A unique partnership between public charter schools, a civic chamber orchestra, and university school of music has brought music instruction to middle school students in central Ohio. This collaborative endeavor can serve as a model for charter schools administrators wishing to expand their curricular offerings to include music and other arts…

This article presents a three-pronged strategy for teaching collective improvisation in the general music classroom through structured surround soundscapes. This strategy consists of developing socio-interactive skills, shared understanding, and personal music vocabulary in collective improvisation. In the music classroom, these concepts should be…

Music teacher evaluations traditionally examine how teachers develop student music-learning objectives, assess cognitive and performance skills, and direct classroom learning experiences and behavior. A convergence of past and current educational ideas and directives is changing how teachers are evaluated on their use of student-centered…

School-university partnerships continue to be of growing interest across the United States, especially in music education. This article examines a specific case of how engagement theory was used as a framework for establishing a musical collaboration in a current school-university partnership. As a result of this collaboration, the school, the…

In music education, current assessment trends emphasize student reflection, tracking progress over time, and formative as well as summative measures. This view of assessment requires instrumental music educators to modernize their approaches without interfering with methods that have proven to be successful. To this end, the Longitudinal Scales…

The Poudre School District (Colorado) offers instrumental music to students beginning the summer before seventh grade. Throughout junior high school and high school, emphasis is on ensemble work and on performances. The program provides all students with an opportunity to participate at their levels of interest. (CS)

Music educators elected to offices in the state organization in charge of the West Virginia student chapters of the Music Educators National Conference describe their organization's objectives and strategies. (RM)

A music professor reports his experiences teaching in Elderhostel, a nationwide program in which colleges and universities offer on-campus summer learning sessions to senior citizens. (SJL)

Any evaluation plan designed to evaluate arts in general education programs must reflect a reconsideration of the whole process of education evaluation. The evaluation plan proposed here has been used effectively to evaluate either arts education or music education programs. (Author/RK)

The music department of Brigham Young University has placed two sections of a music methods course for elementary education majors in Vineyard School, a public school in Orem, Utah. This article describes the program's rationale, operations, and benefits. (Author/SJL)

A very successful artist-in-education program in which jazz musicians introduced elementary students in Augusta (Georgia) to jazz music is described. Students were involved in many activities, including instrumental improvisation, singing, reading staff notation, choreography, and composing jazz. (RM)

The San Francisco Opera Guild sponsors the Operatunities Program which introduces elementary and secondary students in California to opera. For example, each year the Scholar Opera visits 130 schools from San Francisco to San Jose, exposing approximately 50,000 youngsters to the music and drama of opera. (RM)

Discusses an ideal way to have every citizen, school board member, and administrator spend a day or two learning what goes on in the music classroom. (Author/RK)

Resources already available within a school system can support and maintain an effective AGE program. Discusses these resources and strategies for delivering them to students and teachers. (Author/RK)