“Co-creating Lessons on music of the Arab World”

We are pleased to announce NELC's fifth faculty workshop. At this upcoming workshop, Dr. Melinda McClimans of the Middle East Studies Center will facilitate curriculum development based on a set of materials authored and curated by renowned ethnomusicologist, Dr. Ali Jihad Racy. The goal for the workshop is to build a community of educators dedicated to effective intercultural teaching, to learn tech tools that make a difference in this goal, and to produce curricular materials as a team. The curriculum we create will introduce learners to the basics of musical traditions for learning about the Arab world through the lens of music and musical performance, as curated by Dr. Racy. Each participant will choose a piece of the packet and develop a teaching idea (not a full lesson but a brief activity, including: objective, learning activity, description of execution). Next steps will include sharing the materials on u.osu.edu/globaleportfolio, and possibly co-writing a blog post (or posts, depending on how many of us there are) on how the topic of music shines a light on important aspects of culture. The post can touch upon particular cultural context or contexts in the Middle East (N Africa/Turkey/West Asia), or the region as a whole. The workshop will result in the “raw materials” needed for multiple types of learning because we will identify the analytical lenses and vocabulary needed for discussing and learning about music in Arabic-speaking countries and beyond. These lenses will potentially form the bases for discussion topics, and perhaps material for students to discuss music with each other online.  We could potentially create the tools for classroom implementation, as well. The sky is the limit with the only limitation being the Middle East Studies Center’s freedom to publish these as open source materials for educators around the world. Register here, and prepare for the workshop by signing in to the workshop’s Box folder. You will be sent an invitation to the folder and a link upon registration. You can also register by contacting Melinda directly: mcclimans.2 at osu dot edu.