How to break up with teacher-centered instruction (part 1)

Hey there, everyone! A new school year is here (or almost here, for you east coast folks) and I am feeling some incredible and positive energy from music and arts teachers everywhere. For me, there’s nothing like the smell of possibility in the air, and the beginning of the school year is where possibility really shines brightest. Look at any online community and you can clearly see it—teachers sharing ideas, asking questions, looking for recommendations—it’s contagious in the best possible way. :-)

If you have been following my blog at all, you know that I really lean in hard to the idea that students are capable. They have so much lived experience, so many ideas and so much knowledge. They can do far more than what we often give them credit for (or perhaps allow them to do) in the classroom. And as we start the new school year, I encourage you to “break up” with teacher-centered instruction to let them do just that—MORE. 

I know, it’s difficult. If you’re anything like me, you grew up and experienced education yourself (preK-12 and higher education) in teacher-centered classrooms and ensembles. You learned to become a music or arts teacher at colleges and universities that really emphasized the teacher role and rarely (if ever) dug deep into students being front and center. You were told what to do, how to do it, how to think, and all the rules to follow to get an “A”. I get it. Old habits and lived experiences take over and we do what we are comfortable with and what is familiar to us. But if there is one thing I could recommend that can have a HUGE impact on your students—and, let’s be honest, your ability to sustain yourself in this profession—it’s kicking teacher-centered instruction to curb.

In a sea of so much content being shared (anyone else feeling this?), I always advocate for trying one or two things (tops!) in any given school year, and working on doing those things consistently so that they become new habits that you don’t have to think about so much down the road—they become part of who you are as a teacher and leader in the field. In the spirit of this, here are a few ideas on how you might realistically move the dial from teacher-centered to student-centered in your own setting. Pick one. Pick two. Try it out, tweak as you see fit throughout the year, and enjoy the ride. :-)

Use student feedback to drive instruction

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to foster more student-led classrooms or ensembles is to build in opportunities for student feedback. Feedback should drive our instruction, regardless, but using some strategies that further promote student agency is a sure-fire way to put students in the driver’s seat. I’m a big fan of purposeful “openers and closers” (feel free to check out specific ones that might work in your classroom). Not only do they give you information about student progress that can inform your teaching, but they also allow students an opportunity to have a voice in their own education, something that they are craving. Depending on your context (I see you, music teachers who only get your students for 30 minutes a week!), strive to include an opener or a closer. You might not have time for both. Have a block schedule? Try to take these ideas and use them regularly to really deepen the student experience with the luxurious time you have. Play with how this might work in your setting. Use visuals, whole group, small group or 1-1 conversations, journals, technology or any other multimedia at your fingertips. The possibilities for student participation are really vast, but they have to actually work in your context. If it doesn’t work, you won’t stick with it. Take all the liberties of creativity with this.

Help students become experts in their own learning

Much along the same lines, and still involving student feedback, you can help students by giving them a voice and allowing them to become experts in how they learn best. Openers and closers aren’t the only way to do this, but periodic check-ins where students can respond to prompts in any way that best suits their needs goes a long way. For elementary folks, here are my favorite prompts that are child-approved that can help you accomplish this. Middle and high school folks can take these same ideas and re-tool for their own purposes.

Remove barriers that inhibit student learning and participation

All students experience barriers in the classroom—not just those who have IEP’s, 504’s or any other type of plan that comes our way. Assume that each child has different needs, and take a inventory of what students’ needs are in the classroom (class-by-class or grade-by-grade is one way to approach this). What are the barriers that we might have unintentionally put in place that could be preventing students from accessing and participating in music? How can we remove them? Yes, this is a HUGE undertaking. Start small so that this is manageable. I recommend starting with one barrier for each student at any given time and working towards rectifying that. Chances are, by removing one barrier for one student, you are also removing a barrier for some other students as well. This is really where time and patience are your friend. There is no “deadline” for this. No race to win. Just focus on small, manageable barriers and go from there. And don’t forget, some barriers you can control and some you can’t, so focus on what you have control over.