Professional Development
FREE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT for teachers connects the Museum to language arts, social studies, music, science, and visual arts curriculums. Workshops help educators prepare students for Museum visits and programs, and offer creative approaches in teaching core subjects. Email schools@countrymusichalloffame.org with questions.
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Teacher Workshops Offered
On-Site
Looking for a creative and effective method to strengthen reading and vocabulary skills? Words & Music is a fun and proven classroom unit that teaches language arts through lyric writing. The on-site Words & Music Professional Development workshop reviews the Words & Music Teacher’s Guide and the Teacher Student Resource Portal. Teachers learn effective Social and Emotional Learning teaching tools and practices that can be used in the classroom when teaching lyric writing. In the on-site workshop, teachers participate in a Guided Highlights Tour in the Museum galleries. A professional songwriter joins the training to share firsthand knowledge and tips about the creative process and assist with crafting lyrics. The day ends with a performance of songs created during the workshop – offering a taste of the experience students have when you teach this engaging and educational unit.
On-Site Dates: Coming soon!
Connections: English Language Arts, Music, Social Studies, Social-Emotional Learning
Grade Levels: 3-12
Webinar
The Words & Music Professional Development webinar reviews the Words & Music Teacher’s Guide and Social and Emotional Learning teaching practices in an interactive online workshop. Participants will work through several of the student activities and begin the songwriting process by free writing and brainstorming. By the end of the webinar, you will be ready to teach this award-winning curriculum to your students!
Dates:
February 23 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
July 26 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Connections: English Language Arts, Music, Social Studies, Social-Emotional Learning
Grade Levels: 3-12
On-Site
The American History on-site Professional Development is an intensive one-day, on-site workshop will explore content connections through:
- Close examination of the museum’s permanent exhibition, Sing Me Back Home: A Journey Through Country Music
- Exposure to primary sources in the museum’s exhibitions and media-rich digital archives
- Object-based learning techniques to engage students with historic artifacts such as a harmonica played by the first African-American on the Grand Ole Opry, cowboy western movie posters from the Great Depression, and Dolly Parton’s handwritten song lyrics
Using the museum as a laboratory, with access to museum content experts, teachers will acquire new and engaging teaching tools to help students think critically about industrial America, the Great Depression, the counterculture of the 1960s, 9/11 and more.
Date(s): July 24 | 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM
Curriculum Connections: Social Studies, English Language Arts, SEL
Grade Levels: 4-12
Webinar
The country music story presents numerous connections to social studies curriculum, allowing teachers to reach students using an interactive and dynamic approach. The American History Professional Development webinar previews the virtual Guided Highlights Tour, a new online option for teachers that utilizes our one-of-a-kind collection to tell an American history story. The Teacher and Student Resource portal, which features lesson plans, multimedia supports, and primary sources, is also explored. Both the tour and the portal are grounded in educational standards, rich with cross-curricular opportunities to help you share the nation’s narrative from the colonies to the contemporary era.
Dates: Not available at this time.
Curriculum Connections: Social Studies, English Language Arts, SEL
Grade Levels: 4-12
On-Site
During the on-site STEAM Professional Development, teachers will travel to multiple locations that show off STEAM in action. At Historic RCA Studio B, hear how engineers used the science of sound to shape the tracking room, a favorite recording space for Elvis Presley and eventually earning the nickname “Home of 1,000 Hits.” At Hatch Show Print, see how printmakers have cultivated conservation through the creation of posters, tapping into the art of math to produce distinct, descriptive designs. In the Museum galleries, analyze artifacts of listening technology that have impacted how music is made, recorded, consumed, and shared. Themes of the tours culminate in an on-site classroom experience, where teachers model collaborative components of STEAM curriculum by working together through lessons they can take back to their schools.
Dates: July 25 | 8:30 AM – 3:30 PM
Curriculum Connections: English Language Arts, Social Studies, STEAM, Social and Emotional Learning
Grade Levels: 2-12
Webinar
From the museum galleries to Historic RCA Studio B to Hatch Show Print, STEAM is all around us at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Experience how the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics intersect in our three distinct settings. The STEAM Professional Development webinar provides insights from each location, previewing pre-made lesson plans, curriculum supports, and distance learning program opportunities that can be used in physical and virtual classrooms.
Dates:Not available at this time.
Curriculum Connections: English Language Arts, Social Studies, STEAM, SEL
Grade Levels: 2-12
Join Museum and Nashville Public Library educators to learn about a fun way to use String City: Nashville’s Tradition of Music and Puppetry to complete a project-based learning (PBL) lesson in your classroom. Professional puppeteers will teach puppet-making for various grade levels and library and museum educators will present ways to use puppetry and music to teach social studies and writing. This interdisciplinary approach to music, history, English language arts, visual, and performing arts will get your students excited about attending String City while also teaching core subjects.
Dates: Currently Unavailable
Curriculum connections: English Language Arts, Music, Performing Arts, Social Studies, Visual Arts
Grade levels: 1-8
String City was created and is presented by Nashville Public Library’s Wishing Chair Productions in collaboration with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and was made possible by a special gift from Judy and Steve Turner to the Nashville Public Library Foundation.
Teacher Appreciation
TENNESSEE TEACHERS are admitted free to the museum when planning for a field trip. Schedule your visit today by emailing schools@countrymusichalloffame.org