We are now halfway through the 3rd week of online lessons with CRASH Rhythm and I am honestly shocked with how well they are going! Like everyone, I had a lot of concerns with engaging children, teaching children and keeping them accountable to learn through a completely online platform. I spent one week just researching and creating a method that I thought would resonate with a child’s creative side, their need for a structured plan as well as being extremely straightforward and easy. Through Vittle, Zoom, iMovie, Staff Sketch Pad and Dropbox, I have been able to do just that. I hope that all music teachers have found the same success because at the end of the day we do not want to lose income and we ESPECIALLY do not want our students to lose interest! Here are the three things that have shocked me the most with doing lessons online.
Kids are actually doing the work! I don’t know if it is because the children are going through this journey with their parents at their side and are therefore being forced to do their work or if they are enjoying it more. I have seen a significant improvement across the board! In a normal week I would say about half of my students would have their work completed in full. Now it is about 95%!
My more fidgety students are sitting still with me for the entire lesson online. I have kept the “face-to-face” portion of my lessons (on zoom) to approximately 15 minutes as opposed to the regular 30 that way we are checking in with each other, getting down to lesson material and signing off. No time to be bored or distracted, but shockingly, no need to reel them in either.
The kids are understanding the material. I was worried that not being there in person would effect the way my students were learning, but somehow my video explanations have worked better with some students. It may be because I make them colourful and fun with a drawing commissioned by the student at the end, or because they are watching me on their phone or iPad which is apparently more exciting than the real me! Either way my students are looking forward to my videos every week and therefore are looking forward to learning!
I am so happy to see these early results and am hopeful that others will be able to use these strategies in creating engaging online lesson plans for their students. We could be in this for a long time, and that does not mean we should give up on music education!
Hilary