Skip to content
‹ Back to IndustriesEducation Technology

Teaching Music through Projects, Challenges, and Portfolios: What School Could Be in Hawai’i

This is an episode from Josh Reppun’s “What School Could Be in Hawai’i,” a podcast on the people, technology and methodologies pushing the mantle of education in the 50th state. This episode features an interview with Zach Morita, music teacher at Niu Valley Middle School in Oahu, Hawai’i. Zach Morita, a music teacher at Niu…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Education Technology teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

Share
Teaching Music through Projects, Challenges, and Portfolios: What School Could Be in Hawai’i

Free workspace

Turn your Education Technology expertise into content.

Record interviews, organize footage, and write with AI on a free trial of the MarketScale platform for qualifying companies. No demo required, no credit card.

Try it Free

This is an episode from Josh Reppun’s “What School Could Be in Hawai’i,” a podcast on the people, technology and methodologies pushing the mantle of education in the 50th state. This episode features an interview with Zach Morita, music teacher at Niu Valley Middle School in Oahu, Hawai’i.

Zach Morita, a music teacher at Niu Valley Middle School on the island of Oahu in Hawaiʻi, is a relatively new teacher, and is bringing a fresh approach to music education. On this episode of “What School Could Be in Hawai’i”, host Josh Reppun explores how Zach is using a multi-tier approach to teaching music, including project-based, challenge-based, portfolio-based learning. His students are collaborating with each other and members of the outside musical community. Along the way, he is employing Flipgrid, and other educational technologies, to give his students voice and a place to archive artifacts of learning.

Zach is a recent winner of the 2018 Farmers Insurance $100,000 Dream Big Teacher Challenge. He has taken student performance groups to New York, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Texas. In the summer of 2019, the Niu Valley Middle School Concert Band performed at the Australian International Music Festival in the Sydney Opera House. He has conducted and directed student groups at the 2017 New York Wind Band Festival in Carnegie Hall, the 2016 National Conference on Percussion Pedagogy, the 2014 American School Band Directors Association Conference, and the 2012 Winter Guard International Percussion World Championships.

Active in the Hawaii music community, Zach is past Treasurer and ongoing Solo/Ensemble Chairperson for the Oahu Band Directors Association, Associate Music Director of the Honolulu Wind Ensemble, and President/Founder of the Hawaii Youth Percussion Ensemble. He is sponsored by Zildjian Cymbals, Vic Firth Sticks & Mallets, Grover Pro Percussion, and Pearl/Adams Musical Instruments. Zach is also an active member of the Hawaii education community on Twitter.

Podcast episodes are edited by middle school students in the Kealakehe Intermediate Hawk Media Productions program. 8th grader, Mei Kanada, is podcast post-production team leader.

For the latest news, videos, and podcasts in the Education Technology Industry, be sure to subscribe to our industry publication.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @EdTechMKSL

Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Education Technology starts with a company putting its implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Procurement teams read long before they ever call, and your implementers get to answer their questions first.

Book DemoSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.
B2B Weekly

The week in Education Technology, and sixteen other industries, every Monday.

Ten stories, one-line takes, five minutes. Free.

Education Technology: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Education Technology buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. Explore how your experts, customers, and partners can become useful content for buyers and AI search.

Free Trial

You just read one Education Technology expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your implementation leads, instructional designers, and district partners into the articles, video, and social content Education Technology buyers are searching for. Start a free trial and see it with your own people. For qualifying companies, no credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What your free trial includes

Hands-on access to the MarketScale platform
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
No demo required. No credit card.
For qualifying companies. Company confirmation required.

More Education Technology Insights

Students want value this semester, not a degree payoff three years out

Students want value this semester, not a degree payoff three years out

Higher ed has long measured success by completion, but ASU’s research into noncompleters found many questioning whether college is worth the time and money right now. ASU’s Work Plus initiative redesigns on-campus jobs around skill development, while ASU also pursues work-integrated learning across degrees to reduce reliance on external internships that can exclude students without time or means.

  • 01Shift from time-to-completion to time-to-value: ASU found noncompleters want value they can feel now, not only at graduation
  • 02The Work Plus Collective includes 37 partner institutions and uses user-centered design, spending time with supervisors, student employees, and administrators before proposing changes to student employment.
  • 03Institutions must fix systems-level hiring barriers and curriculum approval bottlenecks before redesigning programs; institutionalizing changes takes multiple years per campus

Sep 29, 2026

Impact Public Schools wants software to sort students into intervention tiers

Impact Public Schools wants software to sort students into intervention tiers

Impact Public Schools, a Washington charter network, wants a custom tool that sorts students into Tier 1-3 groups from benchmark data and recommends interventions for students in Tiers 2 and 3. Proposals are due Oct. 9. Missouri's North Kansas City Schools wants a dashboard that consolidates data from its student information system and its assessment, attendance and behavior systems. Side by side, the requests suggest one buyer wants to see its data and the other wants to act on it.

  • 01A decade after the national ed-tech plan made dashboards a priority, a 1,751-student charter network is asking software to do the student grouping itself and recommend Tier 2 and 3 interventions.
  • 02North Kansas City's dashboard request is a useful spec to measure against: student information, assessment, attendance and behavior data in one platform, built for district leaders, principals and teachers.

Sep 27, 2026

Ellucian brings AI built on 10,000 cataloged college processes to EDUCAUSE

Ellucian brings AI built on 10,000 cataloged college processes to EDUCAUSE

Ellucian's campus AI pitch rests on process context.

  • 01Ellucian is selling its campus AI on a map of about 10,000 codified college processes, so fit with local workflows is the thing to test in a demo.

Sep 27, 2026

Explore More Education Technology Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Education Technology.

Browse Education Technology Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Education Technology and beyond.

Book a Demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512