Hi, folks!
Sequencing Instruction
Read the chapter on Sequencing Instruction in Robert Duke’s Intelligent Music Teaching: Please post 1 blog post by midnight on 2/25 and 2 discussion posts on our Student Teaching Blog by midnight on 2/27 about an idea you found particularly interesting or helpful.
I really enjoyed reading this chapter. There is so much in this chapter that I feel that I need to read it a couple of times to really grasp the concepts that Duke talked about. One idea that really stood out to me was the section "Include only essential information". Duke said teachers spend too much time talking about the concept, thinking that this is beneficial for the student to complete the task, then they expect the student to be able to do the task. Duke has an example of how this plays out in a lesson. The teacher wants to see the student play a passage piano, so they discuss an emotion or character to portray. Duke points out that in this scenario, the teacher is assuming that the student has the mental and physical foundation to complete the task. The end result is wasted lesson time and lack of good repetitions. Instead, Duke recommends that the teacher lays the foundation for the student by giving "precise instructions about(and perhaps also models to demonstrate) what to do physically to create the intended character on the instrument." After several repetitions of this, the teacher can point out to the student the difference in the sound and ask the student how they got that sound. Then they can talk about the musical effect of the sound. By ordering one's lesson this way, the lesson time is not wasted and the student gains a better understanding of how to make an emotion and what they need to physically do to make it sound because the teacher started from the foundation and worked up. The second way described by Duke sets up the student for success. I really thought about this in relation to my advanced students that I teach. Sometimes I assume that many things are in place for them to complete the task. Instead, I need to make sure that I set them up for success by giving precise instructions and laying the foundation for them, then talk about what it does or what emotion can be portrayed.
ReplyDeleteThat is a good point about how the teacher can set the student up for success. Scaffolding the process is a much better alternative to blaming the student for not practicing enough.
DeleteI really enjoyed reading this chapter. The biggest challenge to me while reading is that "it's not the talking part that(what you do);it's the doing part (what they do) that matters most." This was experienced with me first hand. I had a teacher growing up that would talk a lot with me and play with me most of the time without making sure that I could do it myself. This is something I've drastically seen differently with the teacher I took from this summer and Miss Betsy. Both of them made/make sure that I can demonstrate before I leave what they wanted me to practice. I think that this is very important to incorporate in the lessons that we teach. We cannot expect our students to come back to the next lesson with our goal accomplished if they cannot even leave our presence without competing that goal. That leads to my next point in that we need to start from scratch every time. If we do not start from scratch, we can overlook and never address problems that our students have. I have experienced this too. If I struggled with a specific passage and my teacher never followed up with it, it went unnoticed and I could never play it properly. This should be red flags in our teaching. We cannot be overlooking our students problems because then we will take more time fixing what we did not work on instead of slowly moving forward to our goal.
ReplyDeleteHaving the students do a lot is something that I'm really trying hard to do in my theory class. I find that having one student do the desired task is considerably easier than trying to keep seven students at different levels doing the task without getting bored. I'm still working at this, but I've had some success lately. As I plan my lessons, I try to think what can I do that allows each one many opportunities to do the task and get feedback.
DeleteGreat thoughts Steph! I tend to be the teacher that explains things too much and a lot of the time I don't let the students just try and do the task! I understand that explaining expectations is important, but I wonder how I could teach a lesson without saying a word. I think the best balance is to concisely explain the task, making sure the student knows what the criteria for success is, and then shut your mouth and let them figure it out. Another way to spend less time talking is to have the student asses their own performance and tell you whether they did it right or not.
DeleteThis chapter was very neat and so true! One aspect that I found really neat and encouraging was the fact that teaching takes a lot of practice. I tend to get frustrated when things don't go the way I want them to the first time, but I need to realize again that teaching takes years of work and practice! I have found that I learn best by teaching and seeing what works and what doesn't. I feel like that is exactly what this chapter was saying. You learn best by doing!
ReplyDeleteI agree that teaching takes a lot of practice. You would never think of it that way but you have to practice whether you're the teacher or the student!!
