What I'm pondering today: How We *Really* Learn
If you've been around here for any length of time, you know I have a lot of feelings about the way we use method books in our teaching.
(Please note: I *love* method books; I just use them differently than many teachers).
Our method books provide us terrific material to work with in a lesson.
BUT: We must beware of the "turn-the-page-and-go" phenomenon.
(Truly scary stuff on this Halloween Day, right?) ๐ตโ๐ซ
In my experience, human learning is not conducive to a "stairstep" approach. I talked about this more in Episode 108, but here's the gist:
Sometimes we approach teaching like a series of steps. We learn one concept and then the next... thinking everything is going to stay firmly in our students' brains after a week or two.
I don't buy it. I think this type of approach leads to shallow learning and a lot of guesswork on our students' part.
...so if we are only utilizing method books, which consistently introduce new concepts with a supporting piece or two before introducing the next, we are neglecting to give students the time they need to truly grasp new ideas.
For example: Completing a handful of pieces that use the pesky dotted-quarter/eighth rhythm does not mean your student fully understands the concept. We should not be surprised when they appear hesitant on that rhythm a few weeks from now.
Instead, we need to build our own toolkits of how to enforce concepts. Collecting additional repertoire, additional activities... often using those before our students even encounter the concepts in their method books.
I much prefer to think of learning as a cyclical process.
In undergrad, my Piano Literature professor surprised us all on Day 1 by telling us he was going to cycle through the course material twice. Meaning, we hustled through the primary historical literature the first half of the semester. Phew. That was a lot.
THEN, we cycled through it all again the second half of the semester, digging deeper as we went.
I loved this system so much I adapted the same process when I was teaching university Piano Literature courses.
...which led me to wonder why we don't follow more circular paths of learning in our piano teaching?
We've all had students who play at a certain level, who suddenly can't remember how to do something that seems so basic. It's perplexing, right?
...but who says learning is ever a "one and done" kind of thing?
(we all know better, right?)
So, friends... that's the thought for today. A simple reminder that "mastering concepts" is complex business, and often requires more time and exposure than we realize.
If you're interested in building YOUR toolkit, I talk about my No. 1 Must-Do Exercise for teachers in this resource. To be clear: I don't do the work for you (I can't). But this *is* the key to truly effective teaching, in my opinion.
Because I appreciate you, save $10 with code onethoughtthursday.
๐ฅ Cheers to knowing better and doing better, my friends! ๐ฅโ
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โWHILE WE'RE TALKING METHODS: Tell me WHY you love the method series of your choice. It's important to articulate these things for our own reflection, and I'd love to know your thoughts!
Please know: I read every response, even though I might be slow at replying.๐