How is current professional development falling short for music educators?
It’s 5:15 am on a Friday. You have to get up extra early to drive out of town for a mandatory professional development day of workshops, most of which are not relevant to music education at all. Hold on, are there any music workshops being offered? Nope. Well, I guess I’ll just take the free lunch and hope I get something out of the sessions. Okay, let’s enter this cold, fluorescent-lit room full of strangers. A workshop on building relationships with your class? What if I teach over 500 students a week and I only see them for 30 minutes once or twice a week - am I able to have meaningful relationships with all of them? Next session: inclusion practices. Does anyone in here have tips for me on how to get funding for adaptive instruments for my students, or use AAC devices when we’re singing in a concert? Nobody? Why am I here? The time today doesn’t feel well spent. And yet, the hours are required, the cost is often high, and the expectation is compliance
I have found myself in that scenario too many times. Sitting in a completely irrelevant but mandatory workshop, thinking about how this applies to me as a music teacher. Or, when I attend music-specific workshops, I have a hard time finding methods and philosophies I align with, so I’m stuck going to the same repetitive Orff or Kodaly sessions I’ve been to a million times. They can be fun, and they are important, but I have struggled to find new, innovative presentations that leave me feeling inspired to go back to my music room.
Despite being positioned as essential, professional development (PD) in its current form often leaves music educators unsupported, disconnected, and searching elsewhere for meaningful growth.
Why does the current model not work?
Research consistently affirms that PD is critical to effective teaching and student success (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Juma, 2024; Patfield et al., 2023). In the field of education, PD is not viewed as an optional enhancement, but a necessity for fostering reflective practice, professional growth, and adaptability within increasingly diverse and complex classroom environments (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). However, the dominant model of PD delivery fails to meet the needs of educators, particularly those in specialized fields like music.
A lack of agency ignores needs and reduces engagement
When PD is structured as a compulsory requirement by their employers, teachers frequently have little choice in selecting learning opportunities that align with their practice, and instead, they are funneled into whatever workshops are offered on predetermined dates, whether or not they meet the teacher’s professional needs (Alberth et al., 2018; Trust et al., 2016). As Prestridge (2019) describes, this model is typically a “one-size-fits-all” lecture, offering limited relevance to individual teaching contexts. This model often ignores local cultural contexts and fails to provide sustained support to ongoing learning. The disjointed episodic model and its inability to connect directly to classroom contexts often do not yield the anticipated outcomes, resulting in minimal long-term impact on teaching practice and student learning. (Brewer & Rickels, 2014; Hashim & Carpenter, 2019; Mercado & Shin, 2025; Prestridge, 2019; Randahl et al., 2023).
Music educators, whose work involves highly specific pedagogical knowledge (e.g., scheduling, large ensemble direction, performance assessment, repertoire curation), frequently find that these sessions do not translate into actionable classroom practice (Brewer & Rickels, 2014; Randahl et al., 2023). This lack of autonomy and relevancy can diminish motivation and limit meaningful engagement, reducing PD to a compliance exercise rather than a growth opportunity.
Isolation creates issues in sustained growth
Effective professional learning is sustained, collaborative, and embedded in practice. However, traditional PD is often delivered in one-off workshops with no follow-up or continuity. This fragmented approach makes it difficult for teachers to integrate new knowledge into their teaching or to reflect on its effectiveness over time (Hashim & Carpenter, 2019; Mercado & Shin, 2025). As a result, the long-term impact on both teaching practice and student learning is minimal. If no one checks in to see how, or if, the content is implemented, how will we know if the PD was effective?
Isolation is a defining feature of many music educators’ professional lives, and often opportunities for collaboration are limited. In many schools, the music teacher is the only trained music specialist in their building, sometimes moving between classrooms or even buildings, and in some schools, they are literally carrying their entire program on a cart. There are rarely ongoing or sustained practices like mentorship available for music teachers, and they certainly can’t ask their colleagues for help on getting their students to play in tune because the other teachers in the building have no idea what they’re talking about. The isolation is both physical and professional. This lack of connection not only impacts instructional growth but also contributes to burnout and attrition (Ballantyne & Retell, 2020). Without sustained professional communities, teachers miss out on mentorship, shared problem-solving, and the emotional support necessary for long-term career sustainability (Trust et al., 2016).
In contrast, emerging research points toward more flexible, collaborative, and self-directed models of professional learning, particularly those facilitated through online networks, as a way to address these shortcomings. The next section of this toolkit explores how music educators can use online communities to create more meaningful, relevant, and sustained professional growth.