PRACTICE JOURNAL (string players)

INCLUDES:

-Assembly instructions

-Use instructions

-Reflection/objectives page

-Tracker pages

-Notes/activities pages

This notebook is designed to develop the autonomy of the learner, with the purpose that he becomes an independent learner one day. It is easy to use, fun, and provides a wide range of opportunities.

With my students, I use a journal for every 10 weeks, so that the objectives they write down at the first page, are to be completed in 10 weeks (short-term goal). I encourage them to choose which songs they would like to play, so I give space for them to write down three pieces and then I adapt (normally) one of them so that it matches the level of the student and provides an appropriate level of challenge.

The practice tracker pages have three different parts:

-The left rectangle with the camera icon is for a video recording exercise I encourage them to do every week. The student records himself in video at home, and writes down three things he liked and three things he would like to improve about his playing. You can encourage them to do that at the beginning of the week so that they can work directly on the things they want to improve the rest of the week, and you can use some of the lesson time to look at this and offer live feedback on their work. 

-The upper-right cloud can be used to write down the name of a composer and suggest to listen music by him during that week. For this activity, I use “Tiny Decisions App”, which is a roulette that you can customize (I put a list of composer names) and ask your students to spin it at the end of the lesson to see which composer they will listen to this week. You can also use “Wheeldecide” to make one. 

-The days of the week. Each one has a chronometer to write down how much time they practiced each day. There are two sub-headings for each day: the warming-up and the pieces. It gives you the opportunity to encourage your students to do different activities each day as a warming-up. You can give different exercises to your students in A5 format so that they can store them at the journal’s pocket. 

The notes/activities pages provide handy space to write down what was meaningful of the lesson, space for certain activities you can suggest, etc.

Finally, the reflection page provides the opportunity of self-assessing the learning outcomes, which the student can do and see how it matches with the initial objectives. By asking which activities they liked the most, you can get valuable insight into how your students better learn.