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General tips & advice
General tips & advice
Assign homework (worksheets, practice goals) to your students
If your student is struggling with completing these, you could provide incentives such as giving stickers or bringing candy the next lesson!
Maintain communication with your student's parents! This includes getting their contact information & updating them regarding their child's progress. Why do this?
Communicating to the parents about any lessons you need to miss is much more efficient than emailing the school first. Parents can also let you know about their child's absence this way too.
Talking to the parents about their child's learning can involve them in ensuring your student practices and does their homework at home
Structuring lessons
Structuring lessons
As a volunteer with HCMP, you'll often be teaching lessons to either 2 or 3 students at once for ~ 1 hour. This can make structuring your lessons difficult. A good way to structure lessons is to review theory as a group and then divide the rest of the time to teach students individually on the piano. What you decide is completely up to you, but here are some DOs & DON'Ts that we've observed to make your lessons more effective!
DOs
DOs
Divide your lesson time between students ; ask the students who are waiting for their turn to work on a worksheet
If students aren't focusing, take a short break to chat about what's on their mind, or do a 5-minute dance to get out their energy
Teach students at a level that is reasonable with their familiarity with music—even if that means just twinkle twinkle!
Use your lessons as a learning experience for yourself. Teaching music is difficult, but highly rewarding if you're patient with it.
DON'Ts
DON'Ts
Teach all your students at the same time on the piano / guitar
Yell at students or do time-outs if they're not listening or engaging with the lesson
Expect students to learn RCM-level material
Have high expectations on yourself as a teacher
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