Creative Music Teaching & Cultural Connections; Strategies for Moving from Simple to Complex Learning Across Grades (A joint OCC AOSA/KASC Workshop)
Join Dr. Miriam B. Factora in an interactive workshop that explores how to integrate students’ cultural backgrounds into meaningful, student-centered music instruction. Drawing from her extensive teaching career and fieldwork in diverse communities, Dr. Factora shares creative strategies, hands-on activities, and practical tools for developing musical skills progressively—from simple to complex—across grade levels. Discover how to make music education more inclusive, engaging, and relevant in today’s post-pandemic classrooms—where joy and cultural connection matter more than ever.
About the workshop:
How can music educators create learning experiences that are more meaningful, engaging, and culturally responsive in today’s diverse classrooms? In this post-pandemic time, how can we maintain students’ attention and help them rediscover the joy of learning? How can lessons be designed to differentiate according to students’ individual needs, interests, and skill levels across various grade levels? How can we encourage creativity in ways that inspire students to take greater accountability for their own learning and success?
In this interactive workshop, Dr. Miriam B. Factora will guide participants in exploring effective strategies for integrating students’ cultural backgrounds into music instruction, while developing sample approaches that build musical skills progressively—from simple to complex—across grade levels.
Drawing from her lived experience in the Philippines under a Western colonial education system and her extensive fieldwork in diverse communities, Dr. Factora invites educators to reimagine music instruction as a dynamic, inclusive, and culturally grounded practice. Participants will explore how to intentionally incorporate the musical cultures within their school communities to teach core music concepts in engaging, student-centered ways. Through hands-on activities, multimedia examples, and practical teaching tools, this workshop inspires music educators to make musical learning relevant to students’ lives, foster cross-cultural connections, and address the evolving needs of post-pandemic classrooms—where relevance, attention, and joy are more essential than ever.
Come ready to sing, play, move, reflect, and reimagine music education as a space for rigorous, joyful learning and meaningful cultural celebration.
About the Clinician:
Dr. Miriam B. Factora is an energetic and accomplished educator who truly inspires students of any age group with her passion for music. She has a wide range of teaching experiences in early childhood, elementary, middle school, high school, university, and postgraduate levels in public and private institutions.
Dr. Factora is a fervent advocate for cultural relevance in education. As an esteemed music educator, international speaker, and clinician, she has shared this passion through keynote speeches, workshops, paper presentations, and training sessions for university students and teachers in different parts of the world.
As for her educational background, Miriam earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education, magna cum laude, from the University of Santo Tomas, Philippines; specialized in conducting at California State University, East Bay; completed Orff Certification at the San Francisco International Orff Course, California; earned a Master of Music Education with Kodály Emphasis from Holy Names University, Oakland, California; studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics at the Juilliard School of Music, New York; earned a Doctor of Philosophy in Music from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; and was an International Kodály Society scholar at the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, Hungary.
Currently, Dr. Factora is serving as one of the Board of Directors of the International Kodály Society and is a co-chair of the International Kodály Society Lászlo Vikar Folk Music Research Forum. She has been a consultant for the Kodály Society of the Philippines for so many years. She retired from the California Public School System due to her decision to make a major move to Washington State to focus on research and writing.
Registration begins 9:00 AM
Workshop 9:30 – 3:30 PM
Concordia University, Irvine
BMC – Music Building #29
1530 Concordia West / Irvine, CA 92612
Please RSVP for the workshop here: KASC/OC Orff Present Dr. Miriam Factora
For additional information please see KASC’s website: Upcoming workshops
To become an Orange County Chapter member, please see our Membership page.
For workshop location map and information click here.
American Orff-Schulwerk Association 