Select a date 

First things first: when will you have your concert? You may need to collaborate with colleagues who share the same performance space as you or coordinate transportation to another site, depending on where your concert will be held. 

Scheduling an annual calendar meeting with fine arts colleagues and/or directors from your feeder pattern is crucial. Consider building events, district events, and rehearsal needs for all parties involved when scheduling time and space. It is also helpful to keep athletic schedules in mind when planning for the year. 

Be sure to think through things like your setup and what other presence is needed at a school event (custodians, security officer, administrator, etc.) as well as any facility requests needed for air or parking lot lights.

Communicate to students and families 

How will you let students and families know about your concert? Creating a simple concert reminder document with important details like date, timing, and other requirements that you can update for each event can save time. You can even create a version for each event on your calendar far in advance to get ahead! It also helps to communicate in a variety of ways: use email, a classroom messaging tool if you use one, or even mailing label stickers printed with concert information for students to place on their shirts or music binders.

Event details 

Try creating a main document to hold all details for each concert: a “Concert Itinerary” of sorts. Be as detailed as possible and include estimated times for all aspects of the event. A concert itinerary is a great place for you to think through and list out what you’d like to say when speaking at the concert and to keep a running list of people to acknowledge or thank throughout the event. 

A concert itinerary is also an excellent place for details on equipment or percussion that may need to be moved before, during, and after the concert. Remember to share your itinerary with all adults and/or student leaders who will be helping you so that the plans are clear to everyone.

VIPs 

Accompanist: don’t leave your accompanist out of the planning process! Consider how you will thank them for their help in pulling off a wonderful performance—a thank you card, gift, and public acknowledgment is always appreciated. 

District VIPs: consider inviting other music educators from your district or area. Feeder pattern teachers love to see former and future students (and might even lend a helping hand!), and district administrators enjoy seeing students in action. 

Remember to acknowledge and thank other essential helpers like custodians, office staff, campus officers, and your supporting administrators.

The concert is now over! Now what?

What is your cleanup plan? Do you expect students to help? Can you record the concert and listen to it during class the next time you see your students? Every performance has moments of things going both wrong and right—it’s helpful to give students an opportunity to unpack and learn from their experiences in a reflective way. Taking a few minutes to write individual reflections (from a prompt you provide like this one) and then sharing them as a class can be a meaningful and calm activity for post-concert days. A brief reflection time can also provide an individual way for students to communicate to you in writing or in quiet conversation about why they may not have been able to attend the concert.

What’s next? Don’t wait for one concert to be over to begin making selections for the next one! Start thinking through an appropriate program before you need to pass it out to aid in planning and preparation. Consider keeping a running list of potential performance music physically, on a document, or on a MakeMusic Cloud Playlist that you can add to and reference. You can even invite students to explore and build their own ideal concert as an activity by providing them some parameters and demonstrating how to search for and listen to potential concert titles!

You’ve got a lot to keep track of, so take a little off your plate and grab your free concert checklist download to help you get started planning an organized and successful concert!

The post The ULTIMATE Concert Checklist for Music Teachers appeared first on MakeMusic.

Traditional Assignments

Start your assignment creation process from a piece in the Music Catalog or My Library. Remember you can create assignments from anything in the Music Catalog, shared items created in Compose, uploaded and shared items from other notation software, or even Sight Reading Builder custom exercises or templates. Use the Assign button to get started. View step-by-step instructions on creating assignments here. 

Pro Tip #1 (possibly THE most important tip!): Add clear directions for your students in the appropriate text box. Consider rewarding your students for reading your instructions by including bonus words that they must include in the comment box when they submit their assignment. This will help your students develop the habit of reading instructions.  Save time by keeping a document of directions that you can copy/paste from and make minor changes to as you create new assignments! 

Pro Tip #2: The Assessment tolerance defaults to “Level 1” – keep it there until you really see a need to challenge your students further! 

Pro Tip #3: You can turn any assignment into a sight reading assignment in the Additional Features section. Activate the sight reading toggle and easily specify a study time for your students.

