Piano teaching breakthrough
Mar. 19th, 2018 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayreI love to teach piano, but it's more of a hobby than an income source for me. I generally seem to have about 5 students, and have promised myself I'll never take more than 10. I love to customize lessons, and to take students who haven't been comfortable with more structured teaching (in Vermont I actually had an agreement with the best known teacher in town; she sent me her 'misfits', I sent her anyone who seemed like they'd flourish in her system). I've done particularly well with boys, for some reason.
For the last few weeks I've been using a new format for my lessons, and it has resulted in astonishing leaps forward for all five of my current students. Attention span is always a challenge with younger children (my current batch range from barely 6 to 11). The concentration needed to learn new skills or wrestle with reading music at the higher end of their current ability is draining, so much so that productivity drops after the first 10 minutes or so of a 30 minute lesson. Recently I remembered that during my college-level study, I dealt with that drain by giving myself a clear ending point: I'd set a timer, usually for 15 minutes, and work intently until it went off-- then I'd take a break, play something else or just walk away from the keyboard.
So I'm doing that in my lessons, and teaching them to do the same at home. I set a timer for 1/3 of the lesson time (minus a minute, to allow transitions) and we work on their assigned music for that long. For the middle 1/3 of the lesson, we do less intense 'enrichment' activities-- flashcards, notespellers, games, discussing music styles or composers; I'm even doing simple improv with several students.
And then the miracle happens: for the last 1/3 of the lesson, we go back to intense work on their current studies-- and they are nearly as focused and productive as they were in the first 1/3. I suspect the gains will be even bigger as they learn to use this process in their practice time at home (with the help of parents, in most cases). I do think the actual timer is the key: they know they have to focus intently, not until they've played the whole song, but until the timer goes off-- it's finite. While they may have mini lapses of attention, they're pretty willing to focus, with that promise of release in sight.
For the last few weeks I've been using a new format for my lessons, and it has resulted in astonishing leaps forward for all five of my current students. Attention span is always a challenge with younger children (my current batch range from barely 6 to 11). The concentration needed to learn new skills or wrestle with reading music at the higher end of their current ability is draining, so much so that productivity drops after the first 10 minutes or so of a 30 minute lesson. Recently I remembered that during my college-level study, I dealt with that drain by giving myself a clear ending point: I'd set a timer, usually for 15 minutes, and work intently until it went off-- then I'd take a break, play something else or just walk away from the keyboard.
So I'm doing that in my lessons, and teaching them to do the same at home. I set a timer for 1/3 of the lesson time (minus a minute, to allow transitions) and we work on their assigned music for that long. For the middle 1/3 of the lesson, we do less intense 'enrichment' activities-- flashcards, notespellers, games, discussing music styles or composers; I'm even doing simple improv with several students.
And then the miracle happens: for the last 1/3 of the lesson, we go back to intense work on their current studies-- and they are nearly as focused and productive as they were in the first 1/3. I suspect the gains will be even bigger as they learn to use this process in their practice time at home (with the help of parents, in most cases). I do think the actual timer is the key: they know they have to focus intently, not until they've played the whole song, but until the timer goes off-- it's finite. While they may have mini lapses of attention, they're pretty willing to focus, with that promise of release in sight.
Yay!
Date: 2018-03-20 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-20 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-21 12:28 am (UTC)Congrats on thinking of it!
no subject
Date: 2018-04-04 03:30 pm (UTC)