The Stan Kenton Clinics changed music education in American public schools by providing inspiring jazz learning experiences to countless students and music teachers. Stan Kenton was a well-known mid-twentieth century jazz big band leader who devoted his time, money, and fame in support of these educational clinics. The clinics began in 1959 under the auspices of the National Stage Band Camps and continued until Kenton's death in 1979. The present study comprises a first-of-its-kind history of the clinics, focusing primarily on the first five years of their existence. This history is subsequently used as a case for contemplating future changes to music education.

The purpose of this research was to examine the lived experiences of music teachers during the advent and fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. I interviewed eight music teachers who taught music in Arizona during 2020 and 2021, then coded their responses to find common themes and understandings among participants. The coded themes were communication, preparation, mode complexities, and what endures. The essence of teaching music during the advent and fallout of COVID-19 was that teaching during the pandemic was like a magnifying glass on the issues and stresses music teachers experienced before COVID-19 forced emergency lockdowns and transitions in instructional modes for these educators. I recommend that pre-service music teachers engage with their communities, that local administrators better support the needs of their teachers during their first years of teaching, and that music teaching training institutions consider initiating mentoring programs for their newly in-service music teachers to help them through their first years of teaching.

The goal of this project is to create a lesson book to guide teachers and beginner students through the first six months of teaching and learning and to create a strong base of knowledge the student can draw upon throughout their time playing the harp. This lesson book is organized in three distinct sections: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. The sections were named to levels to more accurately describe the difficulty of the exercises and content. The lessons are designed to occur once a week so that each section may take two months to complete for a total of six months. The timing of the lessons are ultimately up to the teacher and student, however, as some may need more time while others can progress faster. The lessons are planned to last about 30 minutes, as longer would be difficult for the young student to sit still and pay attention, although the length of the lesson is also up to the teacher and the student. Attached to the lessons are links to the pieces so that the teacher and student may hear how the piece sounds before playing it.

As the incorporation of popular music into secondary and university learning spaces continues to expand, of particular interest is how ways of learning and teaching popular music might be enacted in a school environment. Well-meaning teachers, music education organizations, and corporate entities, in an effort to codify these ways, continue to explore various methods of operationalizing popular music to fit within the paradigmatic structures and core narratives of music education. Given this climate, what might teachers employing popular music gain from developing a better understanding of the diverse ways popular musicians learn, create, perform, and teach?This narrative and multiple case study considers the stories of three professional musicians who, at some point in their performing career, also became music teachers. By exploring how the orientations (i.e., experiences, knowledges, beliefs, and practices) of these professional musician~teachers were cultivated through the diversity of their experiences encountered both on and off the gig as well as in and out of classroom, this study explores how these individuals blended their biographical pasts as professional musicians with their developing teaching practices in the popular music-focused classroom. Based on this exploration, the following questions guided this inquiry: 1) What are the individual orientations of professional musicians who also teach in popular music-focused learning spaces in secondary school settings?, 2) Where and how did these professional musician~teachers acquire their orientations during their time as student-musicians and as professional musicians?, 3) How do these professional musician~teachers approach teaching popular music in popular music-focused learning spaces in secondary school settings?, 4) How are their orientation(s) evident in their teaching practices?, and 5) How did their orientations evolve to include their newfound experiences as they developed their teaching practice? Findings indicate these professional musician~teachers: 1) learned to teach by teaching and, through this process, developed a unique blend of content and pedagogical knowledge, 2) adopted a flexible perspective of classroom structures and teaching approaches and, 3) transferred evaluative skills gained from their experiences as professional musicians into the classroom as they sought out ways to improve their teaching practice.

This study applied the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) to explore the sources of self-efficacy and professional development activities that are most predictive of PreK-6 music teachers’ efficacious beliefs. This study also compared teacher efficacy levels across different groups. The target population for this study was PreK-6 music teachers in the state of Arizona. The survey was disseminated through the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the Arizona chapters of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA), the Organization of American Kodály Educators (OAKE), and snowball sampling via a Facebook message. Of the 660 teachers invited to participate, 92 (13.94%) voluntarily completed the survey. Results from simultaneous multiple regression analyses indicated that teacher efficacy for instructional strategies was best predicted by their mastery experience, followed by vicarious experience, while mastery experience was the strongest predictor of teacher efficacy for student engagement. Additionally, the acquisition of method certification and watching teaching resources via YouTube were significant predictors of teacher efficacy for instructional strategies, while observation hours per year was the only predictor of teacher efficacy for student engagement. Results from factorial between-subjects ANOVAs indicated that teaching experience had a significant main effect on teacher efficacy for instructional strategies and student engagement. However, neither main teaching areas nor the combined effects of main teaching areas and teaching experience had a significant effect on teacher efficacy for instructional strategies and student engagement. Results from independent-samples t-test analyses showed that school types had a significant effect on teacher efficacy for student engagement, while no differences were found between school types regarding teacher efficacy for instructional strategies. The analysis of open-ended comments identified themes related to factors that strengthen or weaken participant teacher efficacy, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teacher efficacy, the types of professional development activities that they engaged during the year, the most effective professional development activities for enhancing teacher efficacy. Findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications for school principals, school administrators, policy makers, music teacher educators, and music teachers to promote and support music teachers’ self-efficacy.

