the Berklee College of Music which had served a smaller group of faculty members and followed a roundtable discussion format.
Dr. Martinelle modified his workshop for the larger group at the Winchester Community Music School by beginning with a group discussion about reflection and by prompting the educators to think about their work metaphorically. He posed the question: “Which of the following better encapsulates the work of a teacher, an orchestra conductor or a jazz musician?” This led to a lively and fun-filled discussion amongst the group of music educators.
“I knew those metaphors would be interesting because they truly understand as music teachers the nature of those two things—that was my way of leading them towards this idea of teaching being uncertain. From there, we got into the difference between reacting to problems defensively and reacting to problems reflectively in teaching” said Dr. Martinelle.
Dr. Martinelle then led the group in reviewing a case study selected from Case Studies in Music Education. Dr. Martinelle had selected this case study with guidance from Executive Director Laurie Russell, who was impressed by the interactive nature of Dr. Martinelle’s presentation. One highlight for Ms. Russell was when Dr. Martinelle engaged the audience by using Mentimeter, an app used to create presentations with real-time feedback.
“I think any teacher would benefit from this workshop. This was a group of music teachers, mostly who teach one on one in private lessons, I could also see how this could work very well with classroom teachers and with people who are training to become teachers” says Russell “I think this has global appeal.”
Click here to learn more about Dr. Martinelle and to contact him directly for any questions about the workshop.
– Grace Hagerty
