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Professional Development FAQs

Here are answers to some of the questions you may have about Music Workshop’s professional development offerings. If your question isn’t answered here, contact us.

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Music Workshop Professional Development

We have supported both students and teachers through our free programming for over ten years, and at the ten year mark we asked ourselves “what next?” We know how difficult COVID-19 was for the entire school system and we grew a lot because our curricula was perfect for remote learning. With our growing teacher membership and feedback, we learned that teachers needed help staying afloat and learning new skills to support their students. We felt compelled to take on professional development courses because it is the most direct approach to supporting students post-pandemic through the targeted support of teachers.

Students continue to struggle with well-being after the COVID-19 lockdown, social upheavals, and increased media consumption since 2020. Music has been shown to mitigate the effects of these environmental challenges and improve well-being for children holistically through personal connection and social reintegration. We believe professional development is necessary to support educators who are looking for strategies to navigate challenging student mental health, and who are best equipped to guide music for well-being in schools. Especially during this time of educational and social uncertainty.

There is crossover between the courses so that any teachers with limited time can learn about Music Listening for Well-Being specifically in two hours, which is one of many other topics in the six-hour Music for Well-Being courses.

Music Workshop’s Professional Development courses are written and created by our Music Workshop team led by our Director of Education and Equity, Giuliana Conti, PhD. The materials in the scripts and research-based content of the course were written with the assistance and guidance of eight esteemed music education faculty advisors from across the country.

We have been honored to continue providing our free curricula through the kindness and generosity of individual donors, foundations, and grants for over ten years. For us to grow and provide more free resources we also needed to create a source of self-driven income that we could apply to new free content and professional development courses. Our classroom resources include a roughly 30 minute video and supplemental resources, while our professional development courses required a new web learning platform and take multiple hours to complete. Our prices are competitive so they are accessible for all teachers, and we offer scholarships to remove barriers. In order for us to provide more free quality content for students sooner, we excitedly embarked on this new adventure with teacher learning so we can support students and teachers more holistically for longer.

We hope so! The answer to this question really depends on your district, but we provide the documentation we think you need to qualify for continuing education credit hours that count towards your recertification. Our syllabus includes the learning outcomes for the course, the time it takes to complete the course, who constructed the course, and the type of content and activities included during the course experience. We always encourage teachers to use this information to seek pre-approval for credit hours from their district, but anyone who takes the course to the end also receives a certificate of completion with your name and all course info on it.

Absolutely. We cannot guarantee that you will be able to receive reimbursement from your district or school but we are happy to help you in that process in any way we can. Please contact us at amyh@musicworkshop.org to begin the process of understanding your specific requirements for reimbursement.

We have two Music for Well-Being 6-hour courses (one for music educators and one for all other subject educators) as well as a 2-hour course on Music Listening for Well-Being and a 2-hour course on Teacher Well-Being. More courses are in development and the best way to stay informed of our PD releases is to sign up for our newsletter. Have an idea for a professional development topic? Email our Director of Education and Equity Giuliana Conti at conti@musicworkshop.org.

Yes! We are proud to continue offering these classroom resources for free, and look forward to doing so through the funds earned from these professional development courses. Additionally, we fundraise to support the program through foundation grants and private donations. We have a wonderful team of donors and partners that are passionate about supporting music education and are dedicated to bringing you classroom music-empowered resources free of charge!

When writing about what teachers should know around the topics of music and well-being, it is necessary for us to ground the information shared in this course within research-based practices. This means that peer-reviewed articles, books, and work by trained professionals were consulted throughout the course building process. We also share the resources used in the course with course takers who may be interested in reading more about any of the given topics.

No! If you’ve purchased the course and you complete it then you will be granted a certificate of completion which you can use to apply for continuing education credits in your school district. We don’t grant PD hours but we provide the standard documentation for teachers to receive it through their district.

Yes! We are always building new PD and plan to launch two new PD topics by the end of this year and you can find out about any new PD launches through our monthly Newsletter as a Music Workshop member!

The courses are designed for K-12 educators and reference specifically relevant elements like the national standards for music education. However, we encourage anyone who thinks they would benefit from our PD to take it as we know that professionals like private teachers, homeschool family, and community music leaders could benefit as well.

Yes! Many of our teachers submit for reimbursement after they purchase the course. We have also had schools ask us to invoice them directly, contact amyh@musicworkshop.org for direct invoices. We also offer packages to schools and districts, if you want to let us know about what kind of teacher group is interested in a shared learning experience share or fill out this form. You can find more information about our options here as well.

Still Need Help?

Check out the FAQ for our Music Workshop Free Curriculum. If your question isn’t answered there either, contact us.

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