The summer sun has arrived… and that means it’s camping time. Well, actually, that means it’s time to drag out the tent and see if it has provided shelter for mold this winter.
I’m not going to lie, mold has found a home in our tents before… probably because Trevor and I are so exhausted after a camping trip that the gear gets tossed in the middle of the garage where it sits for a good little while before we move it to the crawlspace.
What can I say? We’ve added “unpack and organize immediately” to our ever-growing list of personal development tasks that we’ll get to… some day.
One Day We’ll Learn…
That unpacking at the end of a trip makes for easier packing when the next trip comes along. And while my end-of-camping routine needs work, one area that certainly doesn’t is my end-of-year piano teaching routine.
Time To Reflect
At the end of every school year I like to take some time to reflect on my piano teaching; what went well, what needs work, what needs to be completely abandoned. Even though I’m exhausted at the end of June, I resist the urge to hit the beach, and instead use the first few days to reflect and then prep and plan for my September start-up.
This allows me to hit the ground running when it’s time to welcome my piano students back to the studio after a summer break.
How Can You Improve?
This year I want to help you with your piano teaching reflections. Take a few minutes to look back on the past year and think of one thing that you would like to improve upon. Then, tell us what that “one thing” is in the comments below.
Trevor and I will use these statements to direct some excellent summer blog posts so that all readers of the Teach Piano Today blog can hit the ground running when September rolls around!
And Now For The Best Part
Every piano teacher who submits a comment will be entered to win a digital piano teaching resource of their choice from the Teach Piano Today store. I will choose 2 winners at random. You must submit your comment before midnight tonight (June 27, 2014).
I would like to improve in the area of preparing for individual lessons.
Planning ahead to work out what concepts need to be taught over a term instead of only planning lesson by lesson.
This year I need to begin doing more ” off the bench” rhythm activities. It’s fun do movement activities with the little ones, but I tend to just go with counting, clapping & using the metronome with the older ones.
There are so many areas I would like to improve: selecting supplementary material, communicating with parents, adding more games, financial matters, just to name a few. I really enjoy your posts throughout the year.
I would like to develop a better system to help students practice. I’d also like to improve communication during lessons – saying more with less words.
I need more visual aids around my studio to reinforce concepts
I’d like to find some creative ways to practice chords and inversions– would really love it if they were off the bench games!
I would like todo improve my group lessons and my materials for my individual classes.
keeping a steady tempo
I say to my students who are playing “raggedy”. How could you play this piece “evenly”? It’s magic!
I would like to do more with teaching students how to get tricky rhythms right the first time!
That “one thing” is switching to post-dated cheques for the school year instead of wasting time collecting monthly. My friend, another piano teacher, switched last school year to post-dated cheques, and that made his life so much easier, along with saying goodbye to makeup lessons:-)
I will be improving my teaching by getting myself a piano teacher again to teach me things I do not know , there is always more to learn and I believe this will make me a better teacher. I want to teach my students how to play from memory too !
I commend you for actively seeking further training in your own musical endeavors. There is always so much more to learn! And it definitely will make you a better pianist and teacher. Best wishes to you!
I would like to improve how I teach technique, chords and scales.
I’d like to manage my lesson time better to allow for activities like improvisation and composition.
I want to update my studio policy, especially about make-up lessons, and then stick to it!
Here’s my list: study the Forrest Kinney books 1-5 Pattern Play and have a host of improvisational activities to experiment with my students. Organize my music library and make a list of top go to pieces for each level. Practice all my cool Ipad piano apps and figure which ones are going to be used the most this year. Finally get inspired myself by enjoying lots of sight reading and playing be ear all summer:)
Stacy, you read my mind. I have ALL of those on my list, too. Looking forward to that now that my daughter’s wedding is done, whew! Fun, but didn’t allow for other goals to get started on.
I would like to have more off-the-bench games to play with my advanced students, since I have lots for beginners but not nearly as much for the more advanced students.
My goal for next year is to make piano more social. Not just social-media-social, but actually getting kids to want to get together to play and maybe even have piano benefit the community in some way (a fund raiser of some sort.) Any ideas??? And BTW…nothing wrong w/social media…if that gets kids more interested in piano that’s great too. But we all know how much kids like getting together with their friends for sports teams, so I’d like to have that roll over into piano playing somehow.
This summer some of my students are putting together a puppet show of “Peter and the Wolf”. They are playing the score and doing the puppetry. We plan to perform it at Senior Centers and possible Children’s hospital. Social and community oriented.
Great idea. I bet the kids love doing the puppet part as well as the music. Thanks, Barbara A.
It’s great for all the students to have activities to do together. I think they all benefit from it. It’s difficult to get all the students together at once, but we give it a try every once in awhile. In the months with 5 weeks, I like to take the 5th week for a ‘theory class.’ We don’t have individual lessons that week. Sometimes I make 2 different time periods to separate the age groups, but for the most part, I keep them all together. Then we play music games, have prizes, play duets, etc. One activity they really enjoy is when I use masking tape and make a staff on the floor. Then they, in groups, spell words by skipping and stepping to the right line or space. Another thing I like to do for kids in the same age range or skill level is to have a class with all of them together to teach a new concept. This, too, is in lieu of lessons. We learn it, use it, play games with it, then reinforce it in lessons.
My goal is to talk less, teach more. Instead of wasting precious second saying thinks like, “And now we’re going to look at…” I want my words to be more focused and less fluff.
I have 2 goals: Say less and prepare more.
I would like to do a better job of long-range planning for my older students, so I can be sure I’m hitting everything.
My goal for next year is to have a different game for my students to play every single week. Already have 3 months prepared!
