Collegiate Leadership Academy at MENC’s Music Ed Week

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Posted on 2nd April 2010 by Andy Zweibel in Advocacy |Conference |Professional Development

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MENC has been planning for it’s 2010 Music Education Week in Washington, D.C. since last year’s event concluded. Music Ed Week is a week of advocacy, networknig, and professional development in the heart of the nation’s capital. I had the opportunity to attend last year, and was extremely pleased with my experience. The professional development portion of the week was done through “academies” in different concentrations (music technology, performance, jazz, research). The specialized academies were a wonderful way to separate the fantastic sessions that were presented.

The preparations for Music Ed Week 2010 (June 24-29, 2010) have begun in earnest over the past few weeks. MENC recently announced that housing and registration for the conference is open, and on Tuesday, they sent information out regarding a new academy for this year’s event, the “Collegiate Leadership Academy.” This academy is geared specifically towards collegiate members of MENC, and has sessions geared specifically towards future music educators. The (tentative) list of sessions includes:

  • “Hero Training: How to Harness Your Super Powers” with Milt Allen, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston
  • “Policy and Practice: What Does this Mean and Why Should I Care?” with Lynn Brinckmeyer, Texas State University, San Marcos
  • “Nine Liberating Habits of Change” with Scott Shuler (president, MENC), Connecticut Department of Education, Hartford
  • “Using Technology to Keep Sane” with Jim Frankel, SoundTree, Melville, NY
  • “Can I Do This for Thirty Years?” with Jack Elgin, Oscar Smith High School, Chesapeake, VA

Additionally, registration for Music Ed Week grants you admission to many other fantastic concerts and advocacy events over the course of the week. The other academies that are being offered this year are:

  • Choral
  • General Music K-12 Technology (keynote by Amy Burns)
  • Instrumental, “IN-Ovations” (Teaching techniques and opportunities for teachers of non-traditional curricula)
  • Jazz
  • Marching Music (registration includes ticket to DCI Show)
  • NACWPI (National Association of College Wind and Percussion Instructors)
  • New Teachers

Attendance at this conference last year was a very enjoyable experience for me, and one that I would strongly suggest you try to gain. If at all possible, try to find a way to get to Washington, D.C. between June 24 and 29 for this wonderful event! Hopefully, I will also be “live-blogging” the event this year, just as I did last year! Stay tuned for more information regarding this.

Are you already going to Music Ed Week? Let me know in a comment, and we can try to find a time to meet up!

MENC’s Biennial Conference Approaching

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Posted on 17th March 2010 by Andy Zweibel in Conference

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MENC: The National Association for Music Education, has had it’s Biennial Conference in the works for a year, now, and the event is almost upon us! Are you going?

The conference will take place from March 25-27 in Anaheim, CA, and will include many sessions geared specifically towards Collegiate members. Some of these sessions include:

  • Classroom Management: More Than Just Keeping the Lid On
  • Job Search and Interviewing
  • Making More of Your Student Teaching and Collegiate Experience
  • What is the First Year on the Job REALLY Like?

The Biennial Conference is a result of MENC’s creation of their annual Music Education Week-a week full of advocacy and development that takes place every summer in Washington D.C. The Biennial Conference, however, is more like a traditional conference, and is an extension of the national conferences MENC held before the establishment of Music Ed Week. The conference will have a special focus on research and music teacher education, and will also provide opportunities for brainstorming, discussion, and networking. For more information, be sure to visit the Biennial Conference page at MENC’s website.

This event is sure to be an extremely beneficial experience for any music educator, current or future. While I won’t be able to attend, I strongly encourage that you try to make it to Anahaim next weekend, if at all possible. If you are going to be attending, please consider contacting us-we would love to have some updates from the conference here at MusicEdMajor.net! Don’t fret if you won’t be able to make the trek to California, however, Music Ed Week is only a few months away! It will take place  June 24-29 in Washington, and I will definitely be there!

Session Recap: Empowering Students for Productive Practice

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Posted on 17th December 2009 by Andy Zweibel in Conference |Tips and Tricks

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This is a recap of a session that was presented at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL on December 17, 2009. The session was live-blogged on MusicEdMajor.net, and you can view a replay of the live-blog by visiting the Midwest landing page.

