Coursework

Course Loads and Class Time

Reflecting on my undergraduate experience, I’ll never forget the semester I took 21 hours or the semester when I had 13 classes!  This is a familiar story for many undergraduate music education majors.  In graduate school, course loads are much more reasonable.  Full time graduate students typically take between 9 to 12 hours, which translates into 3 to 5 courses.  I tend to focus more on the number of classes rather than the number of hours since each course will require a lot of work regardless of how many credit hours you will earn.  It’s also important to take into account any time commitments that an assistantship may bring.

Final Thoughts & Things to Consider

• Many schools require proficiency exams in music history, music theory, aural skills, piano, and possibly more.  All I can say about this is good luck!
• Prior to entering a program, get familiar with some of the most common music education journals and read a few articles (hint:  skip the statistics-laden results sections for now).
• Be prepared to do a lot more reading and writing than you have ever done!
• Finally, I think it is imperative that a person goes into graduate work with very specific goals.  For me, the key to establishing my goals was spending a few years outside of the college environment teaching.  This may not be the route for everyone, but it certainly can’t hurt anyone to enter graduate school with some time away from higher education.

Related posts:

1. Should I or Shouldn’t I? Things to Think About for Graduate School
2. What type of Grad Program is Right for Me?
3. 100 Music Education Majors Tweeting!

I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.

Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: Evernote Series: A Primer, How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search, Evernote Series: Student Teaching,  Evernote Series: How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations, and Evernote Series: Evernote in Daily Life

Over the course of the past week, I have been detailing how I use Evernote to enhance my productivity, both in my professional and personal lives. Throughout my writing, I have asked readers how they used Evernote in their own lives. There were some great and insightful responses; people are using Evernote in creative ways all over the place! Here’s how:

Twitter Responses

Here are the responses I received via Twitter (follow me at @Zweibz7 and this site at @MusicEdMajor):

• @katiesw: “Home improvement ideas (pics), lists of movies/bks to watch/read, rep. list for a cappella group, gig info”
• @katiesw: “Meeting notes (tag w/ what we discussed), PD course descriptions, drafts of blog posts, to-do lists by project”
• @jaydorf: “I use @evernote to sync to-do lists across devices, and to take notes on my iPad at conferences. Love it!”
• @musictechie: I use Evernote for class lists, 4 fire drills. audio notes to self. All teachers meetings, so I can add info myself
• @bliporto: I use @evernote to take notes in meetings or doing an observation. I can sync them with my laptop to type up my report.
• @tubachic: I use evernote to save a copy of my (few) blog posts in case anything happened to the site. Of course the typical grocery list.
• @tubachic: I also use EN to save sheet music. Public domain stuff from the internet, stuff I write. That way I can access it from anywhere.

Shameless plug: If you’re a Music Ed Major on Twitter, consider joining our 100 Music Ed Majors on Twitter list! A new update to the list is coming early next week!

Blog Comments

We only had one blog comment with an Evernote use case through the series, so a very special shout-out goes to David Ahrens! David is a band director in California, and writes a great blog at Sound Education; his blog is definitely worth subscribing to! Follow David on Twitter at @MrAhrens. Here’s what David had to say in his comments to my Evernote Series post on Student Teaching:

I use Evernote constantly. Aside from saving everything, I’ve been using it as a GTD tool following the plan by @ruudhein at http://ruudhein.com/evernote-gtd.  It is worth it to download the desktop version and pay for the premium service.  I also make use of the email in function a lot. Whenever I have any parent communication via email, I always bcc it to evernote so I have another backup (beside gmail, which is also great). I also use it for student portfolios, creating a single note for each band student with all of their personal info, instrument serial number, uniform number, folder number, etc. Plus you can attach mp3 or wav files or whatever else you have.

When asked if he found it helpful for his organizational system, David responded:

I use it daily. Once you get a teaching position, you’ll find that the level of organization that is required is way above what you anticipated. (Now, you may have had better training on this than I. The fact that you have already been researching it and your professors was using Evernote with you is great). I simply do not have the ability to keep all of the plates spinning without a good system in place. Between Evernote (as GTD), gmail, google calendar, Twitter, and my band website I keep the crashes to a minimum.

