As we aim to evolve music education we often look to the skills, creative benefits and opportunities afforded to students through experiences in jazz, popular music, and music technology. However, in this workshop participants will experience what an exploratory and immersive approach to improvisation can do for their teaching practice. Teaching improvisation can be as beneficial for the teacher as it is for the students, providing more opportunity for in-the-moment responsiveness and reflective interaction (Holdhus, Høisæter, Mæland, Vangsnes, Engelsen, Espeland & Espeland, 2016). When improvisation is included in music classrooms, teachers have an opportunity to develop an emergent perspective (Eisner, 2006) on their teaching practice rather than rely on the traditional or prescriptive methods that often underlie day-to-day classroom routines. Eisner (2006) suggests that “artistry in teaching is more likely to occur when the classroom provides a context for improvisation and where unpredictability of activities and consequences, is acknowledged” (p. 152).Participants in the workshop will experience a variety of exploratory improvisation activities that can be used in the ensemble or music classroom as a way to engage with and respond to unpredictability. Even in the most exploratory improvisation activities, teachers can still observe students’ levels of individual, ensemble, and cultural music understandings (Healy & Ankney, 2020). Activities in the session will be designed to experience the potential individual, ensemble, and cultural music understandings that might be demonstrated by students, and provide educators with questioning strategies to respond and extend students’ understandings and musical skills. In this way, a responsive pedagogy can begin to develop, one that “involves the practice of closely monitoring students’ past and emergent understandings of music-making, and adapting to all levels of students’ musical understandings” (Healy & Ankney, 2020, p. 23).During the session, participants will be invited to engage in a series of exploratory improvisation activities that focus on melodic, rhythmic, and dynamic elements. Participants will see the co-presenters act as teachers who engage in a cycle of initiating, listening, discussing, and adapting activities to refine students’ individual, ensemble or cultural music understandings. The questioning strategies used in the discussion and adaptation cycle will be the focus of the workshop. Participants will be invited to act as the teachers in successive improvisation activities to develop their ability to notice, respond, and prompt students’ musical thinking so that they can begin to apply concepts that may help develop a responsive pedagogy.