How You Can Get Beyond the Fundamentals With Group Classes — Part 2

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As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, there are two main goals for every music lesson:​

Students want to have fun!
and
Teachers want to pass on all of the fun, challenging, and motivating knowledge that made teaching music become their passion!

How can we make lessons fun and fit in all of those activities and learning experiences that are vital for students to become musicians?

GROUP CLASSES!

Don't think multiple keyboards and everyone learning Twinkle, Twinkle at the same time. These group performance classes provide opportunities for private students to learn all of those skills you don't have time for in weekly private lessons through fun and engaging group classes.

If you want to know more about why I started group classes and what my students have to say about them, read Part 1 of this series.

Let's look at how these group classes are structured and the logistics of scheduling.

I teach weekly private lessons year round, but four times a school year and 1–3 times during the summer I schedule group classes for all of my students. And I do it without adding any gray hairs! Here's how ...

Structure:

I schedule four group performance classes during the school year and always rotate through the main time periods as follows:

1. September (week of Labor Day) — Baroque
2. October (week of Halloween) — Classical
3. February (week of President's Day) — Romantic
4. April — Impressionistic / Modern​​

I use the same activities whenever possible for all ages/levels. All activities and composer studies are adapted to be age/ability/instrument appropriate. I teach piano and flute and all of my students participate. (The exception might be 3 and 4 year olds if I don't have more than two. They don't pair well with 5+ year olds.)
​

Group Performance Classes include four parts:
1. Opening Games / Activities
2. Performance Practice
3. Music History and Composer Study
​4. Improvisation or Composition

Scheduling:

1. Students are grouped by age and ability. Make a spreadsheet listing each student's lesson day and time, as well as their age and/or level. Look for similar days/times for similar ages and schedule blocks of time when they already come. Cap the classes around 6 students.
2. Suggested breakdown: K–2nd grades (60 minutes); 3rd–5th grades (75 minutes); 6th–8th grades (75 minutes); 9th grade – Adults (90 minutes)
3. Leave 10–15 minute breaks in between each class — this is critical to success!
4. Ask parents for feedback after the first week of group classes during the school year. Adjust the schedule if needed, then keep the same group class schedule for the rest of the school year!
5. If you teach on Mondays, this is a great way to avoid all of those Monday holidays that can be a scheduling challenge or create absences. I generally have all of my Monday students come on a different day during group class week.
6. Use open time when you would normally be teaching to schedule make-ups or private lessons for students that can't or prefer not to participate in group performance classes (special needs, working adults, college students).

Here's a real life example:
​For the 2018–2019 school year, I taught 27 students. Their private lessons were scheduled on Mondays, 9:00–12:45 a.m. and 2:00–7:00 p.m., and Tuesdays, 8:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. and 2:00–6:15 p.m. That's a total of 17.25 teaching hours in two days.

My group classes were scheduled on Tuesdays as follows:
11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. — 3rd–7th grades (6 homeschooled students)
2:30–2:00 p.m. — Adults (3 students)
2:15–3:15 p.m. — PreK – 1st grades (3 students)
3:30–4:45 p.m. — 2nd–4th grades (7 students)
5:15–6:30 p.m. — 6th–10th grades (5 students)

The other 3 students either could not come or scheduled a private lesson with me on Monday for various reasons.

That's a total of 5.25 teaching hours in one day, plus perhaps another hour of private lessons.

My regular teaching week of 17.25 hours was condensed down to 5.25 hours on one day.

I usually spend about 3–5 hours of prep time getting ready for the classes, depending on how long it takes me to get things printed, laminated, and cut at Office Max. So my total work hours that week was around 11 hours, instead of the usual 17.25 hours.

5 hours of prep time may seem like a lot, but when you consider your overall work hours for the week, it is quite reasonable!

In the next post, I'll dive into a sample class to show you just what we do! But I hope you can see that the extra effort it will take to get group classes set up in the beginning of the year produce big results, both in student satisfaction and in being able to teach all of those "extras" that really aren't extras at all!