A New Way to Have Group Lessons?

Dear Students and Parents:

As you know, this week we are going to try a new way of holding Group Lessons. Before, I offered one group lesson per weekday (5 lessons total) for an hour and 15 minutes. Some of these groups were getting really large and included a wide range of ages and levels. Rather than having everyone assigned to the same day of the week simply come together, I want to try having smaller groups of 2 - 4 students meet together that I have organized by level/age/personality. We will now have 9 smaller groups meet throughout the week for 1 hour each. I think this will be a good experience for the students, but there are definitely some pros and cons. The pros and cons, as I see them, are listed below:

Pros

• More of my time will be dedicated to personal instruction in the smaller groups; I can tailor the lessons more to each individual's needs
• I can teach to specific levels and age groups
• Perhaps a better opportunity for friendships to form amongst students
• We can get more done in less time with the smaller groups

Cons

• Scheduling issues: it was so convenient before to allow students to come any day or time of the group lesson week. Also, if your student has to miss a group lesson, and there are only 2 or 3 students in the group, that can also present a problem for the other students in the group. Finally, your student may need to be assigned to a different day of the week than their regularly scheduled lesson, so we will have to essentially schedule two lesson times for each student - one for private lessons, one for group lessons.
• There are some advantages to having students in different levels meet together. The more advanced students can offer help to the newer students and motivate them to keep practicing through their example. The newer students offer more advanced students opportunities to teach and demonstrate, which helps solidify musical concepts for both students.

Overall, I believe that the new, smaller organized groups is going to be worth it or I wouldn't be trying it out. But, during this week of group lessons I will be thinking about it and weighing the pros and cons as we experience it in action. I would LOVE your feedback, also. Please speak to your student(s) following their group lesson and see what their feelings are regarding the changes. Then, please take a second to vote in the poll listed on the right hand side of my blog. If you have any further comments to offer, you can leave them as a comment at the end of this post, give me a call, or shoot me an email. I really value your feedback, so thank you for taking the time to let your opinion be heard!

End of Week Thoughts

Now that we have finished this week of Group Lessons, I think that overall the experience was a good one. Most of the groups I think work really well, and I believe the kids had fun and really did learn better. I did notice with these smaller groups that if one or more students couldn't be there for the complete hour, it was more of a challenge for the one or so students left behind. But hopefully that won't be a common thing to worry about. I particularly loved how I could alter my plans according to ages and abilities; I think this helped each individual to get a little more out of the lesson than they otherwise would have.