What Facilitators Can Learn From Music Teachers

Ever wondered how you can capture the fun and creativity of music teaching in your facilitation?

In this guest post, music educator and teacher mentor, Liz Giannopoulos, gives her top five tips from her research and experience as a music teacher.

When I formed Encore Music Tuition, a collaborative team of teachers who draw on a rich and varied repertoire of musical teaching strategies and resources, I felt a strong obligation to uphold the principles of sound pedagogy and to provide my colleagues with opportunities for ongoing professional development. 

At first, my teaching of music and coaching of teachers reflected my own experiences as a learner: of being taught by a perceived ‘expert’ and accepting their wisdom and expertise as absolute. It quickly became apparent to me, through my Masters research and my teaching, that there is not ‘one right way’ to teach, and the true value of the team I had created was in our shared experiences, ideas and viewpoints. 

Here are the top five things that I’d recommend to corporate trainers, given what I’ve learnt myself in music education: 

1. Step away from the podium

Most of us will have been taught – at school, at university, at work - in a ‘lecturer’ model of teaching, where there is little or no flexibility to respond to the needs or contributions of the recipients. But how well did we learn? Limited opportunities for participation and dictation of knowledge can lead to an environment which fails to engage or include learners. 

I recall attending a seminar suggesting teaching strategies for a newly released exam syllabus to a theatre packed with experienced music teachers. Inevitably over the course of several hours and dozens of pieces of music the content merged together and I left feeling not much wiser. It was the most unmusical way to experience music. Conversely in a piano lesson, the student and I talk together about the music and technique. The student experiments, I make suggestions, the student makes suggestions and experiments again. We both move around the room, and sit side by side at the piano.

When facilitating, consider the room layout. Avoid putting chairs and tables in schoolroom style lines; circles or clusters encourage engagement between members of your audience. Allow space and time to walk; moving around the room breaks the monotony, and reduces the ‘them and us’ between the trainer and the participants.

2. Don’t work too hard

Less is more – so talk less. In a one-to-one 30 minute piano lesson with a child, I try to limit my talking to bursts of up to two minutes. Once the key information has been imparted, it’s important to allow learners time to absorb, consider, discuss and implement or internalise what they have learned. In a professional development workshop, it’s important to set a suitable target for your topic and audience, such as not to talk for more than 10 minutes at a time.

You can also find and use experience and knowledge in the audience. People with relevant knowledge and experience are usually better at helping their peers to learn than an authority figure. Invite participants to answer questions raised before leaping in. This takes the focus off the programme leader, encourages participation and can reveal who has special knowledge. In stark contrast to the exam syllabus seminar I attended, my team and I distribute new repertoire amongst us and every teacher has the opportunity to present thoughts and strategies for teaching a small number of pieces. This creates a much broader and richer knowledge base, and invariably, I learn something too.

3. Involve everyone

Don’t tell people what they can discover for themselves. Small discussion groups encourage colleagues to talk to one another, learn from one another and form stronger working relationships. Groups of three are ideal to ensure everyone has a voice. 

Allow time for your learners to think and reach their own conclusions. Short bursts of silent brainstorming followed by sharing of ideas is a great way to find common ground and new initiatives. Card-writing and sorting, listing and combining, ranking and scoring helps learners to discover trends and identify priorities. Drawing, mind-mapping and role-play are just a few of the tools that encourage creativity. Encore Music Tuition’s Teacher Assessment Framework was a collaborative effort. It started life as a silent brainstorm about the characteristics of effective teaching which were transferred onto Post-It notes. The notes were then clustered in themes, filtered for duplicates and ranked by the team until we had a blueprint that everyone could subscribe to.

Most importantly, find ways to make activities enjoyable and encourage laughter to promote engagement – both with the topic at hand and between learners. The “Would I Lie to You?” style game I created to correctly identify examiner feedback caused much amusement - and some surprises - within my team that still informs our teaching strategies some years later.

4. Mix up the teams

When asking colleagues to work together in a learning environment, there are several ways to select groups. In a 2015 study into music education, a research experiment showed that when children who lacked confidence were mixed into groups with more experienced children, they performed and learned better as a result. While it’s not recommended (or inclusive) to always use this approach, there can be merit in using both mixed ability and similar ability groups for different tasks - and the same applies to adult learners.

Encourage ‘lateral learning’ by pairing those who know or understand something with those who do not. This facilitates the sharing of hands-on experience and knowledge gained ‘at the coal face’ and I have found my more experienced colleagues enjoy feeling empowered. A proficient teenager working on a piano duet with a younger, less advanced student is a joy to watch.

Alternatively, select groups aligned with experience. Two GCSE music students comparing notes on their composition projects will gain much more insight than I could offer alone. I’ve heard new teachers talk to one another freely without feeling overwhelmed or restricted by the breadth of knowledge and experience of others. I have also heard robust debates between two confident and experienced individuals which are more detailed with wider exploration of ideas. 

And if you’re not sure where to put people? Inviting participants to self-select a group provides autonomy, and will offer opportunities for you to observe effective working relationships in action.

5. Make it personal

Whilst facilitators are often responsible for coordinating and directing sessions, it is important to remember that ‘teachers learn best when they develop their own knowledge and curriculum’.

Even within the confines of a set session, you can invite learners to form their own educational aspirations by making their own curriculum choices, and learn yourself in the process. In music teaching we often say that ‘repertoire is king’; if a child wants to learn the latest film score, there is little point in force-feeding them Beethoven! Ask colleagues to suggest topics they want to learn about and areas they would like to improve, and tailor your discussions to fit what they’re interested in where appropriate. My list of workshop topics grows longer every year as teachers self-identify their development needs.

You can also modify tasks to take into account learners’ own experiences, link it to their existing work, and focus positively on what learners can already do. Piano teachers love to talk about their own students and their own teaching. This can help with motivating the class, but can also help with developing your own knowledge on the topic.

Looking for a creative facilitator for your upcoming workshops? Or wondering how else you can harness the power of play in your Learning & Development programmes? Contact us for more information and to see what we can do to help you and your business.