The editorial committee for a forthcoming e-book titled Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy is soliciting short essays (approx. 1500 words) on the subject of student-centered learning. Scheduled to be released this August, Engaging Students will serve as an open-access, web-based resource for those teaching college-level classes in music.
We envision a new format for scholarly communication based upon collaborative and swift peer review. We take our inspiration from hack-a-thons, in which creative solutions to a problem emerge from working intensely together in a collaborative environment for a limited time, as well as the crowdsourced ebook, Hacking the Academy, and the open-access journal, Hybrid Pedagogy. You will receive feedback on your manuscript within a week of the submission deadline. The revision process will consist of efficient online interactions between you and the editorial group.
We are looking to combine essays of both a philosophical and practical nature on a wide range of topics, including (but not limited to) assessment, learning outcomes, in-class and out-of-class activities, and technology. We are also interested in a balance between essays dealing with more general topics (for example, strategies for dealing with different learning styles in a variety of contexts) and those dealing with more specific topics (for example, guidelines for using a specific computer application that has proven especially useful in mastering a particular skill or concept).
In terms of format, essays for this book should be loosely modeled on what Dan Cohen, Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America, calls the “blessay” (blog-essay). More information about blessays can be found here.
Submissions will be selected and edited through a collaborative review process coordinated by our executive editors: Kris Shaffer and Bryn Hughes. The e-book will then be published with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC BY–SA) that will protect authors’ rights while allowing for free and open online access. More information about creative commons licenses can be found here.
Those wishing to contribute to this publication should submit their essays by July 15, 2013. (For those interested, but unable to meet this deadline, please contact the editors to be kept abreast of any future volumes and related projects that materialize.) Detailed submission instructions (as well as additional information about licensing, the review process, our editorial team, and the project in general) can be found here.
Thank you,
the editorial committee:
Sean Atkinson, University of Texas–Arlington
Carla Colletti, Webster University
Philip Duker, University of Delaware
Gretchen Foley, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Anna Gawboy, Ohio State University
Stephen Gosden, University of North Florida
Bryn Hughes, University of Miami, coordinator
Enoch Jacobus, independent scholar, Berea, Kentucky
Brian Moseley, Furman University
Meghan Naxer, University of Oregon
Deborah Rifkin, Ithaca College
Kris Shaffer, University of Colorado–Boulder, coordinator
Engaging Students 2015 