As music education students, we spend a large number of hours of our life practicing our instruments. However, we also recognize that this will likely not be the case for our future students, may of whom will not be planning on pursuing music as a career. This, however, does not mean that their practice habits should be ignored; these students are just as capable of performing great music as those who want to pursue music as a career. This presentation focused on strategies for increasing the productivity of student practice time.

Goal-Based Practice

One of the important principles that the presenters stressed was the need for goal-based practice. Setting goals for practice allows students to have benchmarks that are tangible and clear, which creates a significantly easier practicing environment than just sitting down with no plan. In addition, having students set goals for themselves allows them to experience self-evaluation, another extremely important skill.

What Can We Do?

As educators/directors, there are tons of ways we can help establish effective practice habits in our students. Here are just a few ways teachers can go about instilling productive practice habits in their students:

  • Be clear in our instruction-84% of teachers say that they instruct their students on how to practice, but only 60% of students say they receive instruction. The point is not getting across!
  • Alternate between slow and fast rehearsal tempos, rather than starting slow and gradually increasing speed. Research shows alternation in rehearsal tempo leads to a more rapid increase in performance tempo.
  • Record and evaluate! This doesn’t just mean recording your rehearsals and listening to them later on your own (although this is a great strategy). Play the recordings for the students, and allow them to self-evaluate. Sometimes hearing yourself play can motivate you to fix errors that you hear.
  • Use aural models where possible (singing what you want to hear, playing recordings, etc.). Research proves it is more effective. If you can, establish a “lending library” so students can check out CD’s to listen to on their own.
  • Model your rehearsal around a practice session. If you find a passage that needs work, use practice strategies such as simplification, mental rehearsal, and varying tempo with the full ensemble. Be sure to point out that these techniques are just as effective in individual practice.

Two Types of Practice Strategies

The presenters highlighted the fact that there are two types of practice strategies, each vital to the success of a performer:

  1. Playing Strategies-These are practice techniques that are utilized through performance. Playing strategies include simplification, mapping, and varying tempo.
  2. Non-Playing Strategies-These techniques can be utilized without an instrument, and are sometimes more effective than spending time repeating the same passage over and over on the instrument. These techniques, including score study, mental practice, and using a notebook to track progress, can usually be used anywhere, and can foster greater music-making upon return to the instrument.

This session was extremely informative, and highlighted many research-based strategies for improving the productivity of student practice time. Thank you very much to Bill Bauer, Stacey Kolthammer, and Matthew Schattt from Case Western Reserve University, for sharing their thoughts on the topic!

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Photo Credits: Front Page Image – Gil Searcy, Student – Cehwiedel

Disclaimer: This post is a summarization of the thoughts/ideas presented by those leading the session. All thoughts/ideas are the intellectual property of the credited clinicians, and are in no way intended to represent original content developed by MusicEdMajor.net.

REMINDER: Updates From Midwest

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Posted on 16th December 2009 by Andy Zweibel in Conference

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Hey all, don’t forget that I’ll be updating from the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic tomorrow and Friday as often as I can! Unfortunately, Midwest doesn’t offer wireless internet in all areas of McCormick Place, so I may not be able to update as often as I want, but I’ll do my best.

You can find the live-stream at the special Midwest landing page that I created here on the site. If you have any comments/questions, feel free to post them, as well; I’ll do my best to bring you answers!

Conference Season

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Posted on 1st December 2009 by Andy Zweibel in Conference

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It’s been quiet here at MusicEdMajor.net since the school year got into full-swing! I have a good amount of posts that I would love to write, and am just struggling to find the time to get them up! However, that does not mean that this website is going to turn out to be a flop; there’s plenty left to talk about, and what better a time/place to start than in everyone’s favorite season, conference season!

That’s right, with a few major Music Educator’s conferences coming up in the next month or so, I am back to bring you all the information I possibly can (which may not be much, depending on my ability to get a wireless signal in the conference centers!). I will be attending the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic from December 17th through the 19th in Chicago, and the Florida Music Educators’ Association (FMEA) conference from January 6th-9th in Tampa. Both of these events look to be great experiences, and I look forward to sharing the wealth of information I come across with all of you!

