MusiChild team meeting report
Thursday 21 May 2015

The meeting’s first day begins with the Director of Scuola Popolare di Musica Donna Olimpia Francesco Saverio Galtieri welcoming of the team.

Start of the team working: Pilot studies - Evaluation tools

Dr José Luis Aróstegui presents some reflections regarding data collections and a pilot study from Spain and presents evaluation tools. The work about Pilot studies and Evaluation tools continues: each partner presents reflections regarding pilot study and observation from the own country to contribute to the evaluation tools outcomes.

Dr Zoe Dionisiou presents the results of the observations and pilot studies regarding Musicality protocol.

The team discuss and decide on how these reflections and contributions may be set and used for the training of teachers during the course in Corfu.

Dr Amaya Epelde Larranaga from Granada University presents contribute ideas to the methodology and teaching strategies about children creativity, improvisation and playing.

During the second day, the work continues with MusiChild conceptual framework, aim, curriculum outlines, teacher role and teaching strategies.

Interculturality theoretical frameworks presentations by Dr Zoe Dionisiou and Dr José Luis Aróstegui.

Discussion about (a) organising the MusiChild intensive training Course (b) disseminating outputs in CDIME-Helsinky and Valencia Conferences (by Dr. Pieridou and Dr. José Luis Aróstegui.) and (c) preparing the material for the MusiChild sound material CD (recordings and copyrights permissions).

During the afternoon Paola Anselmi and Dr Avra Pieridou presents contribute ideas to the methodology and teaching strategies for the Training Course and MusiChild Manual. Then all the team works on teaching activities, lessons and ‘deep’ sharing of our multicultural personalities.

On the 30th and 31st of November 2014 the kick-off meeting for MusiChild took place at Arte
Music Academy in Nicosia, Cyprus. The meeting was attended by 8 participants from our 5
partner organizations and provided a great opportunity for all partners to meet each other and
learn more about their work in the topic under examination.

The partners' meeting was very fruitful and constructive as the role of each partner and the
activities needed to implement during the whole duration of the project for the development of
the different intellectual outputs were well defined. All the important issues concerning the
project, the activities and the events, were presented and analysed in detail by the Project
Coordinator Dr Avra Pieridou Skoutella. During the two mornings of the meeting presentations
of each of the partners regarding the ECME situation in each of our countries followed by in-
depth discussion regarding commonalities and differences and related issues pertinent our
comparative academic research took place. In the two afternoons, the participants worked
towards sharing multicultural music education material and methodologies and towards
developing the strategies suitable for training early childhood music educationalists and
kindergarten teachers. The participants had the opportunity to train themselves in two Cypriot
traditional dances and a number of Spanish, Hebrew, Italian and Greek traditional songs. 

The kick-off meeting was concluded with the final reflections and feedback concerning the
overall meeting, agreeing on the next steps for the following months and scheduling the second
meeting.

On the 2nd and 3rd of February 2015 the second meeting for MusiChild took place at the School of
Education of the University of Granada, Spain. The meeting was attended by 6 participants from
our 5 partner organisations. Each partner presented its work regarding Intellectual Output 2
followed by comparative discussion regarding efficient for early childhood music education
practices, theorization, strategies and approaches that the international literature suggests. 
During the second day the group worked towards devising a theoretical and methodological framework
for devising MusiChild’s evaluation tool.

The meeting was concluded with the final reflections and feedback concerning the overall
meeting, agreeing on the next steps for the following months and scheduling two virtual
meetings and third transnational meeting in Rome in late May 2015 and the fourth meeting and
training course in Corfu in July 2015. In addition the group planned the dissemination activities
for the first six months (see Conferences/media Presentations).