Category: Classroom Pedagogy

Charles Laux, Julie Ellis, and Matt Radspinner

From the 2022 OSU String Teacher Workshop

It’s always a pleasure to return to Buckeye country for the OSU String Teacher Workshop. This year I had the pleasure to participat in presenting several sessions. See below! 1. Making Your High School a Complete Program Presented with Matt Radspinner and Julie Ellis! 2. Audio Recording for Music Educators...

The Orchestra Teacher Podcast is Back!

After a much needed break and a few busy weeks back to school, The Orchestra Teacher Podcast is back! Today, Sunday, August 29 at 12 noon EST we will be streaming LIVE with my good friend and special guest, Mr. David Eccles! We will be discussing back to school, back...

Bow Warm-Ups 2.0

It has been 11 years since I recorded the first bow warm-ups video in my fifth-grade class in Hilliard, Ohio.  That video was filmed spontaneously on an older low-resolution cell phone in class by a student volunteer.  The backing tracks were played live on a little Bose SoundDock Portable speaker....

Back to School 2020: More resources coming your way!

It is an unprecedented time in our world’s history, with COVID-19 shutting down schools last spring and creating some difficult decisions for school adminstrators this fall. Many schools are going back to school virtually and will be making plans to bring students back face to face when conditions allow. Some...

Making Practice Videos for Your Students

I have a few sections within my orchestras where students need some extra help, so I’ve decided to make a few “play along” videos for them to view (and listen) that may help them practice at home. I recorded these in class, during rehearsal with a metronome at a slower-than-performance...

GMEA 2020 Session Information

I love the opportunity to gather with friends and colleagues from my state. Even though we are relatively close geographically, there is never enough time to get together and get into a deep discussion about what we are all doing. Attending GMEA allows this to happen! It’s fantastic to meet...

Color-coded finger patterns

The Bornoff finger patterns are an important part of my teaching as they help students visualize patterns of half steps and whole steps and chunk information into a single unit. Another wonderful thing about them is that they are transposable and can be used in any position on the fingerboard....

OSU String Teacher Workshop 2019

I absolutely love coming back to campus each year for the OSU String Teacher Workshop! It was great to present four sessions in 2019. As promised, below are links to the four sessions that I presented: Empowering Parents as Colleagues: Boosters and Fundraising Assessing Your Students to Determine Seating, Auditions,...

Tired of V.S.O – “Violin Shaped Objects?” So am I.

Are you tired of getting those cheap internet violins in your classroom? Are they hindering your students progress? Are they wasting class time? It’s time we educated parents about buying those “Violin Shaped Objects” (V.S.O) before the school year begins so they don’t make a huge mistake! On my school...

Idaho MEA Sessions 2019

This is my first time presenting in Idaho! I’m excited to meet all of the string teachers there. The slides to my presentations are below…