DeleteDuke has a lot of helpful information in this chapter. He also gives plenty of good examples. His idea of starting from scratch makes sense—especially when we remember what Suzuki said about success breading success. Something that stood out to me was under the third principle. Duke says that “student learning is not a result of what teachers say, but a result of what teachers have students do.” Giving too much information can just cloud the issue. Breaking things down into foundational chunks increases the likelihood of success. I also like how Duke clarifies that each step is an approximation of the end goal. Progress comes from baby steps over time. Students can’t be expected to skip forward without enough repetitions.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about too much information clouding the task. Giving too much information can also lose the attention of a child very quickly. I've found with a couple of my students that I have to keep them doing tasks, or else I will lose their attention and the lesson time will be wasted.
DeleteGreat comments! It is really interesting to me the difference that age makes on how big each step of learning can be. It truly is "baby steps" with really young children, but if you have an older student how do you decide if a step is too small for them. I think I have a tendency to try to take bigger steps with older kids and sometimes make my steps too big.
DeleteI liked his idea too on how each step is an approximation of the end goal. Babies do not learn how to walk by just getting up and doing it, but by taking small steps. The same can be applied to our teaching and even our own practicing.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteYour right! Babies fall a lot too, but they keep trying at it until walking is natural.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDuke, while he doesn’t use the exact terms, discusses whether teachers should be janitors or architects. Basically, he recommends re-teaching lessons as a sort of review. By reviewing the concept each day, the student has the concept ingrained in his mind, and this helps his muscle memory. This was one of my favorite points.
ReplyDeleteAnother valid point that Duke makes is that we need to only include essential information. Extraneous information will just confuse the student. I’ve personally had many lessons where the teacher tells me to focus on multiple things at the same time, and I got so confused I ended up doing all of them poorly. Our job is to break down the skills needed to play the instrument and make the skills attainable for our students.
Wow, the reading was this week was very beneficial for me right from the beginning: "Teachers control the extent to which students succeed in every instructional setting." I never realized before how that we as teachers are responsible for the success and failures of our students. It was also a good reminder for me that I need to teach with small steps. I love the analogy that Duke used with the kid running down the hallway and having to go back and walk. It totally clicked in my head and will be beneficial in my teaching!
ReplyDeleteThe thought that we as teachers control whether our students will succeed really stood out to me too. Sometimes, it's easy to think that students are not accomplishing much because they are not practicing at home or not paying attention in their lessons. But, before we shift the blame, we need to take a close look at how we are doing in helping the student to succeed.
DeleteSmall steps are tedious, but it seems like they are more efficient in the long run.
DeleteThe biggest thing from this chapter was the responsibility we have his teachers. It is overwhelming to think the success of the student or the failure of the student is dependent on how well you teach them. But then that reminds me that as teachers when we see a problem we need to first look at ourselves and change our way of teaching and then think the student might have some problems understanding what we are teaching. I know I am taking this out of context but Duke lists three things to look for. " (1) produces mostly correct responses (2) minimizes errors, and (3) increases the habit strength of positive productive behavior and thought. As I was reading through these three things the thought struck me. Which one of those is the most important? It seems I often teach toward one or two but three should be the most important in my teaching. I know what really well what this is supposed to look like for beginning students but I tends to neglect it for my older students. I need to teach with the mindset of building habits. There is always a bad habit to fix and/or a new habit to establish.
ReplyDeleteA couple of Scripture references came to mind as I was reading Duke's discussion on teachers' responsibility. Hebrew 13 tells us to obey our authorities because they have to give an account to God of us. The Bible says that they watch for our souls. I know that each of us is accountable to God for the actions in our lives. But, there is also the idea that our authorities are responsible for our success in the Christian life.
DeleteThis reading is so good. I wish we had the time to sit and discuss each page. One thing that stood out to me at the beginning of the reading is the enormous responsibility that we as teachers have. Duke summed it up when he said, "... we are as responsible for our students' failures as we are for their successes." Our students success and failures point to us as teachers. It's humbling to think that God has placed my students in my life and I am responsible for their successes. I love what Duke said in concluding this section, "In fact, one of the principal variables that distinguishes the teaching of truly expert, artistic teachers is not so much experts' knowledge of how to teach, but their ability to reliably identify what to teach right now, at each moment in the learning process." The other thought that stood out to me is my students are developing habits and the purpose for sequencing is to "successfully develop productive, positive habits." When we are working in the lesson, we are not only working on skills, but rather habits that affect the skills.
