DATA COLLECTION: 2020 (Virtual) Music Festival for Persons with Disabilities
by Caitlyn Kamminga
with Dionne Smith, APA Graduate and Head Teacher at L.I.F.E. Center for Students with Autism

Abstract

Teaching artist training is a new pathway for emerging artists enrolled at the Academy for the Performing Arts, designed to produce practicing professional performing artists, who include education in their practice.  An ongoing collaboration with the Consortium of Disabilities Organization has allowed student teaching artists an opportunity for real-world learning to explore music as therapy and addresses a very real need to provide music education to an underserved community.  Students attend an intensive workshop prior to the commencement of the semester.  They also create 10 lesson plans and design music activities to share with their fellow teaching artists before heading into the schools for students with disabilities.  As the international community battles the ongoing pandemic, live performances in concert halls worldwide have necessarily been canceled to practice social distancing. While individuals learn to exist with anxiety and uncertainty in these very unusual times, music can act as an antidote to feelings of alienation and isolation in society. For students with disabilities who may already feel alienated from society, music can be a particularly powerful outlet right now.  The 2020 CODO Music Festival for Persons with Disabilities, now in existence for nine years, was intended to take place at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in June 2020. Due to the lockdown in March, Associate Professor of Music (Double Bass), Caitlyn Kamminga, took the opportunity to move the project online.

Context

The CODO Music Festival for Persons with Disabilities is underwritten by a grant from First Citizens Bank, which allows student teaching artists to receive a stipend and travel funds to mentor students with disabilities in the lead up to the music festival.  To date FCB has given over 1,000,000 TTD to the program. In addition, UTT has generously donated a performance space at the National Academy for the Performing Arts, since the festival commenced in 2011.  Data collection and impact surveys on the project began in earnest in 2018 to identify most significant areas of growth in student teaching artists, to gather data from schools about student experiences, and to track graduates of the program.  As we moved into blended and online learning in education in Trinidad and Tobago, our aim this year was to design an interactive online experience specific to students with special needs.  The impact surveys will assist in strengthening the program and in securing funding for another year of online learning.

Purpose and Significance

Service-learning courses at APA engage students in a three-part process: analysis of theories and ideas; service activity that emerges from theories and ideas; reflection tying service experience back to specific learning goals.

For student teaching artists the purpose of the project was to:

1. Connect formal education with real-world experience
2. Prepare students for citizenship by engaging them directly with community issues
3. Explore career pathways that might not be immediately apparent in a conservatory setting

For students with disabilities the purpose of the project was to:

1. Engage in a music learning experience, supported by instructional scaffolding to help students with disabilities adapt to an online experience.
2. Improve fine motor skills, communication and coordination through online participatory activities.
3. Experience being a part of a large ensemble in an online performance of This Melody Sweet, by calypsonian, Baron.

Methodology

1. Surveys and questionnaires
2. Interviews
3. Observations
4. Focus groups

Theoretical Approach

Service-learning is defined as, "a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection, as students work with others through a process of applying what they are learning to community problems, and at the same time, reflecting upon their experience as they seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding for themselves." (Eyler and Giles,1999).  According to Eric Booth, author of The Teaching Artist Bible, "the deepest learning is accomplished as the student grapples with new information/ideas/challenges and finds satisfying solutions through her own endeavors." Designing a reflective classroom, in which large concepts are introduced and analyzed, is a large part of the process.  But students also need to do their own learning as often as possible.  Teaching artist training is a service-learning course designed to challenge students to assess the social relevance of the arts and to understand its role from a community perspective, whilst considering the needs and expectations of their community.

Review Of Resources

1. Zoom
2. YouTube
3. CANVA
4. Flipgrid
5. Google docs
6. Google Meet
7. Final Cut Pro

Reviews of the program:

"Proud to be a UTT APA CODO alum.  This program helped to groom me into the teaching artist that I am today. Huge thanks to for starting it and Caitlyn Kamminga and Jean Raabe for continuing and giving many more teachers and students an invaluable opportunity. I'm so happy to see faces that I worked with more than 5 years ago at Immortelle."

Caryll Warner UTT APA graduate, teaching artist, Tobago

"So inspired by the amazing work by Caitlyn Kamminga and UTT - The University of Trinidad and Tobago and love seeing that First Citizens is still sponsoring this amazing event!"

Deborah Sunya Moore- Vice President PAVA Chautauqua Institution

"I am very grateful for this opportunity and I would do it again in a heartbeat!"

Krisanna Mitchell, UTT APA student

"What an extraordinary experience!"

Mark Haynes, UTT APA student

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Click here to download presentation 2