The Music Educator and additional education tricks

Let’s talk about additional training info, with a focus on Rookie Teacher. Successful teachers are reflective: In order to avoid becoming the stuck and stubborn teacher, successful educators take time to reflect on their methods, their delivery, and the way they connect with their students. Reflection is necessary to uncover those weaknesses that can be strengthened with a bit of resolve and understanding. Successful teachers seek out mentors of their own: Reflective teachers can easily get disheartened if they don’t have someone a bit older and wiser offering support. You are never too old or wise for a mentor. Mentors can be that voice that says, “Yes your reflections are correct,” or “No, you are off because….” and provide you with a different perspective. Successful teachers communicate with parents: Collaboration between parents and teachers is absolutely crucial to a student’s success. Create an open path of communication so parents can come to you with concerns and you can do the same. When a teacher and parents present a united front, there is a lower chance that your student will fall through the cracks.

Develop an organizational system. Where do things belong? This may need to be explicitly explained to your students. Some modifications may also be needed (e.g., placing materials closer to the student). Get ready for your school year with this book. Provide clear expectations. / Develop classroom rules: Keep your rules alive, a living document. Connect desired and undesired behaviors to the rules. Point out the positives, “I noticed everyone is working collaboratively. Wow! Everyone is being respectful.” Establish expectations early on, but also spend time developing the exact classroom rules — perhaps a week, or a couple of weeks until you really get to know your students. Use rules that state the desired behavior or actions (and avoid telling students what NOT to do). Define classroom rules with as much detail as your students require. Help them understand the meaning of words through discussion. See more details at Teacher Advices.

Learning is not only for young people. Seniors in a digital world can be easily overwhelmed by all the new technology around us. We are surrounded by an array of digital devices, whether its smartphones, social media, tablets, banking machines, or laptops. There’s no avoiding it, so we should learn how to use all these technological advances to make life easier. It’s easy to become tech savvy seniors when you begin to learn more about the technology around you.

Games are a great way to get them engaged with technology. Maybe they love crossword puzzles, scrabble, or Sudoku. Download an app or give them a website and show them how to play from their device. This will help them get comfortable with using the buttons and touching the screen. A very good website for senior learning is Tech for Seniors tutorials.

Music teaching is hot this days, many people try to learn music, for various reasons. There are a few podcasts that focuses on teaching people about music and one of them is The Music Educator by Bill Stevens. Once students begin to enjoy completing tasks, it is a good time to introduce creative projects. Give them a task with no wrong answer, such as a composition project. Perhaps they have been learning about a particular piece or style of music. The next stage in learning is to give them the task of composing their own piece in the same style. Devoting time to creative projects like this is very important when teaching kids music. At its heart, music is not merely theoretical but practical. The best way for your students to learn music is to be immersed in it as much as possible. Learning a foreign language is most effective through visiting the country. So the language of music is best learnt through maximum immersion. Make your music classroom the place for learning this creative language.

Advice of the day for music teachers : Use Technology! It’s not uncommon for young teachers to be so anxious for the school year that they forget one of their greatest assets: technology. Whether its evaluating instrument dealers or streaming music on YouTube, technology provides young music teachers with a number of helpful resources for implementing a fun and educational curriculum.

You can listen to the The Music Educator podcast by using the app from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.themusiceducatorpodcast.android.music. You can learn more about Bill Steven by visiting his website at https://www.4themusiceducator.com/.