This week’s episode of the Time to Practice podcast is the second in a two-part…
My 2016 Favorites
I love looking back at the end of the year to reflect on what my year was like and how I want to approach the new year. I thought as part of that process this year I would share my favorite things of 2016 related to teaching. I hope you will share your your favorites in the comments.
Suzuki Experience – Written by Suzuki parent Alan Duncan, this is a great blog about Suzuki from the parent perspective. I find myself sharing posts from this blog with the parents in my studio all the time.
The Plucky Violin Teacher This blog is a fantastic resource for parents and teachers alike. Written by Suzuki violin teacher Brecklyn Ferrin this blog has great ideas and resources about teaching and practicing. I highly recommend it. Breckyn’s blog was one of the first Suzuki blogs I started following regularly and is a big inspiration to me.
Teach Suzuki is written by Suzuki teacher Paula Bird, who also created the Teach Suzuki Podcast which can be found HERE on itunes. I started reading Paula’s blog a number of years ago and have found great information on it about teaching, running my studio, and even making goals for the new year. I had the pleasure of meeting Paula in person this year as she visited Oregon which was very fun!
Life Lens:Seeing Your Children in Color by Michele Monahan Horner This is a great resource for better understanding what motivates your child and how they learn best. I learned about it at the SAA conference this year and it has been a frequent topic of conversation with my colleagues in Oregon – it is a great resource! You can read my interview with Michele Monahan Horner about the book HERE.
Better Than Before What I learned About Making and Breaking Habits — to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life by Gretchen Rubin. This is a fantastic book about building habits that applies to teaching, practicing with our children, and many other parts of life. I read this book twice in 2016 and it will probably be one I re-read every year.
Building Violin Skills by Edmund Sprunger This is a great guide for both parents and teachers and I use it all the time when I am starting young beginners to think carefully about all the small steps needed to help them be successful beyond the beginning stages of learning the violin. I can’t recommend it enough.
(Just for fun I have to share my favorite non-teaching book of the year too. Hands down it was The Boys in the Boat)
Steven’s Point & SECE : I was able to take my next level of Suzuki Early Childhood Education teacher training at the American Suzuki Institute at Steven’s Point this past July. It was an amazing week like always. This institute is fun to attend with lots of extra sessions for teachers and parents and a very welcoming atmosphere.
SAA Conference in Minneapolis this past May was a wonderful and motivating part of my teacher development this year. I was able to help start a meet up for new attendees and attended many wonderful sessions on Suzuki ECE, teaching violin, and all things teacher related. A group from the Oregon Suzuki Association attended together and had a great time hanging out while we were there. I hope you’ll consider coming in 2018 if you’ve never been before – its a great time.
Music Mind Games – The Oregon Suzuki Association brought Music Mind Games creator Michiko Yurko out at the beginning of the year to give us a two day overview of what Music Mind Games is and how to incorporate it into our studios. It gave me so many ideas that I have used all year long. It is a great resource and my students can’t get enough of it.
Video/Audio recorder on my phone – I have found myself sending videos and audio clips to my students during lessons a lot this year to help them focus on quality practice. It has been a wonderful resource and one I use every week!.
Sticker Charts – this pirate treasure map sticker chart in particular has been a big hit in my studio, especially with my preschool age students. You can come up with all sorts of creative ways to use them and to earn the stickers and my students love them.
Chopsticks – I held a bow hold challenge this fall and all my students got chopsticks to take home to practice bow and finger exercises with. I got the idea from training with Cathy Lee and they worked wonderfully. Nice and light to practice with!
Practice Challenges: This year we had a bow hold challenge (as I mentioned above) and Winter Break Bingo challenge. I’m about to start another practice challenge in January. Setting up a practice challenge takes a little effort on my part but most of the students are really motivated by them and the parents in my studio thank me that students are more excited to practice when we have one going on.
Play Ins Our local Suzuki Association has started holding quarterly play ins where students from all different teachers come together to play review pieces together. This has inspired lots of review and careful practice with my students in order to get ready. As a studio we review the rep list together and focus on it in depth in group class so even if every student doesn’t attend it provides a reason for extra careful review work.
Institutes & Music Camps Attending programs in the summer that provide students with extra motivation for practice, both before and after they attend, is a huge motivator for my students. I run a young musician’s camp for the beginners in my studio each summer that they love and that keeps motivation alive and also an orchestra style camp which really grows my students ability to sight read and their ensemble skills. Attending Institutes has always been a huge motivator for my students to review well and get new perspectives on how to improve their playing from great teachers. Camps and Institutes are fun and community building and always inspiring for students who go.
On a more personal note: an extremely motivating experience for me was seeing Rachel Barton Pine live in recital here in Portland and getting the chance to interview her for the American Suzuki Journal (you can read my interview with her in the latest Suzuki Journal from December 2016)
I also count writing this blog and interacting with the community surrounding it on the topics of teaching, learning and music a huge inspiration to me this year. I am blessed to do what I love every single day and I hope that 2017 brings more of doing exactly that!
What were your favorites for 2016?