IKEA Practicing: 5 Steps To Improve Learning
Can the way you put together a piece of IKEA furniture say something about the way you might approach other tasks? L J Sedgwick thinks so and advocates using the…
Giving Your Best Guess
My favorite quote about guessing comes from a Star Trek movie. No, I haven’t finally lost it. Please bear with me. Here’s the full text from IMDB. How do we get…
Cartwheels, Piano Style
“Oh! It’s like a cartwheel with my fingers,” she said. Oh, yes she did. We have been working on learning our penta-scales and chord patterns in all keys. She has…
Vintage PA: Learning Ogi Matsuri 2
Everyone who teaches should try to learn a completely new skill every few years. It keeps you humble. It keeps you patient and kind to both yourself and to your…
Not Exactly Pre-Reading: 1-2-3 Line Read & Play
With the beginning of the school year looming, the teachers I am mentoring are again full of questions about how to best help their beginning readers—especially those who look at the…
Building Habits Or Correcting Mistakes?
Teacher: How did your practicing go this week? Student: Good. Teacher: How did you practice __________________? Student: I played it over and over for an hour everyday and always went…
Great Job!
Being specific with our praise phraseology isn't anything new. Social media is full of articles on parenting language. It helps if we as teachers also think carefully about our language. The student…
Lapbook Project For High Schoolers
Last semester I asked my high schoolers who study at the college to create a lapbook detailing one of their performance pieces. Some had no idea what a lapbook was.…