ReplyDeleteDeveloping habits--that's an interesting way to look at teaching. This is probably why Duke starts from scratch and reinforces habits every lesson.
DeleteGreat thoughts Mel! It is so easy to think of things from my prospective instead of my students'. When I have a problem or don't understand things I have a multitude of people I can ask about it and get advice from, but every one of my students now has no one else to ask/look to but me for violin questions. I think when I really understand that it will make my teaching much more descriptive and thorough.
DeleteI liked Duke’s reminder that teachers are as responsible for their student’s failures as well as successes. Sometimes what a student cannot do says more about a teacher than what the student can do. For example, my sister had a violin teacher who was unsure of some postural issues. This showed up soon enough in her student’s playing.
ReplyDeleteDuke’s criteria for determining if something needs to be worked on are interesting. He says it is best to go for things that can be changed in the short term that will have a long lasting effect. Does this run the risk of letting the other problems become ingrained? Duke’s criteria are different from Kreitman’s priorities. Kreitman’s list gives the sequential building blocks that must be in place before you move on.
I liked Duke's reminder too. It's so important to know what we are going to teach before we instruct our students!! We are responsible for both the successes and failures of our students! It puts a whole different light on responsibility in teaching!! Great post Elijah!
DeleteGreat comments! I also had some of the same questions. Shouldn't you deal with the long term problems all the time? You can pick up short term projects along the way, but only after you have established the long term problem and have begun work on it so that the students aren't overwhelmed with too many things to work on. I don't know if that makes sense...
ReplyDeleteSometimes you leave off something and then come back to it. It is one of the reasons that it is important to have the goals and the progress toward the goals written down in the lesson log!
DeleteI really appreciated Duke’s point that we as teachers have incredible power over the way our students feel about themselves and their playing. This isn’t just with kids, I experienced this this past week in my lesson. We can make our students feel awful about their progress or performance simply by our approach to correction. Duke gives us solutions for constructive ways to correctly assess and decide what to teach. First we have to decide what is the most important aspect of the students playing to correct in relation to its potential effect of the students’ overall performance and probability the student would actually be able to effect change in a relatively short amount of time. It is so vitally important to be sure we are able to assess and instruct without hurting our students.
ReplyDeleteI love your post! I definitely agree with you! It's so good to be reminded that we have so much power over the way that our students feel. Are we reflecting Christ when we teach?! We need to remember to approach correction with love and care!
DeleteThis section of the reading could not have come at a better time. I have come to a point in my lessons that I am putting the bow to the string. It is very exciting! This chapter was a good reminder to me that I need to take small steps and not get overly excited and leap forward. This will end up hurting me student in the long fun. My job then is to discover what the problem is and then find a way to fix it.
ReplyDeleteIt is so important for us as teachers to keep a long term goal in mind. Long term goals are not only important for assessment, but also, as we read for today, necessary for making small approximations.
DeleteThis section for me was actually kind of confusing/daunting honestly. One thing that stood out to me was how much assessment was happening while teaching. It kind of hit me that as teachers we do just as much learning as our students do in any given lesson if we are assessing and sequencing correctly.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. It takes a lot of attention on the teacher's part to be effective.
DeleteWow this reading was great! It was really neat reading about approximations. I think this is a very effective strategy in building foundational skills especially. I think one thing that maybe should be taught in conjunction with this is pacing of the lesson. I tend to be able to break tasks down, but my problem comes when students get bored or frustrated with the pace at which I am moving. I think the important thing to remember is that I have to know what the next steps are going to be so that if the task is easy for my student I will be able to do a few repetitions and move on to the next skill quickly. Especially in the fast pace thinking of this generation my lessons need to be more organized and thought out so that I can move quickly and keep the student’s focus. I have this problem with one student especially. She is on of my youngest students and gets distracted about every 5-10 seconds (literally), so I need to find some way to make the tasks smaller so we can change activities more often. I have another student who is a big-time achiever. She hates the small steps that take you to the bigger ones! She wants to play the whole song right away without practicing. This has been a real challenge for me because I am a slow paced person. How would I apply this reading to teaching her?
