Assign work to students — no accounts needed

The Teaching Dashboard

All three teaching tools live in one place: the Teaching Dashboard, the second tab on your Account page. Think of it as your assignment management hub.

The Teaching Dashboard sidebar has a section for each teaching tool:

• Practice Plans — structured multi-segment practice sessions with reflection prompts
• Rhythm Trainer — timed rhythm patterns students tap along to in Listen, Practice, or Perform mode
• Sight-Reading — notated excerpts students read, listen to, and self-rate

Each section shows a live stats summary (total assignments, sessions this month, average rating), a feed of your five most recent student completions, and a quick list of your active assignments with direct links to manage them.

How student links work

Every assignment you create can generate individual links — one per student, section, or chair. Each link is a short, unique URL that a student opens on any device. No login, no app, nothing to install.

Slots and labels

When you set up an assignment, you create slots — one per student or section — and give each slot a label that only you define. You might use:

• Chair numbers: Chair 1, Chair 2, Chair 3…
• Section names: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass
• Instrument labels: Flute 1, Trumpet 3, Horn 4
• Custom labels: anything you want

MusEdLab stores only the label you typed — never a real student name. You hold the key that maps "Chair 4" to an actual student in your class. That mapping exists only in your gradebook, your seating chart, or your head.

How students access their assignment

Each slot gets a unique link you can share as:

• A clickable link you paste into Google Classroom, Schoology, an email, or a class website
• A QR code you print, post on a board, or include on a handout

The student opens their link, works through the assignment, rates how it went, and optionally writes a short note to you. That's it — the tab closes, and their work appears in your results view.

What happens after a student submits

Their slot's status dot turns green in your assignment view. Their self-rating and any reflection they left appear in your results — attributed to the slot label, not a name. You can see completions as they come in; there's no delay.

Practice Plans

Practice Plans let you send a structured, guided practice session to students — timed segments, specific instructions, and reflection prompts — all tailored to a specific piece or skill you're working on.

Creating a Practice Plan

Setting up and sharing student slots

What the student experience looks like

A student opens their link and sees:

1. The piece title, skill focus, and your practice plan introduction
2. A guided, timed session — one segment at a time with a built-in countdown timer, clear instructions, and a tip. They can skip the timer if needed.
3. Three reflection prompts asking them to honestly assess how the session went
4. A 1–5 self-rating scale ("Struggled a lot" → "Nailed it") and an optional note to you

When they submit, the session ends and they see a thank-you screen. Nothing is saved to their device.

Viewing results

Go to Results on any assignment to see every slot's status, rating, and reflection. Click a slot to expand all its individual submissions. Results also show which reflection prompts students are finding hardest — useful data for your next rehearsal.

Rhythm Trainer

Rhythm Trainer lets you assign a specific rhythm pattern for students to practice at home. They see the pattern (as standard notation, a visual beat grid, or both), listen to it, tap along, and rate how it felt. You see their accuracy data and self-rating.

Choosing a pattern

When creating a Rhythm Trainer assignment, you have two options:

• Browse the Library — 60 curated patterns organized by level (1–6), time signature, and skills. Level 1 starts with simple quarter and half notes in 4/4. Level 6 reaches polyrhythm, 11/8, and metric modulation. Filter by level, clef, time signature, or skill to find exactly what your ensemble needs.
• Generate Custom — describe what you want (level, time signature, skill focus like "dotted quarter-eighth pattern" or "syncopation in 3/4") and the AI writes an original pattern. This uses one credit. You can edit the pattern before saving it.

Display modes

You choose how the student sees the pattern:

• Both (recommended) — standard music notation (rendered via abcjs) above a visual beat grid. Great for students who are still building notation fluency.
• Notation only — standard notation with no grid. Good for advanced students.
• Grid only — colored squares showing where each beat falls. Best for beginners or for using with students who don't read music.

What the student experience looks like

Students have three modes to work through at their own pace:

• Listen — a metronome plays the pattern so they can hear it first. The grid cursor sweeps across in time.
• Practice — metronome plays and they tap along (spacebar or screen tap). The grid shows green (hit), amber (close), or red (missed) for each tap in real time.
• Perform — no metronome. They tap the pattern from memory. The real test.

Students can adjust the tempo (50–150% of the assigned tempo) for practice without affecting their accuracy scoring. They can attempt the pattern as many times as they like — their best score is what gets submitted.

