Teacher Of The Year Submissions
Go through each submission and vote for who you think should be our Teacher of the Year!
1. You must vote for someone other than yourself
2. Vote for who you think had the best ideas and was the most helpful
3. Voting ends on July 21st
Contestant Brian Harrison
Contestant Christian Kerr
Contestant Kathleen Smith
Contestant Anandi Gefroh
Contestant Kathy James
While thinking about all the small things we do to engage and retain our students, it’s easy to see that there’s an endless list of music teaching ideas we could share with each other, and an almost overwhelming amount of ideas, materials, tips and suggestion that are available to us on the internet. I decided to present my list by framing things into these broader categories below. Everything else falls into place when I keep these three things in mind.
- Be Prepared: Have thoughtful preparations in place based on the unique interest, level and learning strengths of each student. Motivation comes from gearing the activities and materials toward the things that excite each individual, and the things that they can succeed at.
- Be Authentic: By that I mean be yourself and trust yourself. Don’t stress about how someone else might do it, teach in a way that best suits you. Young people are very intuitive and respond best to genuine interactions, and honest relationships. They like you best when they see the real you. Their motivating happens naturally as they become comfortable with you, like you, and want you to be proud of them. So relax and enjoy just being you, it’s easier and it works wonders.
- They just want to know that you care about them: Put a sticky note up if you need to, because this is the most important way to retain and engage students!
Contestant Ian Uponen
Contestant Gabrielle Juliette
Some of the incentives I give to keep my students enthused about their lessons and practicing are:
Super enthusiasm and positive reinforcement for their practicing and progress or any of their wins which, for example can look like:
High fives, happy dances, big smiles and compliments as well as (for the little ones) fun, colorful stickers from the dollar store.
Super enthusiasm and positive reinforcement for their practicing and progress or any of their wins which, for example can look like:
High fives, happy dances, big smiles and compliments as well as (for the little ones) fun, colorful stickers from the dollar store.
REMINDER!
1. You must vote for someone other than yourself
2. Vote for who you think had the best ideas and was the most helpful
3. Voting ends on July 22nd