BONUS TIP: For the Job Search

Through developing this series of posts, I have come up with even more Evernote use cases for myself! Here’s one for those of you job (or college) searching right now:

Many applications have a number of short questions they ask you to respond to (concisely) regarding teaching. A few examples I have encountered include:

• What are the top three reasons you chose to become a teacher?
• How would you inspire creativity in your classroom?
• What is your basic behavior management philosophy?
• How would you use assessment to ensure students are learning?

I am beginning to see a lot of repeated (or very similarly worded) questions on different applications. I am using Evernote to record my answers to these questions, putting them in my Job Search notebook, and tagging them appropriately. This way, if I see a question on an application that I have already answered, I can easily refer back to my notebook instead of having to rewrite my response.

NOTE: This is not meant to imply that you should use the exact same answers on all applications. It is very important to make your answers specific to the school/district to which you are applying; Evernote just helps provide the foundation upon which you can build.

There You Have It!

This concludes the series of posts on how I (and you) use Evernote in my daily life to be more productive. Once again, here’s a list of all the posts in the series:

• Evernote Series: A Primer
• How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search
• Evernote for Student Teaching
• How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations
• Evernote in Daily Life
• How the Community Uses Evernote [BONUS TIP]

Please leave any feedback you may have on the series in a comment here, and be sure to stay tuned to MusicEdMajor.net for more tips and tricks about using Social Media/Web 2.0 services as a music educator!

Related posts:

1. How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search
2. Evernote in Daily Life
3. Evernote Series: A Primer

I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.

Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: Evernote Series: A Primer, How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search, Evernote for Student Teaching, and How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations

Over the past week, I have detailed how I use Evernote in my professional life for job searching, student teaching, and presenting. I also use Evernote outside of “work,” though. Here are a few ways I use (or have used) Evernote in my personal life:

Personal Life Applications

These are a few of the applications Evernote has for me in my personal life:

• To Do Lists: Using Evernote, I can email or Tweet (@MyEN) anything I need to add to my to do list straight into my “To Do” notebook. All I have to do is include “@ To Do” in the subject line of an email, and it gets sent straight to the correct notebook. This way, no matter where I am, I can add things to my to do list. Also, it syncs with me wherever I go!
• Recipes/Grocery Lists: I have been spending more time this semester experimenting in the kitchen. When I find a recipe I want to try, I can clip it into Evernote and tag it with the appropriate ingredients, and then do a tag search to find out which ingredients I need when I go to the store. From here, I create my list in Evernote, and it syncs to my phone for easy portability when I go shopping.
• Class: While this isn’t necessarily “personal,” I used Evernote to take notes in my classes when I was enrolled in on-campus courses. I had a “Class” notebook, and tagged each note with the course code to keep them separated. Even if I forgot my laptop, I could take notes by hand and snap a photo of my notes (or a photo of the whiteboard) into Evernote afterwards. Remember, the text in the photos is searchable!
• Books to Get: I get a ton of book recommendations from classmates, friends, family, and colleagues. If I ever see a book I want, I put it in my “Books to Get” notebook. If I have access to a copy of it, I snap a photo of the cover and the ISBN number for easy searching down the line. Whenever I have a little extra money for books (what a concept, huh??), I can just refer to this notebook for the next one to get! Here’s an example of a note I clipped reminding myself to get Susan Haugland (@shaugland)’s book, Crowd Control: Classroom Management and Effective Teaching for Chorus, Band and Orchestra, which is also available on Amazon (affiliate link)!

How About YOU?

This was the last post in my Evernote series that details how I use Evernote. Tomorrow, however, is all about you! I have been collecting, both over Twitter (find me at @Zweibz7 and this website at @MusicEdMajor) and through blog comments, the ways in which you use Evernote (yes, I have been tracking them in an Evernote notebook!). I will take some of the most innovative responses, and include them in tomorrow’s wrap-up post, along with some bonus tips that fit into the categories I’ve already written on.