This study aimed to investigate whether female elementary and middle-level (middle school and junior high school) band teachers in the United States perceive discrimination in their profession of band teaching. Data were collected from 241 female band teachers who completed an online questionnaire on their demographic background and perceptions of discrimination, sexism, sex stereotypes, job isolation, mentors and role models, and working as mothers. The study explored the influence of various independent variables, including age, levels of teaching, level of education, primary instruments, years of music teaching experience, years of band teaching experience, region of school, location of school, and type of school. Statistical analyses revealed that significant differences in perceptions of discrimination, sexism, sex stereotypes, and job isolation varied according to age, levels of teaching, and years of music and band teaching experience. No significant differences were found in any perceptions by the level of education, primary instrument, region, location, and types of school. In addition, the majority of respondents reported that their mentors and role models were their colleagues rather than through formal mentoring programs. Also, the majority of respondents reported feeling anxious about being a mother while pursuing their careers. Future research is recommended to interview female elementary and middle/high school band teachers aged 21–30 and 31–40 with 1–5 and 6–10 years of teaching experience to gain a better understanding of their daily work and to identify solutions for working mothers and increased professional mentorship.

This study compares course enrollment data for student-group equity variables for a newly developed and implemented schedule: the Equity Plan, with implemented traditional alternating day schedules. The study compares two implemented Equity Plan schedule frameworks and twenty traditional alternating day schedules over 11 years. The school-based schedule data were from two diverse New York public middle schools in the same school district, a total of 22 complete schedule data sets. Courses analyzed include health, music, physical education, and visual arts. The represented student variables were: all students, English as a new language (ENL), students with disabilities (SWDs), gender, and ethnicity. The compiled data included 255,365 rows and 13 columns for a total of 3,319,745 cells of data, representing 19,822 student schedules. Equitable course enrollment was defined as no more than a 5% difference of enrollment between student groups.The data analysis revealed that ENL students and SWDs were consistently excluded from health, music, and visual arts courses. The Equity Plan schedule was the only implemented schedule framework that has equitable course enrollment for ENL students and SWDs in health, music, physical education, and visual arts. Physical education almost always had equitable enrollment for all student groups. Females and males were equitably represented in band, while females were overrepresented in chorus and orchestra. Students grouped by American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Multiracial, and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander generally had low enrollment representation in school populations and were often not equitably included in courses. ENL students and SWDs may be disproportionately excluded in many schools due to additional mandates for these groups. This identified issue may be widespread throughout the nation. The author recommends that all schools conduct an equitable course analysis using the 5% standard to determine if student groups are disproportionately being excluded from courses. Implementation of an intentional administrative strategy focusing on equitable course enrollment such as the Equity Plan schedule framework is recommended to address equity and inclusion challenges.

The work environment can have a measurable impact on the extent to which a person generates new and potentially useful ideas. The present study tested a comprehensive model of personality and employee creativity, moderated by the work environment. I proposed moderation effects that physical and social-organizational elements in the work environment as well as workplace flexibility may have on employee creativity. Participants (N = 81) were invited to take an online survey examining personality traits, the work environment, and creativity. Results showed that openness to experience was a significant predictor of employee creativity. Findings also suggested that the relationship between personality and employee creativity is altered by social-organizational elements in the work environment. Specifically, employees with high levels of openness displayed more divergent thinking and creative behavior in the office work environment when levels of realized social-organizational elements were high. Additionally, employees with high levels of extraversion engaged in less creative behaviors in the home work environment when levels of realized social-organizational elements were very low. The relationship between personality and employee creativity is also altered by the perceived importance of social-organizational elements in the workplace in general. Findings revealed that employees with high levels of openness displayed more creative behavior and ideational behavior when the perceived importance of social-organizational elements in the workplace in general was high. Conversely, findings revealed that employees with high levels of extraversion displayed less creative behavior and ideational behavior when the perceived importance of social-organizational elements in the workplace in general was low. Given the lack of research exploring moderating effects of the work environment on creativity, further research is recommended to investigate the impact of both physical and social-organizational elements and workplace flexibility on employee creativity, the ability to generate novel and potentially useful ideas.

The purpose of this sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was to explore Chinese music teachers' concerns that arise from classroom practice in their first six years of teaching using the three-stage model of teacher concerns development proposed by Fuller and Bown (1975). Research questions focused on teachers' concerns, concerns patterns, the shift of concerns patterns, and influences associated with concerns shifts. This study started with quantitative data collection using a survey based on Campbell and Thompson's (2007) Teacher Concerns Checklist to collect data from Chinese beginning music teachers working in Zhejiang Province (N = 316). The qualitative data were generated from semi-structured individual interviews with 12 participants purposefully selected from survey participants. The quantitative and qualitative results revealed that Chinese beginning music teachers' self, task, and student impact concerns exist and progress simultaneously. Their self and task concerns decreased as their teaching experience increased. These beginning music teachers' student impact concerns remained relatively unchanged at a high level in their first six years of teaching. Qualitative data revealed a new potential category of concerns: work environment concerns, including supportive school policies and interpersonal relationships in the workplace. Qualitative data also suggested that teachers' self concerns and student impact concerns may consist of two levels. Self concerns included self-survival concerns and self-improvement concerns, and student impact concerns included awareness of student impact concerns and having ideas for dealing with these concerns. The results of this study showed that some of the teachers' concerns were context-specific. These kinds of concerns may have been influenced by factors other than years of teaching experience, such as teaching circumstances, cultural context, and the teacher evaluation system, which also seemed to influence teachers' particular concerns. Based on these findings, a new model of the progression of teacher concerns was proposed. The findings of this study provide information for teacher educators, mentors, and school administrators to develop professional development programs and school policies that may help beginning music teachers relieve their anxieties and prepare them to be successful in the early years of teaching.