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The purpose of this manuscript is to explore an assignment given to students in an online gender and leadership graduate course as a tool to help them think critically about how music influences perceptions of gender roles in both society and leadership.

The assignment directs students to review the current Billboard “Hot 100” chart, which lists the top 100 songs in the United States each week based on sales and streams. Students are prompted to identify a song with gendered themes and discuss how the song portrays women and/or men, what gender stereotypes the song supports or refutes, and whether the messaging is positive or negative in nature. Finally, the students discuss ways that the message in the song could influence the listener’s opinion about gender stereotypes and what effect that could have on gendered leadership issues.

Students use this assignment as an opportunity to apply the course material that relates to the importance of gender representation and the influence of media on gender issues in leadership.

Recommendations are provided to inspire creative ideas for leadership educators who seek to prepare students to understand organizational challenges related to gender issues in leadership.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of one online PD in PBL. Researchers want to investigate if a five-day international online PBL training will prepare teachers to implement PBL in their classrooms. Secondly, the researchers aim to determine if the training provides teachers with sufficient knowledge and support to ensure successful PBL implementation.

Participants were given a 5-day (20 h) online PBL training created by one of the researchers with three frontline teachers. Seven trainers are divided into four groups for four groups of participants. Group A included Grade 1 and Grade 2 teachers, Group B included Grade 3 and Grade 4 teachers, Group C included Grade 5 and Grade 6 teachers, and Group D consisted of Grades 7 through 9 teachers. All the participants were given exactly the same surveys at the beginning and the end of the training.

Consistent with previous studies comparing in person and virtue PD programs, this five-day interactive PD program was effective in increasing teachers' knowledge of and ability to plan and implement PBL projects. Specifically, results showed that teachers' knowledge level of PBL shifted from a shallow understanding of what the name implies to a deeper, more comprehensive, and more concrete understanding of PBL essential concepts, its pedagogical values, specific process involved in a PBL project. In addition, the PD program increased teachers' comfort level and ability of planning and implementing PBL projects across grade levels and subject areas.

This research study supported the previous study results that virtual PD programs can be as effective as in person programs. Further, this is the study discovered the effectiveness of PBL training between the US and China through online format, which has not been conducted literately before. The positive results will be used to promote the online collaboration internationally in the future.