Tuesday at Teachers Pay Teachers: A Glimpse Into My Product Development Process

It is Tuesday again, and that means it is time for another Teachers Pay Teachers post about my shop and the resources that I provide for your use! Rather than highlight a specific resource today, I am going to write a bit about how I get things ready for you!!

If you don't know, Teachers Pay Teachers is a free membership site where creators sell learning resources to teachers. In the interest of full disclosure, Teachers Pay Teachers does not pay me anything to talk about the site here on my blog, but I do get a small piece of every file that you buy on my site. It's not much because I try to keep my prices low for other music therapists. This site is amazing. There are so many creators offering all sorts of resources that I can find just about any sort of visual aid that I want or need.

Since I like making visual aids, moving into digital visual aid creation was something that fascinated me. So, I started to figure out how to translate my not-so-digital visuals into a digital format. It is still a learning process, but I'm finding that I enjoy the process.

The most difficult part of making any sort of visual aid is coming up with the idea. I find that the process of making visual aids is very similar to my process of developing Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs). You only want things that will support the goal of the client and the TME. I like making things that can be used with many different TMEs, so each visual has to be something that I would use for more than one TME with my clients. Multiple functionality is something that I strive for in all parts of my music therapy life - might as well use things for more than one thing!

Now, when I sit down to create something, I often use my sing about songs series to start me down the creative path. These are collections of TMEs that I put together and offer as a subscription service. Check out the link here for more information. These TME collections aren't based on population - I try to develop TMEs that can be used with preschoolers and older adults with limited changes to the materials and presentation formats. The TMEs are often arranged by month, significant holidays, and whatever things I've been working on at the time. This tends to be my biggest source of inspiration, but I also design things that I need in my own clinic for my own clients as well.

At the moment, I am making a series of posters for greeting each other. I am working on a song to go along with the file - I already have a song I use for practicing greetings, but it is not mine, so I need to make up a new song for publication purposes. I try to include a song every time I post a TME-visual aid as one idea of how you can use the file with clients.

My process is the same every time. I think about my TME and the goals that I want to have my clients practice, and then I start looking through my clip art files for pictures that support those goals. I arrange the pictures that I want, transfer them into a flattened file and then turn that into a pdf. It's a not-so-highly technical process that is actually pretty fun for me.

I am getting my greeting posters together to use with my clients this week (at some point). Look for them in my shop at some point in the future.

Thanks for reading!! See you tomorrow?