Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs

The music classroom is an inherently inclusive and cooperative environment. Meeting the needs of students with special needs, however, requires a specific set of skills, dispositions, and experiences to appropriately adapt and modify instruction. Enhancing the inclusive and cooperative possibilities in the music classroom while meeting the needs of all students is a challenging yet exhilarating possibility. This course will focus on identifying areas of strength and challenge in students with special needs, advocating for the appropriate classroom environment for all students, and the creation of adaptations and accommodations for students in inclusive and self-contained music classrooms.

Course Learning Outcomes:

This course is designed to examine the following issues as they relate to teaching music to students with special needs.

  • Students will understand issues related to diverse and underserved student populations.

  • Students will become aware of special education law.

  • Students will demonstrate an understanding of inclusive philosophy.

  • Students will become aware of strategies for classroom management and students with special needs.

Instructor: Dr. Alice Hammel

IMG_20130610_090719Dr. Alice Hammel, Virginia’s Outstanding Music Educator of the Year (2018), is a widely known music educator, author and clinician whose experience in music is extraordinarily diverse. She a member of the faculty of James Madison University, and has many years of experience teaching instrumental and choral music in public and private schools. She also teaches online courses through many institutions throughout the United States. She has also maintained a large, independent flute studio for over 25 years.

Dr. Hammel travels widely to universities during the school year to serve as in-residence scholar in the area of students with special needs. This travel, combined with state, national and international conference headline and keynote presentations, keeps Dr. Hammel well-informed of the needs of both pre-service and in-service music educators. During summer months, Dr. Hammel teaches in graduate programs for music educators around the United States. Her expertise in those teaching situations ranges from musicianship, pedagogy, and teaching students who learn differently. This wide demand places her in close collaboration with PreK-12 music educators who are seeking to become better teachers and musicians.

Dr. Hammel has put these varied experiences to great use while compiling a large body of scholarly work. She is a co-author for four texts: Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs: A Label-Free Approach (second edition published in 2017), Teaching Music to Students with Autism, Winding It Back: Teaching to Individual Differences in Music Classroom and Ensemble Settings, and Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs: A Practical Resource (published in 2017) available through Oxford University Press. Dr. Hammel has contributed chapters to several other Oxford University Press resources including Composing Our Future (edited by Kaschub and Smith) and Exceptional Pedagogy (edited by McCord and Blair). She has also written chapters for GIA and Routlege Publication resources. Dr. Hammel is a contributing author to a variety of resources available through the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) and has published widely in music, arts, special and general education journals.

Dr. Hammel has been affiliated with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for several years and has presented multiple workshops for arts educators and arts administrators through this association. She serves on the committee for the Kennedy Center National Forum: Examining the Intersection of Arts Education and Special Education, and serves on the planning committee for their annual national conference. Dr. Hammel is Chair of the National Association for Music Education Task Force on Students with Special Needs. She is on the Editorial Board of the Council for Exceptional Children - Division for the Arts, is a member of the Teacher Education and Editorial Board Committees, and Member at Large for the Organization of American Kodály Educators.  In addition, she serves as an expert with the National Association for Music Education’s Solutions Music Group and is a Conn-Selmer Clinician. Dr. Hammel is currently President Elect of the Council for Exceptional Children – Division for the Arts.

Dr. Hammel is a proud alumna of Shenandoah Conservatory (BME – magna cum laude and DMA) and Florida State University (MME). She holds post-doctoral certifications from the Organization of American Kodály Educators and the Gordon Institute for Music Learning. Dr. Hammel is a multiple award recipient honoring her commitment to music education and music teacher education. In 2016, Shenandoah University honored her with their Alumnae of Excellence Award. In 2017, James Madison University created a named award in her honor celebrating her years of scholarship and service dedicated to the inclusion of all students in music education.
 
VanderCook College of Music - (312) 225-6288