ReplyDeleteYou added a good point to Duke's discussion about keeping the lesson pace going by using small approximations. I think that using Duke's three times correct idea helps keep the lesson segments focused and directed.
DeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I liked how you contrasted the different types of students. I especially like how you brought up the fast paced student. I personally am a slow paced person as well, so it requires us as teachers to be more alert when we're teaching to catch what our students need. You can try this strategy: it is from Terry Durbin who I had the privilege of observing at Suzuki School. He had a story for each of his songs. Turn the song into a story. It might help her slow it down. She can even come up with her own story! I hope this helps!
DeleteThis section was particularly interesting as Duke tied together the importance of his previous discussions with small approximations. The idea of small approximations, if done correctly, allows for the teacher to set up the student to be successful and the student to build good habits. One comment from Duke that I found particularly helpful was Duke's definition of whether or not a task was too hard for the student. He said, "If more than a few are unable to perform a given task successfully after as many as three attempts, then the task (by definition) is too difficult." This is helpful because by allowing the student to have three chances, the teacher can give them time to figure out the task physically, while not letting the task be repeated too many times for it to become a bad habit.
ReplyDeleteI thought Duke's definition of "too hard" was helpful too. I remember feeling frustrated when I thought my teacher was just being impatient with my attempts. Three times seems like a good compromise.
DeleteGreat post Mel. This procedure will help it to not become a bad habit as well as keeping it from getting frustrating for the student. Personally as a student I get really frustrated when I can't perform a task in a lesson. When I can't do it and have to switch to something else I still am thinking about what I couldn't do and wish I could try again.
DeleteI like how Duke applies the idea of proximal development to music. Because string playing takes a bunch of repetitions to develop, starting from scratch is an important review as well as the most efficient way to fix problems and develop new skills.
ReplyDeleteI liked Duke's criterion for over-challenge. Three tries seems like enough time to see if the student can accomplish a task or if they need more help. One question I do have is how many repetitions does a student need to do in each "bubble" before you move on? Mr. Hammond normally asks for 5 successful performances before advancing. Is there a rule of thumb for this, or do you just go to the next step as soon as the student gets it right?
Great thoughts. I have found in my own practicing that if I get something right and move on I will more than likely get it wrong in the next repetition. But if I make sure at first that I get it right three or so times in a row before I move on then I wont make the same mistake again. I think this would be a good strategy in teaching too because what they do in the lesson is what they will do at home (this has been my fascination this week-do it in the lesson EXACTLY how you want them to do it at home).
DeleteI like how you brought up the point of "starting from scratch is an important review." I definitely needed that reminder this week.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect that really stood out to me while I was reading this section was what Duke said about having a auditory image. I never thought about it before, but it is so important!! I think the same can be applied to if the student doesn't know what a certain skill feels like, then they will not be able to perform it. For example, I personally am in the middle of this concept right now with one of my students. The first time I had a student put their bow on the string, her arm pressure was way to heavy. I will be doing the "mug exercise" with her and see if she feels the difference. I will also play her the differences of too hard of arm weight and too light. I'm excited to see this concept that Duke was talking about put into action!!
ReplyDeleteYou're right about needing to have a aural and physical image of what the end result is. I've had some lessons that, although I did it correctly in my lesson, I didn't hear or feel the difference. Throughout my practice time, I would become frustrated because I wasn't accomplishing what my teacher wanted me to accomplish. But this came because I didn't have an aural or physical image what the end goal was.
DeleteI agree! I have experienced this in my lessons this past semester. I was having a lot of trouble accomplishing a certain technique. My teacher tried over and over to explain it but it wasn't until he showed me that I was able to achieve some kind of proficiency.
DeleteYou know the student does not have a aural picture of the end goal when they always ask- is this right? Is this right?
DeleteOne thought that really stood out to me was the need to teach how to do the task physically, then discuss what character comes from the physical change. Duke stressed the importance of not assuming that the student knows aurally and physically what needs to be done in order to portray a particular mood or character. As I read this, I thought of the older students that I teach. Sometimes, it is easy for me to get caught up in explaining or discussing what we want to get, because they are older or because they understand more because they play a different instrument. But, I need to keep in mind that they need to understand physically how the task is supposed to be done. These students may intellectually know more about music, but in order for them to be successful, they need to physically understand how to do the task, and my teaching should start from the physical and move to the intellectual.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point about not assuming things about what your students understand.