After at least one attempt, the self-rating card appears. They rate how it felt and optionally write a note to you, then submit.

Viewing results

The Results page for each Rhythm Trainer assignment shows per-slot stats including average accuracy, best accuracy, and average self-rating. An accuracy distribution chart shows how the class is clustered — whether most students are hitting 80%+ or struggling below 50%. A teaching insight card tells you what to do next: slow down, keep going, or level up.

The Rhythm Trainer Podium widget

You can also use Rhythm Trainer directly in The Podium for in-class projection. Add a Rhythm Trainer widget to your board, pick a pattern from the library or your saved patterns, and project it with a live metronome for the whole class to read and tap along. No assignment or student links needed for in-class use.

Sight-Reading Assignments

Sight-Reading Assignments let you assign a specific notated excerpt to students for home practice. They open their link, see the notation, listen to it as many times as they need, and rate how their sight-reading felt. You see their self-ratings and optional reflections.

Choosing an excerpt

When creating a Sight-Reading assignment, you can:

• Browse the Library — 120 curated ABC-notation excerpts organized by level (1–6), clef (treble/bass), key, time signature, and skills. Level 1 covers quarter and half notes in C major. Level 6 reaches atonal writing, complex meters, and extended scales. Filter to find what fits your ensemble right now.
• Use a saved excerpt — if you've previously generated a custom excerpt using the AI in the Sight-Reading tool and saved it, you can use it as an assignment here. Generate custom excerpts in the main Sight-Reading tool first, save them, then come back to create an assignment.

Adding a context note

Every assignment has an optional context note that students see before the excerpt. Use it to give them direction — for example: "Focus on the key signature — we'll be reading this together at Tuesday's rehearsal" or "Look at the time signature first. Count through it before you play." A good context note turns passive listening into deliberate practice.

What the student experience looks like

Students open their link and see:

1. The assignment title, your context note (if you wrote one), and meta information (level, key, time sig)
2. The notation, rendered as real sheet music in the browser — no app required
3. A Listen button that plays back the excerpt with full expression using an audio synthesizer. They can pause and resume. A Print button lets them print the notation for offline practice.
4. A 1–5 self-rating: "How did your sight-reading feel?" with emoji anchors and an optional reflection field

They can listen as many times as they like before rating. Once they submit, they see a thank-you screen.

Viewing results

The results view shows per-slot completions, latest rating, latest reflection, and last-active time. A rating distribution chart shows the spread across the class. Since sight-reading is self-assessed rather than tap-scored, the data is about honest self-reflection — encourage your students to be truthful rather than optimistic.

The Sight-Reading Podium widget

The Sight-Reading Podium widget lets you project any excerpt directly in your classroom board during rehearsal. Pick an excerpt from the library or your saved collection, add it to your Podium board, and it renders as real notation on screen with a Listen and Print button. Great for in-class sight-reading drills without generating individual student links.

Using these tools in class

Sharing links effectively

What to do when students finish

Student links can be opened multiple times. If a student submits more than once (for Rhythm Trainer this is tracked as attempts; for Practice Plans and Sight-Reading each submission is logged separately), you'll see all their submissions in the results view.

Links stay active until you archive the assignment. If you want to stop accepting completions, archive the assignment from the assignment list and all links immediately stop working.

Monitoring progress in real time

The Teaching Dashboard updates in real time as students complete their assignments. If you assign something during class, you can open the Teaching Dashboard on your phone and watch submissions come in live.

Privacy & FERPA

These teaching tools are designed from the ground up with school privacy requirements in mind. Here's exactly what MusEdLab does and doesn't store.

What MusEdLab stores about students

• The slot label you chose (e.g. "Chair 4" or "Alto 2") — never a real student name
• The student's self-rating (a number, 1–5)
• The student's optional reflection (a short free-text note, if they wrote one)
• For Rhythm Trainer: tap accuracy percentage (a number, 0–100%)
• The timestamp of when they submitted

What MusEdLab does NOT store

• Student names
• Student email addresses
• IP addresses or device identifiers
• Anything that could identify which physical student completed a given slot

Student accounts

Students never create MusEdLab accounts. They don't log in with Google or any other provider. They follow a link, complete the assignment, and close the tab. There is nothing to sign up for, nothing to install, and no data tied to any student identity.