A MUSIC:ED Sponsored Post by PracticeSpace
As a music educator, your job description includes a lot more than just teaching. You are required to perform several other roles to provide your students with the complete package that they need. For instance, if you are in a classroom full of students who are bored out of their minds and unwilling to learn, what can you do? Motivate them!
Yes, it is your job to motivate your students to learn. Especially if you are a music teacher, the progress of your students is at stake. To ensure they are continually improving, you need to take the appropriate measures to bring their motivation levels up. If the motivation levels are high, you can rest assured that the progress will be high too.
The real question now is, ‘How exactly can you motivate your students?’
This is a difficult task because even if you can motivate them for a short while, the levels can plummet at any time. So what needs to be done not only to raise motivation levels but also to sustain them? Here are four ways you can try to motivate your students:
Student of the Month
Student of the month is a motivation technique as old as time. Being appreciated and acknowledged for hard work in front of the entire class is great. Other than the reassuring validation from a public display of admiration, this technique also instills a sense of competition amongst students. This friendly competition can lead to high magnitudes of progress.
Since this is a monthly occurrence, more and more students will want to be considered for the achievement, which will result in high levels of motivation. That’s what you call a mission, accomplished.
Arrange a recital
A music recital is when your students finally get the time to showcase their talent to their family and friends as an audience. With a recital in mind, the students will be motivated to perfect their craft since they will be performing in front of an audience.
During your recital preparation, your students will feel motivated and you will see immense progress from each of them. This is the best time to point out any of your students’ shortcomings since they will be motivated to fix each and every one of them before the performance.
Make sure that the music pieces your student plays are their favorites. This will help them keep a keen interest and thus, the music will be driven by passion.
Choose fun repertoire
It can be challenging to find a balance of music that builds a solid technical foundation and is fun to play. It is important to listen to your students and consider what kind of music they are interested in learning. Once you teach them something they like, their interest in lessons will increase, and they will be motivated to practice more often. You can set out some time to have a discussion with your students and get to know what they are interested in learning, and the results may surprise you!
Incorporate technology in the lesson
More than ever, students are tech-savvy and look for any reason to use their phone or tablet. Apps like Practice Space help motivate students and streamline lessons for teachers. Teachers can easily create assignments with attachments such as PDFs, images, links, videos, and more. Once students open the app, they will be presented with what they need to practice. They right away can start earning gems, so they purchase fun avatars and backgrounds in the student shop, receive points to earn their place on the studio leaderboard, and best of all, build confidence by practicing and improving on their instrument.
These four ways of motivating your students are just the beginning. The lessons you teach should be as fun for your students as it is fun for you!