DeleteIt is very hard for me to put myself in the students shoes. What we know affects how we think and sometimes we don't consider what the student might not know.
DeleteOh wow, this is definitely true. As I was reading, I knew what it felt like to be in a student's shoes where I didn't know what to do. There were a lot of times in my lessons growing up that I didn't really know how to physically change what I was doing to get the desired result. I need to remember that when I'm teaching. I'm excited to see how the "mug exercise" will help my teaching. Leanna could feel the difference in her hand and she could also see it. I'm excited to see when she will be able to translate that physical change on her violin with her bow!
DeleteThe thing that stuck out to me right away was the idea of not including superfluous words. I tend to be a trivia person and always include things I am learning that I think are interesting but are irrelevant to the student. I need to clean up my teaching so that only important things are brought out. Another thing that jumped out at me was the thought that the student will not be able to perform what you are asking if he/she doesn't have an auditory image of what that sounds like. I think this is very applicable to all of my students because the ones that are musically inclined are young enough that they don't have many auditory sounds in their head yet, and the ones that are older are not very musically inclined. In everything I teach them I need to make sure I can give them an auditory image first. This is why we have the students listen to the music before we ask them to play it
ReplyDeleteI understand the importance of cutting superfluous words out of the lesson, but when/where do you think it would be better teach those trivia things.
DeleteI like the point that you brought up when you said that the student will not be able to perform what we are asking if they don't have an auditory image. I was really excited to connect why my teacher growing up showed us video clips!! They are so motivating. I also believe that it's important to provide the student with a abundant library of music for the student to hear the end goal!!!
DeleteDuke's concept of the auditory image is like the tenet that says, "Don't let the hand do what the ear can't understand." This is a very important part of musicianship. Without an auditory understanding of the music, playing an instrument just becomes a bunch of steps.
ReplyDeleteI like how Duke goes on to explain that students need to learn how to physically do a task, not just intellectually understand it. It seems like the teacher plays a big part here. Knowing how to concisely instruct a student takes a lot of experience. This is probably why it is so important to understand the individual skills necessary for performing a given piece. When a teacher can recognize and isolate a skill, it is a lot easier to give clear directions about how to physically fix the problem
That makes a lot of sense Elijah, the part you mentioned about understanding the necessary skills. I never thought about it from that perspective before.
DeleteGood comments! this principle also points back at the teacher. If there is anything about the process of teaching/learning that the teacher cannot "audiate" then the teacher will most likely not be able to clearly teach the process to the student. In the same way the teacher needs to know the physical process in a way that they will be able to clearly articulate it to the student. I felt that this chapter brought my aural skills, Suzuki, and Duke worlds together in great harmony :)
DeleteYou're right about concisely instructing students takes experience. It's a reason why we must practice teaching, and continue to grow and develop as we teach. Becoming a good teacher doesn't come out of nowhere, but comes with practice.
DeleteWow, this section of reading was really good for me. The first part really focused on how each activity should be a step towards the end goal. This was really interesting to me since I come up with a lot of games when I teach. Do the games I come up with really help the students in the long run? It is such a vital aspect for me to think about when I'm being creative and coming up with games. Another aspect that was really good in this reading for me was taking small steps to get towards that end goal. This made me think back to my lesson plans. Sometimes I have many things in mind that I would like to accomplish in the lesson, but sometimes never get through the whole lesson plan because we had to stop and work on a particular section of the lesson plan. This made me think to how I am setting up my lesson plans though. Does not getting through my lesson plan send off a message to the parents? Does it look like the student can't ever get through a lesson plan? I think that being more realistic,about my lesson plans can become one of my goals for improvement especially since I'm usually always changing something due to inching forward and leaping back.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point you bring up about lesson plans and the message that it sends to your parents. I would say that if it is a consistent occurrence of not going through your lesson plan, then it probably has to much being planned. But you cannot let this govern your lessons, as sometimes a student may struggle with something that you really didn't anticipate and you have to spend more time than you were thinking on that task.