Pro Tip #4: When setting the tempo parameters, consider setting the tempo to “At Least” ___ and encouraging your students to choose a tempo where they can get their best score or are most proud of their performance.

When you choose how an assignment should be graded, you may use the MakeMusic Cloud assessment score or create your own rubric. If you select to Submit Grade Automatically, the MakeMusic Cloud assessment score alone will provide the final score. While students will always be able to see an assessment score after a recording, teachers can add other criteria that make the most sense for the assignment with a rubric. 

Pro Tip #5: Add criteria that you can use on multiple assignments because these custom items will be available to you in future assignments that you create! Consider making use of criteria such as “Musicality”, “Evidence of Practice”, or even “Reflection in Comments” to use as additional pieces of the final score that are teacher assessed. 

Save Time with Units

All of the assignments that you create are automatically turned into templates. You can access these templates from the Home page (Recent Assignment Templates) or by clicking on Assignments in the navigation menu. 

Units are a great way to assign multiple assignments all at once! Consider using units for things that you might use year after year or create them when planning your assignments for the grading period. 

Pro Tip #6: Add assignments to your Unit in “backwards order” — select the LAST assignment you want to appear in the list first and end with the FIRST assignment so that they will appear in sequential order to your students.

Create Your Personal Best Workflow

You will get the most out of the MakeMusic Cloud tools when you learn about how they work, and then create processes for yourself and your students that make sense in your situation. A traditional graded assignment may not always be the best option alongside your musical goals. Here are some educator-tested ways to use our tools in creative ways: 

Toggle “Show Assessment” On and Off 

Show students that they can turn off the visual of the red, yellow, and green notes appearing when they are practicing. While instant assessment is so helpful for some, it can be anxiety inducing for others, especially when trying to perform something. To use this toggle, click on Assessment at the top of the Practice screen and you’ll see the option to adjust this on and off. 

Pro Tip #7: If Show Assessment is turned off, our tool will still assess, it just won’t show the colored feedback until the toggle is changed back to the on position. 

Delete, Save, or Submit any Take

After a take is recorded in MakeMusic Cloud there are three options next to the dropdown list of takes from the current practice session. Delete removes the take from the list. Save downloads the take as a .wav file (that can be attached to an email, LMS assignment, etc.) Submit turns the assignment in to the teacher. 

Pro Tip #8: The Save option offers you some flexibility in how to accept student work and is even a backup plan that students can rely upon if they have trouble with a submission. 

Practice Analysis Offers Valuable Insights 

Pro Tip #9: Consider assigning grades (or portions of grades) based on practice time. You can easily and quickly see how long students spend recording takes, how many times they open material, and what they are exploring in Class Analytics. The Analytics you’ll find in MakeMusic Cloud are based on playing time and recording time that we can track. Remember that students will likely spend some time looking at the music, playing just a few measures, checking fingerings, or decoding rhythms outside of the tracked plays and records. When a student shows “10 minutes” of playing and recording time, they likely spent 20-30 minutes total really practicing that music! 

Gain practice insights for each of your classes by visiting Class Analytics. Find it in the main menu on the left side of the screen under Classroom and Teach.

You can also access it from your Home screen by clicking on the Practice item at the bottom right of any class card. 

Students can see their own personal practice analysis in the left side main menu under Classroom and then Learn.

Pro Tip #10: Submit The Take You’re Most Proud Of. Consider offering assignments on occasion that ask students to submit the take that they are “most proud of”. Don’t underestimate the power of asking students to open their ears and really take a few minutes to self analyze 

No two teachers use MakeMusic Cloud tools the same way. We are always working on improving functionality and expanding options for creative teachers like you so that you can continue to do your best for your students! Join the conversation and connect with other MakeMusic Cloud educators in our Facebook group, Teaching with MakeMusic Cloud, and let us know YOUR Pro Tips! 

The post Pro Tips for Creating Assignments in MakeMusic Cloud appeared first on MakeMusic.