Several things I’d like to change, mainly branching out of my own comfort zone and working on composing and improvisation with my students – implementing the creative side of music, instead of just the technical side. I also want to really tune into my students, and if they are thinking outside the box and saying, “if I play like this…it sounds like this…” and rolling with it – experimenting with sounds, changing positions, major to minor, etc.
I would like a way to teach basics to all my kids in just the first 5 minutes of lesson — scales, basic chords, etc. I’ve tried it with a few and it’s been SO beneficial to them, but I don’t really have a set routine way to approach this with kids — a handout to give, etc. I’d like to come up with something.
My goal next year is to start up a duet week. This will get students comfortable playing with other pianists. They won’t feel so alone playing on the piano and it will give them an opportunity to connect with another pianist.
On a side note, I was finally able to have a piano concert whereby all students where able to perform at one time. It was an amazing experience. I got comments from parents that their child was instantly motivated and practiced a lot more following the concert. There is no better motivation than peer motivation. I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t yet done a concert with all students to go for it. This is a change that I am definitely not regretting!
I want to document what each great iPad app teaches, then prepare a chart to track what each student needs and completes.
I want to plan more off bench activities and follow through with these. Sometimes it is easy to plan them into a lesson but depending on the students prep things go such a different way!
I need to work on organizing my off the bench activities and supplemental materials better so I can grab them as needed. I have made/bought books to help with off the bench activities but they are not organized enough to grab/use.
One thing I would like to improve on is getting excited about every single lesson I teach and have that excitement carry over to my students so that there is something “fun” in each lesson and they can’t wait to come back the next week.
I would like to improve ALL my kids note reading skills – and enlarge my “tool bag” of activities to reinforce it!
I’d like to do more out-of-method-book songs and activities for kids who love the method books, and more theory and reading work for the kids who love chord charts and playing by ear. Also figure out iPad apps to use. And buy fresh stickers!
I would like to improve in the area of technical exercises.
I already have a number of games, but I’d like to prepare some more and then make a sort of game schedule so that I’ll have a plan for which games I’ll use with which levels each week.
I would like to hone in on technique, scales and chords. I would also like to introduce improvisation using lead sheets and jazz and blues. And lastly, I would like to give my students a composing project. So much to do, so little time!
I’ve got a bit of a list too. I’d like to organize my supplementary music library and make it more accessible for my students to access themselves. I’d like to explore the possibility of group lessons to be held several times in the year. I’d like to develop my lab component, utilizing more of the resources I already have, as well as pre-plan my lab activities as much as possible. And I’d like to develop my curriculum ideas for improvisation/composition.
This next year I would like to find a way to improve my students’ technique without boring exercizes, but findin a way to make it more involving and more fun than previously.
from Italy 🙂
I would like to manage my time better during lessons on each goal, and have an improved home assignment plan.
I’d like to do a better job with my beginners’ “hands.” I could use some input here!
Anne Crosby Gaudet has a really good game for teaching fingering. It’s called FLASHY FINGERS. Go to her website and click on Free Printables.
I totally agree! My students LOVE this game and have even asked to take it home!
I would like to hold piano parties in place of solo lessons for the weeks that have Monday holidays. Not sure how to make the switch without ticking off my piano families.
That’s what I do! I call them musicianship classes, and they’re my students’ favorite part of piano study.
I would like to incorporate more ear training into each lesson with a goal of having students able to play & harmonize tunes by ear.
Hi Barbara,
Someone else listed in these comments mentioned the Chord Play books by Forrest Kinney. They are awesome for developing harmonizing and playing by ear! I have used them with several students that are level 3 and above.
One area I think I could use help in is learning how to select the perfect supplementary repertoire for the individual student. I get there eventually, but it take me a lot of research time, and can be a little hit or miss.
To be more intentional about teaching scales and using more technology.
This past school year I chose not to spend as much time on sight reading. It has been a challenge in the past to get students to complete those assignments at home. However, I can see a difference in my students… And not for the better! So it’s back to incorporating creative ways to get them to sight read several times a week.
I have each of my students buy the sight reading book appropriate for their level. They are supposed to spend the 2 or 3 minutes a day to play one exercise. Most of them do. Like in every other area, there are those who do as you ask them much better than others, but overall my students are pretty good sight readers. Make sure the parents know it’s not an “extra” book, it is necessary.
My reflection shows that I need to be more organized on the business side of my lessons (collecting money, keeping records). I would also like to communicate more with parents about their individual student.
I need to do ALL the above. I do plan on marketing Wunder Keys better and working on new games.
I’m trying to get my theory lessons planned for next year. I also want to develop a more systematic approach to technique for those planning on music in college.
I would like to be better about moving a student ahead too fast. I think I do this so they won’t get bored, but sometimes they get overwhelmed instead. At the same time, I don’t want to stagnate their learning because I’m afraid of frustrating them.
Teaching teens is a challenge for me, as it seems they are just bumping along and don’t really enjoy piano that much. Several of them are transfer students and have severe “gaps” in their knowledge. I really want to spark their interest and LOVE of piano playing. After assessing my teaching I think various “shorter” activities need to be included in their lessons. However, it is hard because of the level of their repertoire to fit in other activities. I would like to work more with them on pop songs, improvising, chording accompaniments, duets… They aren’t aspiring classical pianists, but several of them plan on attending college with some involvement in music, thus they are interested in preparing for piano proficiency exams, so I am working on bringing more aspects of preparation into their lessons.
Two things:
1. Get all the paperwork I like ready ahead of time, so as to be more professional and organized.
2. Be more diligent about teaching music reading.
I need to improve on preparing lessons by adding in some interesting activities from your site. I’m going to read all the blogs and make up an ideas folder and keep a hard copy in there. That way I can easily get at it for lesson prep.
I would like to teach new ways to improve my student’s technique, especially their fingering skills.