DeleteI was really challenged by Duke's discussion on leaping back. Duke emphasized the importance of jumping back when he said "The student has few opportunities to practice performing incorrectly and is quickly reminded (again, not through the teacher's verbalizations but through the student's own behavior) of all of the aspects of accurate performance fundamentals." The main reason to jump back is to remind the student, through their own doing, what the correct way to do the basics like posture and bow hold are. The teacher is going back to where the student can do the specific task correctly, in addition to doing all the basics correctly also. This kind of sequencing is so important for the students as it not only sets them up in the lesson to have success, but also teaches them how to practice while still maintaining the basics.
ReplyDeleteGood point Mel. I can tell in lessons that some of my students practice at home with bad posture. Part of avoiding that is stressing the importance in the lesson of playing with good posture.
DeleteThat's a good point about reminding the student (by jumping back) about what right looks like. It seems like difficult passages scare the elementary skills out of younger players.
DeleteThe part of the reading that stood out to me most in the reading was this specific sentence; "Remember that the student's challenge in learning is to eventually perform all of he component parts of the task simultaneously in the context of the task itself."
ReplyDeleteI think in my teaching I often forget how hard is really is for a beginner, especially a small child, to do the tasks I am asking him to do. This is one thing I am working on in my teaching. Slowing down and making sure my students actually understand the task I am expecting them to be able to accomplish.
I definitely agree with you Heather. I often forget what it is like to be little and if my student doesn't remind me, then Faith will! I also need to slow down and really focus on making sure my student comprehends what I am trying to accomplish every week.
DeleteGood post Heather. It is very hard for me to put myself in my student's shoes. To me playing twinkle with a good bow posture through the whole song is really easy, but for my students I may be asking more then they can do without being frustrated by the task. I have to always be reminding myself to think of things from the perspective of someone who hasn't been working on it that long. This reminds me of starting from scratch every day and never assuming that my student knows something.
DeleteThat's a good point about slowing down. Assessing your student's comprehension is an important part of teaching.
DeleteThe illustration of the trombone bread bag blowing contest really made sense to me. After reading it especially the sentence "actually playing notes on the trombone comes to mind" I started thinking. If the best way to learn how to play trombone is by playing the trombone in this illustration then how can we make that activity enjoyable for the student? This is an idea that has been growing in my mind for quite some time. how do I make Violin more fun for especially my younger students? I think one key way is keeping them engaged in learning new and fun songs. This is something something that I want to start trying out. My brother has a guitar student who is extremely motivated to practice and I think part of the reason is that my brother gives very free assignments where he can play songs that he actually likes. This is one component my teaching is missing - having the practicing Assignments be fun for the students. I needs to be more inventive and come up with songs which are going to be fun for my students and make practicing time looked forward to. I think there's a balance between finding inventive things to make the skill fun and doing the skill exactly. I enjoyed reading the inch forward leap back part. It has a very good application to my personal practicing. I also really enjoyed Reading that jumping back helps you to maintain good posture. I haven't thought of it before but hard tasks ruin posture and making tasks easy enough so that the student can maintain good posture will help them practice the fundamentals and not practiced bad things.
ReplyDeleteI think that sometimes a preliminary step is needed before a student can properly play the instrument. Take for example the shadow bowing. This is an exercise in which the student is doing something away from the instrument, in order to help the student to bow straight. It is done with the tube up by their ear, in order to give the idea of actually playing on the violin. Many students, especially young students, need this preliminary step in order to give them time to think and cut down on the different things they have to focus on.
DeleteWow Rachel, I loved reading your post. I know I need to keep my teaching fun. I know I'm always thinking of fun ideas for my teaching, but I have to always keep in mind that what I come up with needs to be helpful for the student in reaching the desired goal. I also like what you said about making the tasks easy for the student so that their posture for example doesn't suffer. Great post Rachel.
ReplyDeleteI like Duke's statement: "students learn best when each learning experience closely resembles the long-term goal itself." The teacher's job is to make all of the baby steps in some way look like the end-goal. This is supposed to be done by reducing complex processes to simpler tasks that the student can already manage.