I have created special landing pages here on the website for Midwest and FMEA, where I will have a live-blog going. For now, the live-blogs are both open and live, and are pulling in data from the Twitter hashtags associated with the events. Comments are moderated, but I’ll check back frequently to publish anything you have to add, and I will be checking by the minute once the events begin!

Additinally, stay tuned for updates on the collegiate component of MENC’s Anaheim Conference in March; more details on this should be available in the near future!

It’s an exciting time of year! Will you be attending Midwest or FMEA? Leave a comment in this post or in the appropriate live-blog, and we can organize a meet-up!

Front Page Photo Credit: JoshC

CMENC: Why is it for Me?

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Posted on 7th July 2009 by Joshua Palmer in Conference |Guest Post |Professional Development |Tips and Tricks

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Many of us as Music Education students have heard from various professors or other sources about MENC: The National Association for Music Education and it’s collegiate division, CMENC. But often times we are not told the benefits of joining this organization other then that it will help us. Help us how? This is the question Music Ed Majors and most any other student these days wants answered. Before we are willing to find out what we can do for something we first want to know what that something can do for us.

What is CMENC?

CMENC is the designation for the collegiate chapters of the MENC organization. As a member of CMENC students should strive to help be a driving force in their department, school and community. Much like MENC itself most states will have a divisional level above the individual college chapters. For more information about your particular state it is recommended you contact your State Collegiate Chairperson.

What will CMENC do for me?

This will sound generic at first but, it will make you a better educator if you allow it to do so. Member benefits include subscriptions to periodicals such as the “Music Educators Journal”, “Teaching Music” and “Journal of Research in Music Education” as well as many others that are offered online through the MENC website. Other material benefits also include a 25% discount on other MENC resources as well as a “special introductory” rate for your initial MENC membership during your first year of teaching.

Networking and Job Search

You never know who can help you in the future and as a member of MENC you will be provided with full access to the Members Only section of MENC’s website. This area provides opportunities to not only talk to other majors in the Future Teachers Forum but also provides development and networking possibilities through the rest of the member forums. Additionally, membership includes access to MENC’s online Job Center, where there are many listings of available positions nationwide.

Conferences

While online forums have made the world a smaller place, MENC also holds national, division and state conferences that usually offer CMENC members discounted registration rates. As a matter of fact, MENC offered completely free registration to CMENC members to their Music Education Week that just recently took place in Washington, D.C.! The conferences are the best opportunity to get face time with people in our profession and learn from some of the leaders in our field who are willing to share their thoughts and ideas with us. This also provides an opportunity to meet some of your fellow Music Ed majors from across your state or the country.

Topics in the conferences can vary and include anything from additional teaching techniques and development to technology and its benefit in the music classroom. While at my last state conference, I was given the opportunity to meet Robin Hodson who just recently left Avid/Sibelius but at the time trained us in many of the benefits of Sibelius and how it could make the teacher’s job much easier.

Your Chapter

Along with the networking opportunities and these conferences, your chapter will hold regular meetings at your college/university. The meetings will include discussion on how to build the chapter itself, the program and it’s presence in your community. Always remember that as an educator your surrounding community will be your greatest resource as they will often dictate what you can and cannot do within the school and your program. Using these meetings to bring in guest speakers or organize events are a great way to get your name out there and see what you and your chapter are made of. Also, your chapter could have the opportunity to do small “master classes” at local schools, which gives you the opportunity to further your education outside of the classroom. The classroom is a great place to begin our education, but what we do with after that will determine what kind of educator we are.

Remember that this is the profession you have chosen and as such you probably have a major interest in it. MENC and CMENC provide you the tools to better yourself in a field that you have already shown interest in being a part of. CMENC can provide a chance for you to meet those who can help you learn, as well as a chance to have your voice be heard.

What if my school doesn’t have a chapter?

If your school doesn’t already have a CMENC chapter, first check with other schools in your area or state. They can assist you in contacting your State Collegiate Chairperson who is the advisor and coordinator for all of the chapter advisors in their state. If you want more information, please visit MENC’s Main CMENC Page, which includes tons of resources and information on CMENC. Additionally, you will need to speak with your department about getting a chapter advisor and go to MENC Collegiate: Getting Your Chapter Started page on MENC’s website to learn the steps to getting your chapter started. If your school already has a chapter and you are not a member, speak to your chapter advisor or president, and sign up to be a member here.

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