Summer Music Professional Development Workshops 2025

August 8, 2025

Nearly 100 music educators attended a series of five professional development workshops the first week of August, hosted on the Perpich Center campus. The first two days focused on Feierabend pedagogy for elementary classroom music teachers, led by nationally certified trainer John Crever. Day three featured Ruth LeMay, sharing a music literacy program promoting active participation and inclusion for students of every ability. Finishing off the week, Eric Songer and James Patrick dove into the Popular Music Education arena, sharing ideas to incorporate a Modern Band into traditional music curricula and teaching digital music-making using Ableton music production software. The week of professional development workshops was hosted by Dr. Michael Buck, Music Education Specialist.

Following each session, the music educators were asked if they were leaving with ideas they could transfer into their teaching practices. Here are some of the comments they shared:

• “While I have been independently using the ‘First Steps’ book, the clinician clarified the instructional pedagogy and supported philosophical implementation.”
• “It was a great review for me…especially reminding me of the ‘why’ of many of the workout steps.”
• “I feel better equipped to help cultivate the independent musicianship of my kindergartners!”
• “[I was reminded how] to effectively teach, build, scaffold, and assess sightreading in just minutes!”
• “I greatly appreciated seeing the scaffolded examples of music notation to provide students with a range of support. The levels help match what I am observing in my music classes.”
• “I realized today just how much MORE I want to learn.  =)”
• “I loved [the] 80s warm up – what a FANTASTIC way to have the band warm up! I also loved…. how he has his students do video and audio editing – almost like they are scoring their own movies! SO COOL!”
• “I was very impressed by the warm-up examples and finding ways to creatively encourage students to practice their scales.”
• “I greatly enjoyed the examples of building loops and hooks to help guide students in the composing process. It is impressive seeing how many features are available to help generate new and adjust pre-existing sounds.”
• “The Perpich organization is so very critical in providing professional development for the art/music teachers.”
• “I deeply value both the innovative music education tools as well as the opportunity to brainstorm with fellow music educators.”
• “I’m leaving energized and armed with a multitude of resources!”

We have begun planning for next year’s sessions, so please watch for more details in the late spring. If you have ideas for sessions that you would like to see or presenters that you would like us to consider, please share your ideas with michael.buck@pcae.k12.mn.us