When beginning music teachers enter a new classroom for the first time, they start a journey toward understanding a new context and community. Place consciousness develops as they become embedded in their community and begin to recognize how its culture and environment interact with their teaching practices. By mapping the objects, people, and…

For many novice music teachers, creating and implementing effective music lessons can be a tedious process. Moreover, preparing a music lesson is quite different from lesson planning in other areas, creating a disconnect that music educators may feel when trying to make music lessons fit a classroom lesson-plan model. However, most music teachers…

Provides specific suggestions to music teachers on preparing their students to view an opera broadcast on television, including use of other teachers or community personnel to provide background information. Approaches are outlined for introducing students to an opera's plot, music, design, costumes, makeup, lighting, and staging. (SJL)

Discusses the abilities a conductor must invoke in order to develop a successful choral ensemble. Recommends recruitment strategies, lists characteristics of successful teaching styles, offers suggestions for programing and literature selection, for score analysis, and for rehearsal structure and techniques. (LS)