So what are you waiting for? Leave a comment and tell me how YOU use Evernote in your life. you could be featured in tomorrow’s post!

Related posts:

1. How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search
2. Evernote Series: A Primer
3. What I’m Reading: A Shared Notebook

I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.

Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: Evernote Series: A Primer, How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search, Evernote for Student Teaching, and Evernote in Daily Life

I have had the opportunity in the past few months to deliver a few presentations at local, state, and national events. As I planned my presentations, it became clear that a simple organizational system was necessary to manage all the “stuff” I was processing. Enter Evernote… Here’s how I use Evernote all throughout the process of developing a presentation:

Phase 1: Research

My first step when putting together a presentation is to collect information… a TON of it! I look up and down around the web for information related to the topic of my presentation, and collect anything that could potentially be helpful when putting together my presentation. I also look for tips about giving good presentations. Some of the things I curate include:

• Blog Posts
• Web Pages
• Wikipedia Articles
• Dictionary Definitions
• Videos or images I might want to use
• Other presentations on similar topics

Evernote makes curating this information super easy with the Chrome Web Clipper.  I simply click the Evernote icon in my Chrome browser, and can clip either a link to the page in question or the full webpage into my Evernote notebook. I can choose the specific notebook into which I want to clip the page, and can even add tags and my own additional notes:

Clipping my post on Evernote into Evernote. Will this create a hole in the space-time continuum?

I also love collecting Tweets when doing research for presentations. My incredible Professional Learning Network of music educators always has great ideas that I love sharing with audiences. Clipping tweets directly from Twitter is easy, too! Simply follow @MyEN, validate your account using the link you receive in your DM’s, and then any Tweet you send to @MyEN goes into Evernote! I like to ReTweet (RT) the responses I want to clip, and append @MyEN to the end. This way, the tweets end up in my Evernote notebook and get shared with my followers all at once!

Phase 2: Creating the Presentation

Once I have collected and sifted through the information in my notebook, it’s time to start putting together my outline. I use Dvernote for this, as well! In a new note, I create a basic outline of the information I want to cover. Then, I go back and boldface the “main ideas” – these will become my slide titles – and add supporting information for each. I will reference where I want to include polls or media, and if there is anything I specifically want to say out loud but not put on a slide (these will become my slide notes).

Once I have my outline ready, I will hop into PowerPoint and start creating! I can grab any information I want to put in my slides from my Evernote notebook, including images, videos, and websites. The best part? Evernote keeps track of the URL from which any online content came, making citations extremely easy! As I make my presentation, I use the strike-through style on that portion of my outline so I know it is completed.

I also use Evernote to put together my supporting materials for my presentation. I save or clip any information I want to include in hand-outs, as well as the QR Code image to my landing page, so they are accessible from wherever I am. This way, no matter where I am when I’m ready to make my handouts, I have easy access to what I need.

Phase 3: The Presentation

There isn’t much Evernote can do for me during my actual presentation, but it still helps me on presentation day! When it comes to be time for the presentation, I always try to record audio of my sessions so I can post them on my landing page after the fact. I record the sessions using my Zoom Q3HD, and immediately import the audio file into Evernote so I can access it later on. Afterwards, I am able to download the file wherever I am working, trim it in Audacity, and upload it quickly to the web.

Phase 4: Reflection and Assessment

My use of Evernote does not stop when my presentation is over, though! I use Evernote to reflect on my presentation, both immediately after the fact and once I have taken a few days to decompress. This lets me easily and quickly collect my immediate thoughts, as well as my more focused (and probably more rational!) thoughts after some reflection time. These reflections come in handy when I am preparing for my next presentation.

If the conference or location at which I am presenting chooses to ask for feedback or ratings for their presenters, I will save this information in Evernote, as well. I can either scan in paper copies of the evaluation forms, or clip the webpage where the feedback is located. All this text (even if it’s in a .pdf or image) is searchable, so I can go back and search for the content of a specific evaluation if I need!

Do you use Evernote in preparing for any presentations you give? If so, how?

