From discussing the state of music education, to understanding the multitude of connection points within the profession, to focusing on the skills and needs of the 21st music student, Leading Notes offers content that you simply won’t find anywhere else. After one year, LN has lived up to its promise of being a leading voice in music education that tackles important issues in the field with a fresh perspective that has attracted thousands of visitors.
Of course, we view this as only the beginning. We have been very busy developing new venues to help spread the ideas contained within each issue of Leading Notes. While we can’t wait to share our plans with you, we know that the core of our mission is in sharing ideas, philosophies, lessons, and experiences that will help music teachers and music advocates conceptualize our ever-changing profession. With that in mind, we are pleased to announce that the theme for our Spring 2012 issue is Professional Development.
Spring 2012 – Professional Development
Every music teacher understands the boredom of the school-wide professional development day. With its endless stream of presentations and workshops that often have little applicability to our unique experiences, music educators can sometimes forget about all of the ways in which we can develop as teachers, musicians, mentors, and people.
Our goal for this issue is to provide interesting stories, ideas, and dreams that put a fresh perspective on professional development and encourage you to continually improve your own teaching. We are also interested in stories that take a critical stance on “traditional” form of professional development.
Here are some ideas for potential articles:
- Personal journeys: Share with us an experience that you or a peer have had through private lessons, traveling, or any other activity that helped your personal growth. How did these moments, though they may have not been called professional development, impact how you teach?
- Innovative programs: Presentations or frameworks that have been developed and implemented by your school, department, or others.
Online Development: Stories related to teachers or students who have learned new skills entirely through the Internet. What resources have you used to form your professional learning network? - Funny Professional Development Stories: How have you entertained yourself during those long PD days at school? Short anecdotes or experiences would be perfect.
- Unique conference or student teaching experiences: Do you have a story from a conference, workshop, or from your student teaching days? We’d love to hear it. Also, if you have any tips for getting the most out of a conference experience, send them our way!
Please keep in mind that these are just starting points. If you have an idea that does not fit into the above suggestions, we encourage you to reach out and let us know what you’re thinking about. We’re excited to help you turn a seed of an idea into a full-fledged article for our upcoming issue and hope you find time in your busy schedule to contribute.
How Can I Submit?
Do you have an idea for an article? Awesome! Our editors are excited and ready to help. We all have varied interests in music education, so we’ll be able to find an editor-author relationship that works best for everyone.
Please email our co-editors, Justine Dolorfino and Nick Jaworski, with information about what you’re interested in writing about or, if you’re extra-ambitious, a draft you’ve already completed that you think would work well with this issue topic. We’ll make sure you and your article are in good hands.
Why you should consider publishing in Leading Notes:
- New ideas, new media: Our first issue has been accessed thousands of times. We believe that providing this content online, without being hidden behind a traditional paywall (like more “traditional” academic journals) is the best way to have an impact on our profession.
- Web traffic: By affiliating your work with Leading Notes, you are in a position to direct readers to your other interets. You can include links, email, Twitter feeds, documents, or whatever else you can think of to engage readers with your ideas.
- Support from Leading Notes staff: We feel very strongly about getting the word out. When you publish in Leading Notes, we will tweet, blog, post on Facebook, and email your efforts to anybody who will listen.
- Join the chorus and be a part of something new: Leading Notes was founded on the idea that people from all parts of our profession have important things to say. By adding your voice to an issue of Leading Notes, you are helping to provide a broad perspective on the field of music education – an invaluable contribution to our profession.
About Leading Notes:
Leading Notes, founded in December 2010, is a new music education magazine that seeks to maintain an online space for discussion about the intersection of philosophy and practice. It attempts to supplement the already well-established music education online community by providing a platform for persons associated with the field to share their thoughts about teaching music in the 21st century. Our hope is that through making this content available, discussions about important topics in music education can be better facilitated. We are interested in keeping an open mind and are open to receiving submissions from students of all ages, current and retired professors, composers, performers, and anyone in between. For more information, visit our About page.