ReplyDeleteI understand what Duke is saying about making the baby steps look like the end-goal, but I think there are plenty of times non-musical activities make doing the musical activities more interesting. For example, some teachers use an Easter egg full of rice to help teach vibrato. Using this might be closer to the percussion than string playing, but it makes the concept of vibrato very clear to the student and it something fun they can practice over and over again. I'm sure Duke knows what he's talking about, but it seems like indirectly related activities do some good.
I really liked Duke's statement, "Think of your students as instruments that you are practicing and learning to play." I liked this picture because if I think of lessons this way then I'll be less apt to talk too much. Duke also said that what your students do in the lesson is most likely what they will do in their private practice time. If the students are standing around, listening to you talk, then their practice time most likely will be wasted. But if we have them practicing in the lesson, then they will most likely practice the desired task at home. Another thought that Duke brought up was the amount of correct repetitions that a student should do in the lesson. I need to do a better job at remembering the number of wrong repetitions, so my students can do more correct repetitions than the wrong ones.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting way of looking at teaching. It seems like teaching this way would be easier if lessons are focussed on a particular issue. Because you want the student to do multiple correct repetitions and demonstrate they know how to practice the material, fewer lesson points might be necessary.
DeleteI really loved what Duke said at the beginning of this reading, "Students don't learn as a result of what teachers tell them. Students learn as a result of what teachers have students do." This was such a good reminder for me especially since I'm working on that while teaching. Another aspect that really just hit me in the face was, "Even though they've often been told how to practice, they've never been "practiced' by their teacher." This was such a good thing for me to read since I constantly need to be reminded of that!! I also enjoyed reading about repetition. I think that the funnest part of teaching for me is coming up with creative ways to hide repetitions!! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is something Mrs. Tschida and I talked about a few weeks ago. I was teaching my theory class simply by lecture and not letting my students actually practice before handing them their homework and expecting them to be able to accomplish it. This is something I am working on also and I think my students are helped by it too.
DeleteGood thoughts! It is so important to do in the lesson exactly what you want them to do at home. It is such a good reminder to make sure the focus of the lesson is on having your students do the right things so they know what to do. Sounds simple, but it is just not.
DeleteI thought it was interesting that Duke mentioned students need to also practice mindsets. I always thought about the physical aspect of it, but you also need to train your mind to think certain things and fire certain triggers. It was quite thought provoking. Another thought that I had was in the area of practicing it more times correct that you practiced it wrong. To me this really applies to my practice more than my teaching and it shows the value of practicing your pieces through very slowly the first time to ensure correct repetitions at first. The more you can get your practice and your students practice to be perfect the first time then practice that, way the better.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. Sloppy playing is easy to habituate but hard to correct.
DeleteGood thoughts. Practicing more times correct than wrong also stood out to me, but for me, this means that I have to keep track of how many wrong times the task has been done in order to correctly assign the number of correct repetitions. As a teacher, we are not just randomly picking a number for correct repetitions, but purposely choosing the number.
DeleteGreat post Rachel. I think I should have written on top of my lesson plans before I go and teach!! I think that it is so important to have the practicing mindset in mind while teaching. Thanks for posting.
DeleteThere is a lot of material in this section. I like how Duke emphasizes that the lesson is nothing less than what the teacher expects the student to do at home. It is hard to blame students for inefficient practice skills if no one ever shows them how they are supposed to practice.
ReplyDeleteAnother point I found interesting is how leaping backward reduces the number of incorrectly performed repetitions. Every time a teacher inches back, they have the student perform unnecessary repetitions of a bad habit waiting to happen. Not only is leaping back more efficient, it also helps the student achieve correct performances.
Good thoughts Elijah. Inching forward also prevents bad habits because you are making sure the student can perform the task correctly. This technique helps you to keep them focusing on having good posture because the task is not too hard. This keeps them engaged and practicing the right things.
DeleteWe as teachers really have no one to blame if our students are not practicing with the student in the lesson. We model what the home practice should look like. I think that this is especially important for the parents who still practice with their child. A majority of parents probably have little to no background in music and so the teacher is not only teaching the student how to practice but also the parent.
DeleteI enjoyed reading about how the lesson is a preview of what is going to happen at home. It is such a good reminder to me that if I want to see results at home, I have to make sure that they understand it in the lesson. Great post Elijah.
Delete