How do YOU use Evernote in your everyday life? I am collecting answers via Twitter (find me at @Zweibz7) and through comments to these posts; responses will be posted in a wrap-up post at the end of next week! Leave a comment and let me know how you use Evernote!

Related posts:

1. How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search
2. Evernote in Daily Life
3. Evernote Series: A Primer

I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.

Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: Evernote Series: A Primer, How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search, How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations, and Evernote in Daily Life

I am about halfway done with my student teaching (and I have been reflecting on it in my first three editions of the Student Teacher’s Notebook) on my way to graduation. One of the requirements that the University of Miami has of its associate teachers in Music is that we keep a binder containing observations, copies of our lesson plans, and reflections on each lesson we teach. While our supervisors ask for a hard-copy of the notebook, I choose to maintain mine in Evernote, and print when they need. Here’s how:

• Each lesson I observe or teach has its’ own note in my “Student Teaching” notebook
• Notes are tagged by period for high school and grade level/teacher for elementary
• If I am observing, I record all my observations in this note. Afterwards, if there were any handouts or notes written on the board, I take a picture of them with my phone and use Evernote’s Android application to attach the photo to the note in question
• If I am teaching, I attach my lesson plan to the note (either by pasting the text or attaching the file), and write my reflection straight in the note.

This method allows me to easily refer back to my notes each week and have a record of what I accomplished with each class. When I am planning for the next class, I can refer back and be reminded of where I need to pick up in my lesson. Additionally, printing out my notes for my hard-copy notebook is super easy using the Evernote for Windows application!

The Ideal Situation

As much as Evernote helps me organize my Student Teaching notes, there are unbelievable ways in which it could help make the entire Student Teaching organizational system even more smooth. This requires some support from the university faculty, however. In an ideal situation, this is how Evernote could be used to simplify the organizational system for student teachers:

• The university supervisor creates a notebook with all associate teaching preparation materials (handbooks, contracts, rules, calendar, etc.), and uses Evernote’s sharing feature to share the notebook with all soon-to-be Student Teachers
• The Student Teacher creates a notebook for his/her placement, keeping track of observations, lesson plans, etc. as outlined above. This notebook is shared with both the clinical teacher and the university supervisor
• When student teachers are observed, the observer takes notes in Evernote and shares them with the student teacher. This can be done in two ways:
  • Save the observation notes as a PDF to ask the student teacher to attach to the note they already have containing the lesson plan and reflection
  • The note is saved directly into the student teacher’s notebook (requires an Evernote Premium account), and a tag is used to relate this note to the note the student teacher already has, containing the lesson plan and reflection
• If Evernote Premium accounts are used, videos of lessons can also be attached to the corresponding note, so the student teacher can follow along his/her lesson plan while watching the video
• At the end of the placement, ALL materials from student teaching can be shared with anyone (certification programs, potential employers), simply by sharing the notebook

Are any university professors who supervise student teachers using Evernote to help manage the organizational experience? Are any student teachers out there using Evernote in a similar way? I would love to hear from you; just leave a comment and let me know how you’re using Evernote!

How do YOU use Evernote in your everyday life? I am collecting answers via Twitter (find me at @Zweibz7) and through comments to these posts; responses will be posted in a wrap-up post at the end of next week! Leave a comment and let me know how you use Evernote!

Related posts:

1. Evernote Series: A Primer
2. How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search
3. Evernote in Daily Life

I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.

Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: Evernote Series: A Primer, Evernote for Student Teaching, How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations, and Evernote in Daily Life

My job search is probably one of the biggest things in my life right now, and Evernote has helped me every step of the way. As I am looking for jobs teaching high school band next year, Evernote has provided a way for me to organize the jobs I am looking at. My mom has been very helpful in sending me links to a TON of job postings I might be interested in, and as I decide which postings I want to apply to, I clip the application webpage into Evernote using the Evernote Chrome Web Clipper. Here’s how:

The Procedure

• I have a notebook called “Job Search” into which I save these websites
• I tag them with
  • The grade levels (i.e. “Middle School” or “High School”)
  • The state in which the job is located
  • The name of the school or county (i.e. “Anywhere HS” or “Main County”)
  • The tag “Apply” for schools I have yet to send an application to
• For positions I have applied to, I create another note, tagged the same way, with a list of the required application materials. I can check off on this list what materials I have sent to the school district, and what I still need to provide. I also use this note to keep track of who I listed as my references for that particular job.

