William Paterson University 11th Annual PDS Conference

The 11th annual PDS Conference at William Paterson University was held on 

Thursday, May 23. The keynote speaker was Clint Pulver, "The Millennial Speaker" and musician who spoke about "The Power of One Multiplied" to the several hundred teachers and administrators from the WPU PDS Schools network.

Mr. Pulver stressed during his keynote speech and remarkable drum performance that,  “It’s not about being the best in the world…it's about being the best for the world."

Dr. Heejung An, Simone Sandler, Triada Samaras, and Patricia Kaminski conducted a workshop entitled, "Use of Music Integration Across the Curriculum to Cultivate Creative Thinking." during the afternoon session of the conference. This directly linked to the morning activity presented by Mr. Pulver, who handed out drums to the entire audience and led an audience based performance and experience.

In this workshop, the four presenters defined arts integration for the audience as interdisciplinary teaching practice through which non-arts and arts content is taught and assessed equitably in order to deepen students' understanding of both. (NJPSA & Dodge, 2017) Dr. An, used Poll Everywhere to discover the audience's connotations of the word creativity. Below are the visual results.

Afterwards, Simone Sandler discussed making handmade musical instruments. She covered using recyclable materials and natural objects in the construction process of the instruments. 

Above, WPU Art PIR Simone Sandler discusses arts integration utilizing instrument creation with teachers

After that, Arts Integration PIR Triada Samaras and Don Bosco Technical Academy art teacher Patty Kaminski presented "Arts Integration with Music and Science at Don Bosco". They explained to the audience how the project was accomplished in an interdisciplinary manor involving Ms. Kaminski, music teacher Mr. Hayden, and science teacher Ms. Post, with Ms. Samaras directing. 

Patty Kaminski, left, and Triada Samaras during their presentation

They engaged the audience, asking them to invent science/drumming activities for the classroom using the drums painted by Ms. Kaminski's students.

A full description of this arts integration lesson was completed at Don Bosco during the school year with a drumming performance for parents on Report Card Night. Please see this link for more details.


Ms. Kaminski and Ms. Samaras had a super day at the conference