Melissa chats with Jon Ryan, founder of the acapella group Ball in the House. Ryan discusses the group's origins, evolution, and educational outreach. Ball in the House teaches K-12, emphasizing performance, songwriting, and music history.

In this episode, Melissa interviews educator Ashleigh Reade, assistant professor of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Ashleigh teaches voice and speech for both the musical theater and contemporary theater programs, as well as the Actor's Toolkit for first-year students. She shares her focus on expressivity, intention, and context when helping anyone with vocals or speech. Teachers can learn a lot from Ashleigh about helping their students become more confident public speakers.

In this second episode in the Podcasting with Students series, I share ideas for improving your students' vocal performance. I share clips from The Birch Meadow Way Podcast which my fourth grade colleagues and I started with our students this past Spring 2021. Pace, Emphasis, Diction, Tone, and Volume are discussed.