I also save other important notes in my “Job Search” notebook, including notes from any discussions I have had regarding what school districts to look into, what counties to “avoid,” or particular connections I may be able to call on later in the process to get an edge! All these notes are tagged similarly to those above.

I have also created a few saved searches to help me find my information more quickly. For example, I have saved searches by region (the “Midwest” search pulls all notes tagged with states from the Midwest, etc.) as well as status (the “apply” tag). This helps ensure that I can always have access to the information I need quickly.

The “Networking” Notebook

I have another notebook that I keep for more general networking reference. I take photos of any business cards I receive at conferences and clip them into this notebook with similar tags from above (state, school if applicable). The best part about this? Text from images that are clipped into Evernote is searchable! That means that the text on any business card I clip can be searched. This makes searching for individual people’s contact information very easy.

How do YOU use Evernote in your everyday life? I am collecting answers via Twitter (find me at @Zweibz7) and through comments to these posts; responses will be posted in a wrap-up post at the end of next week! Leave a comment and let me know how you use Evernote!

Related posts:

1. Evernote in Daily Life
2. Evernote Series: A Primer
3. Evernote for Student Teaching

I have written many posts here on staying organized and productive (by setting goals, using a calendar, and staying focused), but there is not one resource I have found that has helped me be organized better than Evernote. Evernote has transformed how I keep myself organized, both in my professional and personal life. This series of short posts will take an in-depth look into how I use Evernote for a more organized life.

Before you read: Check out the other posts in this series: How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search, Evernote for Student Teaching, How Evernote Helps Me Deliver Killer Presentations, and Evernote in Daily Life

Before digging into the “how,” it’s important to understand the “what.” So…

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a cloud-based resource for capturing everything important in your life, all in once place. It allows you to capture text, photos/images, websites, audio, and important files all into a notebook that is synced with your account and accessible to you wherever you go.

Evernote has free applications to support the following platforms:

• Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows
• iOS (iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad)
• Android
• Blackberry
• Palm Pre / Palm Pixi
• Windows Mobile
• Browser Extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, IE, Bookmarklet)

Additionally, Evernote has a great web interface for use when you are away from your home computer.

Notebooks and Tags

The real power of Evernote, though, is in its organization system. Evernote allows you to place each note in one notebook, and assign it as many tags as you want. This lets you keep all the information you collect (and trust me, there could be tons!) organized, while keeping it easily searchable and easy-to-find.

Notebooks

Notebooks are the “macro” categories for your notes. Each note can only be classified in one notebook. The notebook helps you remember what general aspect of your life the note refers to. Some of my notebooks, for example, are called:

• Books to Get
• Student Teaching
• Job Search
• Blogging/PLN
• Classes
• Presenting
• General Notes

NOTE (no pun intended…): I will delve into the contents of a few of these notebooks through this series of posts

Evernote also has options that allow you to send content to Evernote by way of Twitter (follow, authenticate with, and send a tweet to @MyEN). Finally, each Evernote user is given a specific email address to which they can send content that will be automatically stored in Evernote.

Tags

Tags are the “micro” level of organization for your notes. You can have as many tags associated with each note as you want. Tags can get more specific, and let you classify all the notes within your notebooks. For example, in my “Classes” notebook, I have tags for each class I took notes in. My “Blogging/PLN” notebook has tags for this website, #MusEdChat, the MusicPLN, etc.

Saved Searches and Sharing

Two other features that set Evernote apart as a special tool are the ability to create saved searches and to share notes and notebooks. These features take Evernote-initially a helpful note taking application-into a fully social resource for sharing thoughts and ideas.

