In the Fall of 2018, I began Boston University's  Online Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education . We moved to Charlottesville in 2018 for my wife's position at the University of Virginia, and ...

The other day, I finished Noa Kageyama’s (performance psychologist, Bulletproof Musician)  podcast  with  Robert Duke  (Head of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas ...

At the end of March, I recorded  an episode  with my good friend,  Nick Covington , for his podcast with the  Human Restoration Project . Nick and I were students together at Anken...

Throughout my  masters  and  doctoral  programs, I had a need for (1) software to organize all of the scholarly literature I was reading, and (2) a method for taking and organizing...

Continuing in my series of unpacking scholarly articles around making, I read Clapp and Jimenez’s ( 2016 ) “Implementing STEAM in Maker-Centered Learning.” The researchers analyzed making activities f...

The primary catalysts to my interest in makerspaces were twofold: First, a discussion about how Albemarle County Public Schools have approached implementing makerspaces in  Timeless Learning &n...

In this “Spring Break” between my  Psychology & Sociology  and Music Theory courses, I decided to read a book recommended to me by my friend,  Nick Covington , Frank Smith’s  ...

Over the break between my Fall II 2018 and Spring I 2019 terms in my  BU Doctor of Musical Arts , I have been reading Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner’s  Teaching as a Subversive Activi...

In my week off between courses in my DMA program, I began reading Timeless Learning: How Imagination, Observation, and Zero-Based Thinking Change Schools by Ira Socol , Pam Mor an , and Cha d R...

My time teaching in Iowa was marked by political interference in education. We saw the loss of collective bargaining, a change in the school start date to support the State Fair and local businesses, consistent underfunding of education, and rhetoric demonizing public schools. While I have not been

The VanderCook Master of Music Education program changed quite a bit about how I teach. It made a huge impact on how I approached improvisation and filled in the pedagogical gaps I should have paid attention to in my undergraduate program. I highly recommend the program, faculty, and experience at V

In the Fall of 2014, I took an online MECA course ( Music Education Center of America) through VanderCook College of M usic as an elective for my Mast ers of Music Education degree. The course was en titled Teaching Music in a Common Core World taught by Bill Koch , a forme r Illino is band d

Both takadimi and solfège are tools we used to teach music literacy, but our success arose from consistency: every music teacher in our district taught rhythm using takadimi and pitch using solfège. Because students received consistent instruction on rhythmic and tonal literacy, they were better at

From 2013–2018, I taught instrumental music in the Ankeny Community Schools as part of a vertical professional learning community. Our PLC of six teachers pushed into 6–12th grade band rehearsals to provide instrument-specific individual and small-group lessons. We built a standards-referenced curri

Welcome back! In 2014, I began a website to document our professional learning community's vertical teaching and standards-based approach to teaching instrumental music in Ankeny, Iowa. Since then , I continued to share my thoughts and reflections on instrumental music education, education polic

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Where students with vouchers are coming from, and where that money could have gone

A 2006 study compares three different approaches to teaching expressiveness, and identifies some pros and cons of each.

A 2021 study of pianists highlights some key differences between effective and less-effective practicers.

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By middle school, many kids’ interest in learning falls off a cliff. The ripple effects could last for years.

The slightly-cranky voice navigating the world of educational "reform" while trying to still pursue the mission of providing quality education.

The goal of Identity, Formation, Agency, and Culture is to lay the basis of a theory with which to better understand the difficulties and complexities of