Each year, clinicians are invited to work with music ensembles at schools throughout the country, often in preparation for a contest or festival. Traditional clinics in which guest conductors refine and inspire students in the music-making process are wonderful events but arguably produce only short-term results, due in part to the limited amount…

Playing musical instruments represents an engaging and important feature of music-making for children. Music teachers can support students with physical differences and disabilities using inclusive mindsets and practices, such as making adaptations to the instruments or the playing style. If teachers are aware of the variety of options available,…

Music educators are required to support the learning needs of those they teach. Some students may require additional or specific learning supports through individualized education programs (IEPs), also known as individualized education plans, to ensure their academic success. Music educators may struggle to transfer IEP goals, accommodations,…

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…

Each year, many students take the Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory Exam, and the majority of these students enroll in specialized AP music theory classes as part of the preparation process. For the teachers of these AP music theory classes, a number of challenges are presented by the difficulty and complexity of the exam subject material as…

When beginning music teachers enter a new classroom for the first time, they start a journey toward understanding a new context and community. Place consciousness develops as they become embedded in their community and begin to recognize how its culture and environment interact with their teaching practices. By mapping the objects, people, and…

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…

Ensemble directors have a special interest in helping students learn to practice effectively. Practice is also an essential component of musical development. Music educators need to both teach effective practice strategies and guide students toward meaningful, thoughtful practice. Metacognition strategies are one way to accomplish this. Current…

In 2009, there were approximately 137,000 court-involved minor children in residential detention and rehabilitation facilities in the United States as a result of committing a crime. Most of these children have no opportunity to participate in music education while serving long-term sentences in residential lockdown. A program in Austin, Texas,…

For many novice music teachers, creating and implementing effective music lessons can be a tedious process. Moreover, preparing a music lesson is quite different from lesson planning in other areas, creating a disconnect that music educators may feel when trying to make music lessons fit a classroom lesson-plan model. However, most music teachers…

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…

In recent years, popular music has become a growing area of music study and is increasingly accepted in schools and universities around the world. Despite this general enthusiasm, classically trained music teachers bring a certain hesitation to this art form, perhaps because too few have had formal hands-on experience with it. This article…

The Connecting Parents with Learning Project (CPLP) is an attempt to involve parents in learning standards-based content along with their children. The CPLP can be especially effective in connecting with parents of different cultures because the children teach the parents. Furthermore, it removes the mystery of what the students are studying by…

How a University's Extern Program gives sophomore music education majors a head start in music teaching. (Editor)

The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools have developed a program called Arts in the Basic Curriculum. Together with five other cities they formed a league committed to developing an arts in general education program. The mission of the schools was to assure students the right to develop their potential through an interdisciplinary approach to…