Saved Searches

Saved searches allow you to put together a set of multiple search criteria that you reference often. Want to quickly access only the notes with a specific tag that are located in one notebook? The notes you have created today? Notes that were created at a specific geolocation? Notes you created on your phone? Notes that have images in them? Evernote lets you search with all these different operators, and save any search so you don’t have to re-enter complex search queries each time.

Notebook Sharing

The most social feature of Evernote is that it lets users share notebooks publicly. This is a fantastic feature for educators, as it provides teachers with the opportunity to share any course documents, resources, or notes they may have from class with their students quickly and easily. It also is great for collaboration; if you’re working on a project with someone else,  you can track to-do lists, progress on the project, resources and research, and other pertinent information in an Evernote notebook that is shared between the two of you.

These are just a few of the basics of Evernote, and are the foundation for the series of posts that will be going up this week about how I use Evernote to stay organized in my life. Stay tuned for more!

How do YOU use Evernote in your everyday life? I am collecting answers via Twitter (find me at @Zweibz7) and through comments to these posts; responses will be posted in a wrap-up post at the end of next week! Leave a comment and let me know how you use Evernote!

Related posts:

1. How Evernote Changed the Way I Job Search
2. Evernote for Student Teaching
3. What I’m Reading: A Shared Notebook

1. Roam aimlessly around the school before the big events begin - You get to see the students walking around on their everyday routine. It’s a perfect time to ask, “Hey, do you like it here?” Look at the campus. Too big? Too small? Spread out for miles on end and unable to walk anywhere? How’s the weather? Just get a general vibe from the students and the departments. You can most likely walk inside the buildings. Peek your head into classes! Although college might seem intimidating, don’t worry, the people don’t bite.
2. Take a tour of the music school – If you want to be a music major, make sure you become acquainted with the building(s) you will spend hours on end in, practicing, in class or simply just hanging out. Are dorms in walking distance to the music school? Also, when on tour, stop by the professor of your particular instrument’s door. Most professors have bulletin boards outside filled with information. I find myself lost in bulletin boards at every school I visit. They’re filled with such interesting information! If you just so happen to see the professor walking through the hallway, introduce yourself! Don’t be a stranger!
3. Take a tour of the entire school – If you happen to know someone at the school, ask them to give you a tour. I’m telling you, they’ll most likely give you the “all-exclusive unabridged and completely true” tour. All those tours that sound completely memorized and rehearsed, you can find all that information on the website. You want to learn something new and exciting about the school! If you don’t know anyone, take the school’s tour. Most of the time the tour guides are very nice and you can keep in contact with them, in case any questions pop up along the ride home.
4. **AVOID: “Open Houses” and other huge Prospective Student Events**

Why do you ask? You lose a sense of the school. You want to go visit on a normal weekend, an ordinary time for college students. On huge open houses, it’s jam-packed with prospectives that you don’t know who to talk to and most of the college students are advised to watch out for the big crowds so they avoid the scene.

It’s time for a little short story! When I visited UMiami, it was the only open house I attended. It was HUGE! So many students, and at first I really was not loving the school. They brought us all into a gym the size of my town and then separated us into our prospective schools. This was the realization moment for me. The crowd for the Frost School of Music was much smaller, much more intimate. I actually really enjoyed the music school! I took a complete 180 from the morning spent at the school. I met Andy and found a way to contact him because I knew as another trumpet player, music education major, he would be perfect in answering all the questions I would have on the plane ride home. Which is exactly what happened! If you happen to attend an open house, just don’t lose hope when overwhelmed by the size of prospectives. It’s hard to hear and see during the general tour (especially if you’re really short like me) but if the school gives you the opportunity to break out into your department (yours being music) it shall definitely help!

IF YOU CAN…

• If possible, take a lesson with the professor! It helps getting to know the vibe of the professor, but in no way is it necessary. You can still prove yourself perfectly well through the audition! No worries!
• Also, if you know someone at the school, ask to spend a night in a dorm! They’ll most likely let you! You get to go out with them at night, and see what the social life is like. You get to go to class with them and see how their professors are. It is a win-win situation!!!
• Some schools like Boston University have a program like that, where you don’t even have to know the person! You can simply spend the night in a dorm and just get a feel for the life there. Check it out before you go. Programs like this are sure to have more information on the website.

