The purpose of this pilot study was to survey prospective undergraduate music education majors to learn what motivated them to aspire to a career in music education. Respondents were candidates auditioning, but not yet accepted, for music teacher preparation programs at four institutions ( N = 228). Findings corroborate prior research that suggests that school music teachers and/or private lesson teachers are highly influential. This study sought to quantify the types of experiences participants had in teaching roles at the time of their college audition, supporting other research suggesting that such experiences may increase interest in a music teaching career. Recommendations include engaging music educators at all PreK—12 levels in actively recruiting and encouraging future teachers, providing private instructors and performance majors with teacher recruitment information, emphasizing earlier identification and preparation of prospective educators, and refining and continuing the work begun in this pilot study.

In this descriptive study, we examined the influences and experiences motivating students to enter college-level music schools as reported by a population of precollegiate students auditioning (but not yet accepted) to music education degree programs. As a follow-up to a published pilot study, this research was designed to quantify the various experiences respondents had as part of their precollege school and community programs that related to teaching and music. Results indicate a strong connection between respondents’ primary musical background and future teaching interest. The top three influential experiences were related to high school ensemble membership (band, choir, orchestra), and the most influential group of individuals in the decision to become a music educator were high school ensemble directors. Respondents from all four primary background groups (band, choir, orchestra, and general or other) rated private lesson teaching as their second strongest future teaching interest, just behind teaching at the high school level in their primary background. Respondents rated parents as moderately influential on their desire to become a music teacher.

The purpose of this study was to compare motivations and influences of high school music students who express an interest in a career in music teaching and those who do not. A previous survey was adapted for the study and administered to a pre-college population that included musicians who stated a preference to pursue music teaching or other music careers and musicians who stated a preference for other nonmusic occupations. Items were analyzed using a discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) data reduction strategy, which used a principal components analysis as a first step to determine item loadings onto orthogonal components. The three occupation groups (music teaching, other music, and other nonmusic) were then compared using a discriminant analysis of the resulting components. The model correctly classified 69.8% of cases, with one significant component primarily separating both music groups from the nonmusic career group and three additional significant components separating the music teaching group from the other music careers group. Using this model, the choice of an occupation appears multidimensional, and discrete sources of influence (e.g., music teachers and music teaching experiences explored in prior studies) are not necessarily individually predictive of the overall choice to pursue music teaching.

The Music Mentor Plus program was designed to introduce mentoring strategies teachers can implement during supervision of student teachers and early field experience interns, while also fostering connections between field-based modeling and university methods course content. Throughout the 2015–2016 school year, seven music teachers and two university music education faculty members engaged in a series of live workshops and ongoing electronic communication. Participants joined in discussions and role-play activities and completed readings and reflection assignments. In this article, we present an outline of the program as well as reflections on the experience from the faculty leaders and participating teachers.

The authors examine the interactions of music educators within an online social media community, the Band Directors Group on Facebook. Using a quantitative content analysis approach to examine 1,656 unique threads, the authors explore the frequencies of posted topics and general topic interest as measured by user responses. Among the 54 different codes used to categorize topics, repertoire selection, instrument recommendations, and rehearsal strategies emerged as the most frequent topics of discussion. Additionally, the authors explored the application of Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder’s (2002) community of practice theory and found that the group is a functioning community of practice that exhibits many of the common characteristics associated with the theory.