I had a dream...

...I didn't exactly see the promised land, but I saw a small set of cards. I think I was watching (in my dream) a video about teaching the piano and I woke up straight away and thught "oh, what a good idea" - now no doubt I shall find that several of you already do this.

It has struck me that new methods often bear fruit while they're new; when I made my pupils' own website pages writable, and suggested that they keep a practise diary, one of my very reluctant practisers contributed to his three times in his first week after that (but not since nor has he practised much recently, and he's not happy about it either). I was reminded of a time years ago when I was trying to lose weight and I was buying a slimming magazine that had a different diet regime every month - a different way of going about it - and each month it would perk up my interest in doing something about it (maybe I should have kept buying it)

So a different way of stimulating their interest in practising might not go amiss. Many different ways. Perhaps not a new one every week, but every so often.

Anyway, in the dream, there was a small set of cards, maybe about 8 (so I can cut one A4 sheet into 8 in preparation) and on each one was written something which needed practising. not so much the title of the piece or the name of the scale, but a smaller detail, and the person practising was almost "dealing" the cards to himself to see what would come up next.

So I thought I'd be there with the cards in the lesson, and a pen, and every time we got past something which we thought could be sorted out at hme ("you know that fingering works better than what you're doing, so now you have to practise it" or more broadly "yes, you know what the notes are in this section, but you won't actually know the music till you've played through it a few more times just to let it get really familiar") I (or even the pupil, as suggested in another thead) will write it on the card, leaving enough spae for them to write M, Tu, W or whatever the day was, if they've gone over the instruction, and a big tick across the whole card if they think they have completely mastere it (though of course they can keep the card min the pack) then return the cards to me for the next lesson. If they want to make the practice more interesting, they can place them face down and just choose, say, three. Or one at a time until they're tired.

I think it might work with all but the youngest layer, but again, I'm sure the novelty will wear off if it's done too often. Any more ideas like this would be welcome!

Have you seen the Paul Harris improve your practice books? They have a set of cards with practice suggestions. Not quite the same as you were thinking but it just made me think of them. They are good ideas although wouldn't really go buying them especially as you can easily do similar yourself (in your sleep even apparantly!!)
Don't know about more ideas. As you say sometimes one idea works for a while and then the novelty wears off. But one of my students was forever 'losing' her notebook and not remembering what she was supposed to do. She decided she would rather have post it notes stuck to her book to remind her! Seems happier with that. Think its more immediate and there in front of her can't miss it!

Yes, post-its can go on my list too - maybe I'll say they can't remove them till it's done.

I think little details as practice tasks may suit some pupils better than overall iprovements to whole pieces, too. ("play this bar 5 times running with a Bb and not a B natural" after they've continually made this one mistake)

I believe it's offically called the "Neighbourhood Watch effect" - ie when a Neighbourhood Watch scheme is first set up crime goes down, but after the scheme has been running for a while the level of crime goes back to where it was.

New approaches are good for teachers as well as pupils - am currently revising mine!

I reckon in some cases linda.ff's idea could be very useful. I think it might work with some of my very young beginners and disorganised practisers but the number of cards would have, in that case to be limited and they might have to be to some extent pre-prepared.

I do give mine little cards for scales and arpeggios. They have two little boxes with different colour lids. There is one card for every scale and arpeggio - and, depending on the grade, it can work out to be quite a few if you do hands separately and together. These are put in one box and transfered to the other as they are played - and then they are reshuffled and they start again. I do this when they have learnt all the scales etc. in question because I find that they tend to practice them in order and dodging about destabilises them.

As far as good ideas going stale are concerned, I think it is as well to use these things for a limited period of time and the bring them out again later.

My brother in law - a senior teacher - told me that some research showed that just changing a teaching method improves learning because it is fresh to the teacher so their enthusiasm comes through. After a while it sinks back to the level of the old method. So, things don't necessarily have to be better - just new! Good excuse for shaking things up every now and then.

Great idea with the cards Linda.

I really like that idea!

My wee singer doesn't seem to have grasped the difference between just singing, and singing practice, so something like this with really specific instructions might help her start to develop good practice habits.

Well, I did it with two yesterday - of course we won't know if it orked until next week. I was hard put to find enough things for the first, because in this method the cards aren't meant to list pieces or scales to just "imporve" but often contain bar numbers etc. There was a melodic minor sale where I said "careful to change escalators at the turn" and another place where I wanted a hesitation got rid of. My second pupil I managed eight but only by over-running the lesson (there was nobody following him and he was quite happy, going home under his own steam at 16) and insisting on reviewing a rather forgotten scale just for the sake of getting eight cards. There have to be detils on them.

I'll try another couple of them this afternoon.