And there’s just one thing left to do. Travel! Happy shopping fellow music majors!

Related posts:

1. Researching Schools: Where Do I Look?
2. College Applications: Prioritizing Schools
3. Should I or Shouldn’t I? Things to Think About for Graduate School

1. Be Over-Prepared

There is no better way to start the school year than to have everything ready that can be. Take some time to think of any possible obstacle you could run into in your first few weeks, and do everything you can to preempt the problem. Here are just a few ways you can prepare yourself for the school year BEFORE it begins:

• Get supplies before classes begin. You may not know exactly what you’ll need for each class, but an extra notebook or two will certainly not hurt you down the line!
• Go grocery shopping. It seems menial, but the hour or so you would have spent at Publix in the first few weeks of classes will go a long way towards getting work done!
  • BONUS: Take some time to prepare dinners for your first week or so, and freeze them. You’ll be glad you don’t have to bake the chicken from scratch when you’re finally ready for dinner at 9:30pm your first day.
• Clean your room/apartment. Another seemingly menial task, but coming back the first night of classes to a clean place and a made bed will take one level of stress out of your evening. Make it a point to do laundry as well!

2. Get a Head Start

All of us become procrastinators at some point during the semester. The first week of classes, however, is NOT the time to do it! Was a term paper or large project assigned on the first day? Take even twenty minutes to get a bit of research done or pick a topic that day. It will make your life a lot easier down the line once other responsibilities have picked up.

One great way to get a head start on your work is by simply to define what your work is. For example, if you find out on the first day of class that you have a term project due at the end of the semester, and you only think about it as “the term project,” you’re not likely to get started on it. However, if you break the project up into smaller, more easily attainable chunks like this:

Term Project To-Do

1. List potential topics
2. Do ten minutes of research on each potential topic
3. Choose a topic based on interest and research
4. Decide what form the project will take (powerpoint, video, etc.)
5. Do research
6. Write a draft
7. Revise
8. Practice Presentation/Film Video/Etc.

then all of a sudden, it is a lot easier to get started on your term project! Breaking your large projects and assignments up into small, attainable tasks from the beginning can help you with this.

3. Establish a Routine

By the middle of the semester, most people have established a routine in terms of when they go to sleep, when they wake, and what they do during the day. However, if you make a conscious effort to decide on and establish this routine from the first day, you will find yourself being much more productive down the line. Here’s how things normally work:

• Weeks 1/2: Not a lot of homework, so I’ll stay up late hanging out with all my friends, and sleep in until right before class
• Weeks 3-5: Homework is starting to pile up… so I need to stay up late doing homework and get up early for [insert extracurricular activity here] and I’m not getting much sleep!!
• Weeks 6-8: Miterms are coming up, and I have more work to do than hours in the day, but I am not motivated to do any of it because I’m not getting ANY rest!

… you see how it could continue. If, however, you established a routine from the first day of waking up early and going to sleep at a reasonable hour, all of a sudden you have many more productive hours in the day (we are generally more productive in the morning hours – if we’re well rested – than late at night, anyway) ALL semester.

Routines don’t have to just be specific to when you sleep and wake. Set a routine in your practice schedule, so that from day one, you are used to practicing at a certain time. This will prevent you from being flexible with your practice time down the road because you would rather [insert any other activity, including "kiss a naked mole rat"] that day. Other potential things to set aside time for:

• Blogging: Want to write more frequently on your blog? Get in the routine of setting aside time to write each day/week
• Reflecting: Are you doing field experience/student teaching? Set time aside each day/week to reflect on your experiences
• Score Study: I was told once by Gary Green (Director of Bands at UMiami) that anyone who wants to be a band director should study as many scores as possible, just to learn from them. If this is something you believe, set aside some time each evening for score study!

