Online Professional Learning Opportunities For Music Teachers
If you are looking for a list of valuable, educational, affordable or even free workshops and professional development opportunities for early childhood and elementary music teachers, you’ve come to the right place.
Professional development or PD courses are required of certified educators, not only to fulfill their certification or license requirements, but also to keep up to date with different approaches and effective pedagogical tools.
Below, you will find a list of online professional development trainings for music teachers. These are remote learning opportunities for music educators that are easily accessible no matter where you are.
1. Laurie Berkner's Music in the "Classroom" Seminar Series- this is a series of free seminar recordings where Laurie Berkner provides ideas for structuring classes and tips on how to engage children in the classroom. A certificate of completion is provided.
2. Embrace Race Webinars- Embrace Race provides social justice and racial justice centered educational resources to parents, teachers, and anyone who works with children. They have a series of pre-recorded webinars and presentations on various social justice topics, including one called Using Books to Engage Young Children in Talk about Race & Justice. Certificate of completion are not provided but the information is invaluable and crucial for educators to learn about.
3. Music Education Summit- this is an online professional learning event for k-12 music educators. You may attend live or there’s is an option for on demand viewing for up to a year at no additional charge.
4. F-flat Annual Back-to-School Symposium- the 2020 replays of this music education symposium are currently available including presentations from leading music educators such as Franklin Willis, Darlene Machacon, and Victoria Boler.
Friday, November 7th, 2025
10 pre-approved CMTE credits for music therapists (fulfills ethics requirements). Educators and other professionals receive a certificate for 10 professional development credits.
Students and interns get 50% OFF (use code STUDENT).
We accept POs! Click here for a sample letter you can send to your administrator. Email hello@musicforkiddos.com to get the process started.
Watch live online (webinar-style), watch the recording for up to a year after the event, or mix and match to fit your schedule.
5. Music For Kiddos Symposium- the Music For Kiddos Symposium is an online conference for early-childhood music therapists and music educators. Registration for the 2022 conference is available for purchase. It includes presentations from experienced music therapists and music educators such as Dr. Alan Turry, DA, MT-BC, LCAT, Ani Silva-Berrios, Lorrie Kubicek, MT-BC and Kimberly Khare, MA, MT-BC, Otto Gross, and Kat Harhai.
6. Laurie Berkner's Early Childhood Songwriting Masterclass- Laurie Berkner shares her tried-and-true songwriting strategies for creating songs that celebrate children, capture attention, and invite kids to participate in their own way.
This course walks you through Laurie’s process and leaves you with strategies that you can use to support your own clients and students during music.
7. Sensory Songs is a video course that explores music as a supportive tool for sensory regulation. This course features an occupational therapist and two music therapists who walk you through concepts such as: sensory processing, regulation and modulation, sensory seeking and/or avoiding tendencies, and music strategies for regulation. In addition to 3+ hours of video and a Zoom office hour, you’ll receive 14 ready-to-use songs created specifically for sensory exploration.
What are your favorite, affordable professional development opportunities for music educators?
More professional development opportunities for music educators from Music For Kiddos:
How can we create inclusive and equitable early childhood spaces?
How can we engage young children in critical conversations about race, identity, immigration, accessibility, land ownership and religious expression?
These are some of the important and necessary questions we will be exploring in the online course, Empowering Little Leaders.
This course was created by 3 music therapists with various identities and lived experiences in order to provide anti-oppressive resources to music therapists and music educators. They share their developmentally appropriate approach for engaging young children and their families in these critical conversations. It is by no means an exhaustive course, but we hope it will amplify voices of stakeholders from many communities already committed to this work while also providing specific ideas and resources that can immediately be put into practice in classroom and therapy spaces.
Music therapists get 6 pre-approved CMTE credits that fulfill the ETHICS requirement!
Music educators get a certificate for 6 professional development credits!
For detailed course information, including course format and instructor bios, please click HERE.
25% of all course proceeds are donated directly to a related non-profit.
Did you know that many professional musicians are able to record their simple projects from the comfort of their own home? Commercials, voice overs, guitar tracks, lead vocals, background vocals… just ask Berklee College of Music-trained recording engineer and vocalist Jenn Mundia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her home studio was busier than ever.
In this mini-course, Jenn will walk you through the simplest possible studio setup and recording process that can produce a clean, crisp, and polished recording you can be proud of.
What do you need? A USB mic (we like this $100 Blue Yeti) and GarageBand. (And if you’re getting a little fancier, some nice headphones.) That’s it. **GarageBand is a music creation software exclusive to Apple therefore, this course is recommended for Mac users.
Music therapist? Music educator? Use these simple recording techniques to support your clients and students in a brand new way. Write and record a song, explore simple mixing techniques, let your client produce a song from start to finish… the possibilities are endless.
Do this mini-course in your own time!! It's one hour of pre-recorded videos, and one Q&A office hour on March 31st at 8pm ET. (If you can't make it, we'll send you the recording!)
MTs and educators can get 2 professional development credits (not pre-approved, but we'll give you a certificate to self-submit).
Questions? Email mabel@musicforkiddos.com
Guitar is one of the mostly commonly requested instruments that kids want to learn. They’re motivated, excited… AND THEN THEY QUIT.
Why? The guitar is really hard for little hands. And as we teach kids the guitar, we might find ourselves:
Trying to teach kids that are too young (we recommend 9+)
Teaching full-sized chords to kid-sized hands (we recommend starting with mini-chords)
Teaching scale-based songs that kids aren't interested in learning (we recommend teaching their preferred music)
The problem? The guitar method books on the shelf are NOT made for kids in the 9 - 13ish age group. BEFORE they have stronger, larger hands. They need something specifically designed for THEM.
👉We have LOOKED (and looked and looked), and haven't ever found a stellar curriculum specifically developed for children that can teach guitar in a step-by-step, success-based way.
Until now. (WOOHOO!)
Guitar For Kids is our new success-based guitar method for kids 9+ developed by Jenna Hardy Pedersen.
Berklee College of Music graduate and music educator, Jenna, is laser-focused on helping her young guitar students succeed (and stick with!) the guitar.
This method includes:
A comprehensive guitar method PDF that details Jenna's step-by-step process
A printable instructor's packet that includes worksheets and 14 ready-to-use songs
A printable student manual
A printable 70-page workbook that walks teachers and kids through dozens of guitar exercises
25 videos that demonstrate course concepts and suggested songs
A Zoom office hour so you can ask Jenna questions (a replay will be available)
A certificate for two professional development credits upon completion
Questions? We’re happy to help! stephanie@musicforkiddos.com
