Welcome to the MacPhail Music Learning Lab, the go-to professional development resource for MacPhail Center for Music faculty members.

On this page you will find a comprehensive list of professional development events.

Our blog, LabReport, features a wide range of MacPhail faculty-generated content, posts by guest bloggers, and excellent content drawn from around the web.

The MacPhail faculty is rich with ideas. Our hope is that every idea worth sharing from every individual and gathering at MacPhail will find its way onto the Learning Lab website.

One-On-One Help
The MacPhail Tech Mentors are available to provide one-on-one assistance to their MacPhail colleagues as they work to integrate new tools into their work. Click here for details.

Join MacPhail’s Tech Mentors to learn more about various music streaming services and other teaching resources. If your student wants to learn a pop song that you aren’t familiar with or find a good recording of a classical piece, this session will talk about how streaming music services can enhance your teaching. Whether it’s Spotify, iTunes, Pandora or Google Play, you’ll leave the session knowing the difference between these streaming services as well as how to learn how able to pull up music at a moment’s notice during your teaching.

We all have a desire to learn, but have a preferred learning modality in how we best absorb, process, comprehend and retain information. These preferences are represented in four different overarching learning styles: auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and read/write. As musicians and teaching artists, we tend to be more auditory learners. With the infusion of technology, we have become a more visual society which can present a disconnect in how we, as musicians engage in learning and teaching others. In this discussion, we will learn about the four learning styles, discover what we are, and learn new strategies to best connect with our students and meet their individual learning style needs.

Nicole Engel and Blaine Kelley are advocates and educators with OutFront Minnesota; Nicole in the Anti-Violence Program and Blaine in the Youth & Schools Program. This workshop will combine the expertise honed from both programs to address bias-based bullying among youth. We will provide you with the knowledge and skills to identify bias-based bullying, understand the impact of bias-based bullying, support targets, and intervene when bias-based bullying is occurring in our spaces.