4. Set Goals

I have written before about the importance of setting goals in your life. The beginning of a new semester is a fantastic time to decide on some long-term goals for the coming months. Consider setting goals for yourself in the following categories:

• School - What do you want to learn in your classes?
• Extracurricular - Are you involved in a student organization? What do you want to achieve in it? If not, do you want to join one?
• Professional Development - Are you going to attend any conferences? What do you want to learn outside of the classroom?
• Personal - What, if any, goals do you have for your personal life?

Don’t forget to check out my post on staying productive by setting goals for some tips on goal-setting.

What tips do you have for starting the semester off on the right foot? Leave a tip in the comments!

Related posts:

1. Organization Tips for Music Education Majors
2. How to Stay Productive: Part 1-Set Goals
3. Majoring in Music Education: Graduate vs Undergraduate

Self-Assessment

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard from professors, graduate students, colleagues on the MusicPLN or #MusEdChat the importance of self-assessment to us as music educators. In the teaching world, music educators are very alone in their classrooms, usually. There are very few music teachers in the school, and most feedback we get from administrators is coming from someone who doesn’t have experience teaching music.

Another phrase I hear all the time is how we are our own biggest critics. This is where a recording device can come into play. Here are two great ways an audio/video recording device can be used for self-assessment during your time as a music education major:

1. Teacher Self-Assessment: Put the recording device in the back of your classroom, and point it straight at you for an entire lesson! Afterward, go back and look at the video. Critique yourself from the perspective of another music teacher, and from the perspective of the students. Try turning the sound off! If you’re a general music teacher, can you tell when you shift gears with your activities? If you’re an ensemble conductor, can you follow your gestures? Could you tell without sound where in the piece you are? Use these (and others) as benchmarks for success in your self-assessment.
2. Assessment of Student Performance: Place the device in the front of your room (either in video our audio-only mode), and capture a high quality recording of your students performing. Go back and listen to the recording – chances are you’ll notice many more errors on a recording than you do in the classroom. This will give you the opportunity to plan activities/exercises to address the specific problem areas without having to make them up on the spot.

Recordings For Your Portfolio

As Music Ed Majors, a big portion of our degree program is to prepare us for the job search, providing us with great evidence of our skills to potential employers. This is where a recording device can come in handy. A few ways you can use this device to create media files that can be included in your portfolio:

1. Marching Band – Are you a High School Band Director-hopeful? Have you worked (“teched”) with local bands while you have been a student? Ask the director if you can record some of the groups you specifically worked with as evidence. Have you written any marching band drill for classes? If you’ve been lucky enough to have it performed, use a recording device to capture the performance on video. These resources can be a huge boost to your portfolio.
2. Student Performance Recordings – When you’re student teaching, capture any performances your students do on audio (or video). This can be a great way to show the impacts that you had on preparing students for performance. Using a recording device, and some techniques that Dr. Joe Pisano detailed in his session at Midwest, you can create some high-quality recordings of  student ensembles to include in portfolios
3. Personal Performance Recordings – Does your dream job include performing in some way? Use the same techniques from Dr. Pisano to create recordings of yourself at recitals (or even just in a practice room!) to include in your portfolio. Many administrators understand the strong correlation between being a skilled teacher and being a skilled performer – show them that you are both!

Just for Fun!

College doesn’t have to be all about work, and career preparation (try telling my friends that I said that, they won’t believe you!). If you have a recording device at your disposal, use it for some leisure purposes, too! These could include:

• Get some video from your seat at a big football game (or other sporting event) – those moments won’t last forever!
• Take a walk around campus with your recording device, and capture your campus – you’ll miss it when you leave!
• Take a video of a friend of yours doing something stupid at a party

The possibilities of what you can use your recording device for are truly endless. The bottom line, though, is that you should get one! If you’re looking for a high-quality audio and video recorder, I cannot overemphasize my satisfaction with the Zoom Q3HD (Amazon Affiliate Link), but there are a ton of others out there. Find the one that’s right for you, and get it today!

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Zoom Q3HD
2. VIDEO: Update on New Content
3. Don’t Waste Your Electives!